Leslie Harpold : Missed

Update in red.

I feel a bit silly writing about this as I did not know this woman and I had not even heard of her until shortly before her death when I read about her wonderful Advent Calendars on notmartha.

Anyway, I was thinking about Leslie Harpold's calendar yesterday and wondering if perhaps her website was still up with previous year calendars on it. It isn't. I realized quickly that I was looking for her on the one-year anniversary of her unexpected death at the young age of 40. Her advent calendar in 2006 was stuck on December 7.

I recall last year reading so many online tributes to her and how she sounded like such a fascinating person. My favorite story goes as such:

I met Leslie Harpold six years ago when a large cardboard box showed up unexpectedly at my door. Inside was a large 32 gallon stainless steel trash can that I'd added to my Amazon wish list a few weeks before on a whim.

The gift note inside said (... and I'm paraphrasing) "I wanted to meet the sort of freak who'd put a 32 gallon stainless steel trash can on his wish list. —- Leslie Harpold"

It may seem and feel silly writing a brief entry about someone I never got to know but I found the tributes to her to be so interesting that I know a lot of people are thinking about her this weekend.

I found a great article from The Morning News written by Leslie about how to write a proper thank you note. What a great refresher. It is humorous, succinct, and spot on.

Comments

[Robert Clement]

Leslie She was a very great Lady I was lucky to grow up with her in Royal Oak Michigan. It was very sad to find out that she passed I was just thinking of her and the rest of the kid we grew up with. I searched for her on www and found this it was very nice. I always knew she would make this world a better place and she did God Bless you Leslie

[søren]

if you put harpold.com in http://web.archive.org, you can probably read her old calendars. I have been reading the old tributes to her too. Isn't it... sad, odd, whatever the proper word is, how we miss someone that we didn't know?

[June]

She sounds like such a wonderful person with a great sense of whimsy. What a shame that she lost her life. It is lovely of you to honor her in this way.