Harold Carlton Fitz

West Point, 1949

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by Virginia Fitz Shea on November 23, 2009:

My earliest memories of my father date from our time in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where he attended the University of Alabama to get his master's degree in physics. He built a hi-fi cabinet and we listened to records. When we moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, the tumbleweeds blew across our yard. He put up a swing set and would twirl me and my sister Betsy around in the air. Our brother, Harold Carlton Fitz, III, was born January 8, 1957. Our family would go hiking in the mountains and we visited Mesa Verde. Dad started working on an invention of a special type of bottle cap. It later turned out that a similar patent had already been issued. We moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1959, where he walked each day to the University of Virginia to work on his doctorate in physics. My mother, Virginia White Fitz, played tennis with our father at the courts near the gym and we would chase balls. On Sundays we attended the Unitarian Church and go to the University Cafeteria for lunch. In 1961 we moved to Sea Bright, New Jersey for a few months before moving to quarters at 23 Russell Avenue at Fort Monmouth. Dad started building a Jet 14 sailboat in the garage. In the summer we would often go to the beach at Fort Hancock. We children liked to have dinner at the officer's club and have chocolate parfaits for dessert. We also liked to watch the parachute practices on the field, with some jumpers who missed their target and might land in the back alley. Our family stayed at the Cody Hotel in Leavenworth in the fall of 1963 while Dad attended the Command and General Staff School. In 1964 we moved to West Point, where dad was an associate professor of physics. We enjoyed ice skating, swimming at Delafield Pond, and riding our bikes to the library. In 1967 we moved to Annandale, Virginia. A few years later our parents bought a larger sailboat and we all enjoyed sailing on the Chesapeake Bay. Our parents moved to Shady Side, Maryland in 1980. Dad was active in the West River Sailing Club and served as Commodore in 1994. In 1984 he served as President of the Chesapeake Bay Action Program in Shady Side to protect Chesapeake Bay watersheds. He sang in the choir of the St. James' Episcopal Parish in Lothian, MD, and helped edit the second volume of the Parish history.

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