Elmer Harper was a man among men who lived his life to make a difference. His passion in life was being an effective lifesaving emergency responder.

Harper died in a skilled nursing facility in mid-July after a lingering illness.

While he lived on his Highway 4 ranch just east of Highway 99 in Stockton with his wife Ruthie, he was best known in Manteca in the ‘60s and ‘70s as that 6-foot-5 highway patrolman who served the South County well.

Harper was a journeyman mechanic and a walnut farmer with cats and dogs.  Strays instinctively knew where to go to find shelter and a meal and where they wouldn’t be chased off.  He also had a white donkey as a pet that was allowed to use the swimming pool to cool off during the summer heat.

One of his many challenges on his days off was restoring an old 18-wheel tractor that longtime Manteca Constable Tony Gonzales had on his property in Escalon.  The tractor had been there so long that a tree had grown up through the floorboard with its branches creating an umbrella above the cab.  

Elmer towed it to his rural Stockton ranch and spent thousands of hours in restoration work.  When it was finished, it looked like it had just been rolled off the assembly line.  He restored countless other vehicles during his lifetime as well giving new life to an old abandoned tow truck.

Harper had to literally swim upstream all of his life.  There was no end to his imagination and his willingness to go the extra mile.  From being a driver for the late Governor Pat Brown to serving on a number of blue ribbon panels for the CHP, he did everything superbly well.

His first brush with death and with the California Highway Patrol was at the age of 5 in the 1930s.   Most of his family was killed in a grinding crash south of Stockton with the exception of himself and one brother.



He grew up an orphan

Elmer grew up in the Children’s Home in Stockton as an orphan.

One of his caregivers over the last three years recognized that he had been a “very independent and self-reliant” man throughout his life.  He said it was evident it was “crushing” to him to even have someone get him as much as a glass of water at his bedside.

While his legs and body had failed him badly, he was sharp mentally right up to the end.

Harper’s Manteca dentist Masood Cajee said he became a friend to the man he admired for his obvious “integrity.”  The words that he felt best described his patient: “Duty, sacrifice, valor and courage.”  

Before joining the highway patrol as a traffic officer, Elmer drove a gasoline tanker with deliveries up and down Highway 99.  He was about to drop off a load of fuel to a gas station in downtown Modesto near the familiar arch when his truck caught fire in the engine compartment enveloping the cab with smoke and flame.

In an effort to prevent an explosion at the station, he drove the tanker away from the gas pumps and up against a concrete wall that promised to shield the business community from shrapnel.  He was badly burned in his effort with severe damage to his eye sockets.  

Harper said he was in the hospital for many weeks where the eyeballs had to be partially removed for repair to the damaged sockets.  Thankful Modesto firemen made sure that his menu included steak as often as he wanted it for dinner.

When I was news editor of the Bulletin in the late ‘60s and into the mid-70s, Elmer was the traffic officer chosen to work as the CHP public affairs officer.  He would be in the newsroom once, and often, twice a week keeping us updated on highway stories.



Helped perk up a sick 4-year-old

I’ll never forget the cold, winter day when the familiar black and white pulled up in front of the door.  Harper had just stopped by to chat for a few minutes.  When he learned that our youngest son Tim – now a city cop in the Southland – was home sick he asked me to take a ride with him.  

Hearing that Tim liked to watch the “Highway Patrol” series on TV, he thought it might perk him up to see a CHP car pull up to his front door.  So, we drove to Ripon to make a difference for a sick four-year-old kid.  I went to the door and called out, “Tim, Officer Harper is out front to see you!”

Tim’s eyes got as big a saucers, saying “Wow, I can’t believe it.”  Pajamas and all, he forgot how sick he was and made it out to the curb seeing Harper at the wheel.  Tim clearly remembers that special day in his life.  He said Thursday afternoon by telephone that Elmer offered to let him activate the siren, but he was “scared to death” to touch the toggle switch.

