REMEMBERING HARRIET ANNE HARTESVELT NELSON

Harriet Anne Hartesvelt Nelson peacefully departed this life on October 23, 2025. Born in Grand Rapids in 1925 to Peter Andrew Hartesvelt and Anna Katherine Gies Hartesvelt, Harriet lived the better part of the past century within a few square miles of her childhood home. Her elder brother Richard “Dick” (Jane Loeks Hartesveldt) was an ecologist who contributed greatly to the conservation of the giant sequoia, and her younger brother Louis “Lou” (survived by Liz Yeaw Hartesvelt of Suttons Bay) was a dentist in the U.S. Public Health Service and private practice.

Harriet graduated from Grand Rapids South High School in 1943, excelling in French and memorizing poetry, and matriculated at the University of Michigan—the second of four generations of Wolverines in the family—graduating in 1947 with her bachelor’s in English. After college, she returned home to teach junior high school before meeting Raymond Lindley Nelson.

Harriet and Ray were married on April 8, 1950, at Burton Heights Methodist Church. Ray’s own time spent as a dentist in the U.S. Public Health Service took them to Falls Church, Chicago, and Hawaii, before they returned to Grand Rapids.

The Nelsons have three children: Bruce Raymond (Linda), whose career as a commercial airline pilot mirrored Harriet’s love of travel, Ann Katherine (Kenneth Dill), who carried on her mom’s interest in playing the piano and other creative pursuits, and Susan (Harry Hutchins), whose path as a biology teacher knit together a few strands of their family story. Together, the family found harmony in walking the beach at their cabin on Beaver Island, campfires and pitching tipis, and travel-trailer adventures across the country.

Following Ray’s untimely passing, Harriet made her way independently as a retiree. She traveled as far as Alaska, Thailand, and the Galapagos Islands, enjoyed golf, bowling, and endless puzzles with friends, and cherished her grand-motherhood to Andrew Dill, Charles Dill, Tyler Hutchins, and Holly Hutchins. It was an especially favorite time for Harriet when games, friends, and family mingled during her summers on Beaver Island.

In her later years, Scrabble morphed into Words With Friends, and days at the cabin became evenings of laughter over weekly FaceTime calls on her iPad. She enjoyed the friends she made during her later years living at Beacon Hill at Eastgate, and as a deeply admired member of their community and its first resident, she enjoyed certain privileges, including the first cut of cake at parties. Recently, Harriet’s family and friends joined her for her 100th birthday party, a celebration featuring slide shows from the past century, trivia about her life (she came in second after Ann), and some very nice Scotch whisky.

Quick-witted and deeply sure of herself, Harriet brought laughter and honesty wherever she went, never hesitating with clever remarks or her straightforward opinions. Her humor was matched by a steady self-assurance and an unfaltering, effortless acceptance of others, and she genuinely embraced each person’s individuality with warmth and kindness. In remembering Harriet, her quiet demeanor, her care-filled conversation, and abiding gentleness, one might also call to mind a line from Emerson’s essay on Experience, which she had heavily underlined in her copy: “All good conversation, manners, and action, come from a spontaneity which forgets ceremony, and makes the moment great.”