Walter Thomas Stevens

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Harlow Chapman

All Veterans Funeral & Cremation - Wheat Ridge

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Harlow Mason Chapman, scientist, inventor and industrial engineer whose research into air and water pollution improved environmental conditions in steel plants and surrounding communities, died Sept. 22 at his residence in Denver, Colo.

He was 99.

“After spending nearly every day with my father over the past 12 months, I learned details of his life that well surpassed the simple shell we all carry,” said his daughter, Marty Chapman Geman of Denver. “He was a strong man of integrity, honor, art, wit, love, laughter and wisdom.”

Born in Houston, Texas, on June 30, 1914, Mr. Chapman grew up in St. Albans, N.Y., then a sleepy suburban community on Long Island. He graduated from high school in 1933 in the throes of the Great Depression, but still managed to enroll in college. He chose Auburn University, then known as Alabama Polytechnic Institute, where he planned to study chemical engineering.

At Auburn, he competed on the school rifle team, setting a marksmanship record with a .22 target rifle that still stands. And despite a nearly total unfamiliarity with horsemanship, he worked his way into a spot on the school polo team, which was an offshoot of the Army cavalry unit that guided the college’s ROTC program.

In 1938, he graduated, earning a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering with an emphasis in industrial hygiene, a field that played a pivotal role four years later in the heat of World War II.

“Dad was drafted into the Army in 1942,” says his son, Richard Chapman. “He went through basic training and was getting ready to go overseas with a combat unit when suddenly he was plucked out of the line and assigned to study at Harvard. It was an amazing twist of fate.”

The military assignment for which he was chosen was a new unit called the Army Industrial Hygiene Laboratory. Its job was to investigate contaminants in Army facilities or factories with military contracts and take steps to clean up the industrial environment.

“After World War I, the government was beset by medical claims filed by workers in war materials factories and it didn’t want to repeat the experience,” Richard said. “Its answer was the Industrial Hygiene lab, a group that studied pollution control and the infancy of what we now call environmental science.”

Based at Johns Hopkins University, the lab is today part of the U.S. Army Public Health Command. But in 1942 it was a new field, one that studied ways to clean up the air, handle toxic chemicals properly and keep workers healthy. It also paved the way for Mr. Chapman’s long career as a research scientist in air and water pollution control with Bethlehem Steel Corp.

Hired as an industrial hygiene engineer in 1950, Mr. Chapman spent 27 years in the steel industry, earning two patents for original inventions, designing equipment to keep toxic materials from being discharged into both the factory and surrounding environment, and providing research data the federal government relied upon to set air quality standards in the first Clean Air Act of 1970.

“In the ‘60s there was a lot of public anger at companies that were polluting the nation’s air and water,” Richard said. “And some companies weren’t above cooking test results to make them look less guilty. Bethlehem Steel wasn’t one of these. They let dad be a scientist and his testing speak for itself. Since there was no EPA back then, the feds had to rely on industry data. Imagine being in a room full of scientists and having some high-powered fed say the only science they trusted was dad’s. He used to say it was one of his proudest moments.”

In 1949, he married Virginia Lee Renne, a war widow he met at the University of Pittsburgh while studying math and physics and working for Mellon Institute. She was working toward a master’s degree in social work on the GI Bill. The couple had three children, moved to Bethlehem and lived together in the same house until Virginia’s death in 2001.

Mr. Chapman was an avid tennis player who competed in numerous local and regional tournaments and a strong patron of the arts. He raised funds for the Bethlehem Ballet Company, the Bethlehem Chamber Music Society and the Allentown Art Museum. He supported the Bethlehem Bach Choir and was a member of Saucon Valley Country Club.
After retiring in 1977, Mr. Chapman established a rare book business, procuring hard-to-find or historic volumes for New York auction houses such as Sotheby’s and developing an expertise in the art of valuing books. He appraised books for Lehigh University, among other clients, and operated a mail-order book business that specialized in editions on Egyptology and other topics.

“He moved from engineering to the rare book business quite easily, given his lifelong love of classic literature,” said his daughter Wendy Ewalt. “He loved great writing.”

Mr. Chapman’s penchant for learning continued through his life. He was interested in technology and learned to use a computer and an I-phone, both far cries from the slide rule he used for calculations through much of his engineering career. He embraced change, saying he didn’t want to miss the explosion of technology.

That was understandable, given how different the world he was born into compared to the world near the end of his life. In 1914, America’s involvement in World War I hadn’t begun. Commercial air travel was 6 months old, only one in seven American homes had indoor plumbing, television didn’t exist, a first-class stamp cost 2 cents and electricity had only been integrated into homes for the nine years previous.

In 1914, life expectancy for American men was 52 years, and Woodrow Wilson was president. Wrigley Field opened in Chicago that year, the first ships went through the Panama Canal, the first red and green traffic lights went into service, and Babe Ruth began his baseball career with the Boston Red Sox. The Ford Motor Co. paid workers $5 per day for an eight-hour shift and you could buy a car for $440.

Since 1914, America has had 15 presidents, fought two world wars and endured a Great Depression and a Great Recession. People have walked on the moon, split the atom, linked the world through the internet and mapped the human genome. World population has grown from 1.8 billion to 7.1 billion today.

Mr. Chapman was preceded in death by his parents, Mason Wesley Chapman and Mary Schonbeck of New York; a brother, Richard S. Chapman of Pine Apple, Ala., and a wife, Virginia Lee Renne Chapman of Bethlehem, Penna.

He is survived by his son Richard S. Chapman and daughter Marty Chapman Geman, both of Denver; and daughter Wendy E. Ewalt of Storm Lake, Iowa; grandchildren Jeffrey, Bryon and Nicolas Geman of Denver and Morgan E. Gates of San Diego, Calif.; great grandchildren Axel and Brisbane Gates of San Diego and numerous nieces, nephews, and step-grandchildren.

Interment was Sept. 27 at Fort Logan National Cemetery, in Denver. The family requests any remembrance to be as a donation to Auburn University in Harlow Chapman’s name. Information is available at www.auburn.edu.

“He was a warrior of truth who found his own,” said daughter Marty. “And if you’ve ever read ‘The Giving Tree’ by Shel Silverstein, dad was my apple tree.”

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