Charity Grace Harris

Charity Grace Harris, 77, of Pampa passed away peacefully on April 13, 2023 in Pampa.

Graveside services will be 4:00 PM Friday, April 21, 2023 at White Deer Cemetery with Rev. Vondel Stevens, pastor of St. Paul United Methodist Church, officiating. Burial and arrangements are under the direction of Carmichael-Whatley Funeral Directors and Crematory.

Memorial services will be 6:30 PM Friday, April 21, 2023 at Carmichael-Whatley Colonial Chapel with Pastor Tim Dudley, of Briarwood Church and Pastor A.J. Taylor, pastor of New Horizon Community Fellowship Church, officiating. 

She was preceded in death by her parents, Amos and Verna Harris, and four of her five siblings…Amos Harris, Jr., Glen Harris, Mary Beth Williams and David Harris, as well as one nephew, two nieces and one great-nephew.

Charity worked many years for Phillips Petroleum and was proud to be known as the first female heavy equipment operator. Many of her coworkers were known to say, “With that backhoe, Charity was an artist!”. 

Following her retirement from Phillips, she owned and managed a number of rental properties around the Pampa area. 

In 1998 Charity and her brother David purchased a small ranch near Shamrock, naming it The Walkabout. Although the ranch has been used for hunting and running a small cattle herd, to Charity, the most important reason for its existence was to be a place for her family to laugh, love and work together…as a FAMILY.

Some people seem to have a way of attracting stray animals. Charity found lost people and quietly, lovingly, took them under her wing. Virtually everyone who knew Charity has a story of how she was there for them at a critical or desperate time. 

“She saved my life.”

“Miss Charity was like a mom to me.”

“She made me feel like part of the family…even when I tried to push her away.”

Whether Charity was helping to start and support a Christian school, or teaching life-skills to children, hundreds of kids over the years learned how to drive a tractor, or hammer a nail, or paint a fence, or cook a meal, or ‘chop cotton’, or….  

But what they were really learning was how to live a good life, become a productive member of society…and most of all, that Charity and Jesus loved them, because they were worthy to be loved. Many of those kids are now teaching their kids lessons learned from ‘Aunt Charity’.

Charity’s love of God was truly reflected in how she found and loved people who desperately needed love. Charity Harris loved the Lord. She loved to laugh. She loved to listen to songs of praise. She especially loved people.

Now she has been promoted to a place where she will reap the rewards of a life well loved. 

She is survived by the eldest of her siblings, Elsie Chriestenson, one niece, ten nephews and other extended family members who were all very important to her.