Hendrik (Henk) Parson

Husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather

Henk lived life with purpose and determination.

life story

A full life of Adventure, Family and Service to Community

Hendrik (Henk) Parson passed away quietly on March 21, 2022, at his apartment in Gardnerville, Nevada.

Henk was ninety-three years old and had a full and adventuresome life. He was born to Dutch parents in Semarang, Java, Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), and moved to Romania before his first birthday. His years in Romania were soon followed by life in India and the eventual move to the United States for college and, ultimately, his future. All those years were filled with adventure and misadventure, foreseen and unforeseen.

During World War II, his mother led the family to escape from occupied Europe, through the Middle East, to India. In British India, Henk (a native Dutch, German, and Romanian speaker) learned how to speak English and graduated in the class of ’47 from Woodstock School in Mussoorie, India, as that country struggled through a violent partition. Henk attended Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where he completed a Bachelor's Degree in Economics. He continued his studies towards a Master’s Degree under Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago.

While he was in Chicago, Henk courted Georgia Ann James, a Woodstock friend, by letter. They rendezvoused at the train station while she was enroute from San Francisco to a posting as a code clerk with the U.S. State Department Embassy in Paris, France. Henk proposed by letter, and she accepted, resigning her position with the State Department to return home to San Francisco. Shortly after arriving in San Francisco, Henk and Georgia were married in May 1954. Henk's brother and Georgia's parents attended the small wedding. Henk proudly earned his citizenship in 1958.

Both Henk and Georgia worked for Bank of America and co-managed their apartment building. Henk then took employment with Signode Steel Strapping as the West Coast Sales Manager. In 1957, they welcomed their first son, James Hendrik, and three years later, in 1960, their second son, Ronald George. Nine months after Ron was born, the family moved to Amsterdam, where Henk’s language skills earned him a posting by Signode to develop their post-WWII business interests in the emerging economies. Eighteen months later, the business and the family moved to Antwerp, Belgium, where they were joined by Henk's sixteen-year-old sister Christa who was recently orphaned. Jimmy, unfortunately, died of cancer in 1963.

Henk and his family lived as expatriate Americans in Antwerp until 1979. During those years in Belgium, Henk changed jobs twice, with the longest stint (13 years) as President of UMAC-Midwest, a rubber and plastic reclaiming business. Henk was a leader in the American expatriate community, including President of the Belgian American Association (ABA), Board President of Antwerp International School (which he helped found), an actor with the British American Theatrical Society (BATS), and Chairman of Torch 200 – a torch relay through the battlefields of WWII (19th Infantry Division) to the U.S. Capital in 1976 (celebrating the US Bi-Centennial).

In the Fall of 1979, Henk and Georgia returned home to California and Tahoe City to rejoin Henk’s brother Bill and wife Norma to help run various resorts, including at that time Granlibakken, Sunnyside, and the Olympic Village. In addition to his involvement in expanding the Parson businesses in the Tahoe Region, Henk also threw his energy into Rotary and the Rotary Youth Exchange Program. He also led the 1990 effort to incorporate the eastern slope of Placer County.

February 1991, Henk and Georgia both ‘retired’ and drove off in their new motorhome – a coach dubbed ‘Cat’s House – that they shared with two black cats. They roamed the United States as volunteers with the Bureau of Land Management (Desert Center, California and John Jarvee Park, Utah), Army Corps of Engineers (developed and taught water Safety all over Florida), 1996 Olympics in Atlanta (hosts), and two decades with the US Park Service (Yellowstone, Acadia, Fort Moultrie and Sumpter in Charleston, South Carolina, Glacier Bay and most recently, Yosemite). Henk was honored in Washington, D.C. by President Bush for his over 10,000 hours of volunteer service to the National Parks. He was very proud of the work helping document letters and files in all the parks, helping develop volunteer programs, and conducting a full Americans with Disabilities Act survey of Yosemite. Henk ‘retired’ from volunteering in 2013 and permanently homesteaded the ‘coach’ in Carson City, Nevada. Somehow, Henk and Georgia managed to fit in a trip around the world on a British Freighter in 2001.

Henk is survived by his wife Georgia, his sister Christa his son Ron, daughter-in-law Lauren, Grandchildren Catherine, Matthew, Christopher, and Sarah, Great-Grandson Wyatt, and an extended family of cousins, nieces, and nephews in Switzerland, as well as the Netherlands. Henk’s ashes are spread in Yosemite National Park near the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias. The family encourages you to post, mail or e-mail stories and photographs for inclusion in a celebration portfolio. (ronparson@granlibakken.com) or the Epilogg obituary site to add your memories (https://epilogg.com/obituary/hendrik-henk-parson-gardnerville-nv-usa-4865).