CHP motorcycle officer Arlie Kirkendol also served the South County with Harper in the ‘60s. They would present their cases in the Manteca Justice Court before the Honorable Priscilla Haynes.  Court was in the upper floor of city hall located at 123 North Sycamore Ave.  Kirkendol said Harper’s life was a topic of serious conversation this week at the weekly morning coffee of retired CHP officers at a Stockton hotel.

Judge Haynes now lives in the foothills and no longer serves as a judge, but she remembers “Officer Harper” well as she still refers to him.  The last time they met was when she was inducted into the Manteca Hall of Fame some 10 years ago.  

It had been years since they had talked, but she immediately recognized him.  I called her on the telephone on Thursday and she said she was sending a donation to the Manteca Historical Society in his name.



Involved in several serious accidents

During his tenure with the highway patrol, he had been involved in fights and a couple of serious traffic collisions where he had been injured.  The worst was a knifing in a struggle followed by a car pulling out in front of his speeding patrol unit when he was responding to an injury accident.

In the case of the rollover collision, he was traveling with red light and siren westbound on Lathrop Road by the south side of the then Sharpe General Depot.  A car was parked next to the depot’s chain link fence as he headed toward the old Highway 50 – now known as I-5.  

The motorist decided to make a U-turn just a fraction of a second before the patrol car was even with his vehicle.  The resulting crash caused the CHP car to flip upside down in the middle of the roadway leaving Harper badly injured and hanging from his seat belt.  

Everyone who knew him knew that they could count on him to back them up.  John Serpa, of Tracy, and later owner of a gas station and convenience store on I-5 in Lathrop was a captain with the Tracy Police Department.  When Harper was in the mix, there was no doubt they would get their man, he has often repeated over the years.

I clearly remember a traffic collision at Cottage and Louise avenues some 40 years ago when an older CHP officer had suffered a heart attack after weaving through heavy traffic with red lights and siren to reach the scene of the crash.  The availability of an ambulance was in question, so Harper arrived and scooped him up, put him in his patrol car and went screaming toward county hospital.  The officer survived.

Elmer was one of Manteca Rotary’s Officer of Year recipients, an award that he tresasured.  He later made a graphic presentation to the club telling the story of his historic Indian motorcycle.  It was the first to cross the Golden Gate Bridge with the CHP contingency in 1937 when the span was ceremonially opened to its first traffic.

He once used a press-type evidence camera that he used to slow traffic headed toward Manteca.   He had told me that he used it in the curve of the eastbound Highway 50 out of Tracy to intimidate motorists driving too fast.  Putting it on top of his highly visible patrol car and pointing the lens toward oncoming traffic, drivers seemed to think it was an early form of radar enforcement.  He chuckled when he told me how well it worked.



His suggestions helped save many motorists

When you drive down Highway 99 and see the sign boards that warn truckers they may turn over when traveling too fast on the off ramps – you can thank Elmer Harper.  When you recognize the white reflector buttons on the fog lines approaching an off ramp – you can thank Elmer Harper.  The reflectors were set for foggy conditions at three-tenths of a mile, two-tenths of a mile and down to one-tenth signifying the beginning of the ramp.  And if you think back on the lives that were saved through “Operation Fog Bound” during the heavy blankets of fog that dropped visibility down to a matter of feet, think of CHP Officer Elmer Harper.

I’ll never forget the day when a rouge motorcycle rider roared onto his ranch and was tearing up the field near his walnut trees doing donuts.  Harper went out to meet the guy with his .357 magnum in hand as the guy was refusing to leave.

As Harper told the story, the guy asked, “What are you going to do – shoot me?

Elmer said no, he wouldn’t go that far as he put several well placed rounds into the engine block of that Harley.  Now you can have it towed out of here, he told the trespasser.

I can only say that my heart is heavy in not having seen him before he died.  He was definitely a man among men who I was fortunate to have as a good friend for many years.