Harold Romberg remembered as loyal

When Harold Romberg received hundreds of threatening phone calls, it would have been easy for the retired U.S. Navy captain to do an about face.

While serving on Washington State University’s Board of Regents in the early 1970s, Romberg found himself imbedded in controversy.

The Vietnam War and incursion into Cambodia had created a climate of political unrest. As the civil rights movement unfolded, college campuses across the nation came alive with protests, some increasingly violent.

In an effort to calm the WSU campus, Glenn Terrell, college president at the time, announced he was substituting racism workshops for regular classes.

The unpopular move touched off a flurry of angry letters, phone calls and a lawsuit.

“I think my staff counted the number of letters I got and it was 1,000 – plus or minus a few,” Terrell recalled, during a phone interview from his Seattle office.

As Terrell was up to his elbows in mail in Pullman, Romberg was in Spokane fielding nonstop phone calls from concerned parents and angry racists.

Still, Terrell said, Romberg’s support was unwavering.

“He felt like his role was to support me and support the college.” Terrell said. “He was a loyal, wonderful man and I had a great respect for him.”

That loyalty to loved ones, country and community played out continuously during Romberg’s 91-year-life, which ended on Jan. 5.

Born in Scribner, Neb., Romberg grew up the only boy among six older sisters.

After graduating from Wabash College in Indiana he received a law degree from Creighton University in Nebraska.

World War II broke out while Romberg was working in the insurance business in Oregon and he immediately enlisted in the U.S. Navy. While serving in the air corps division, he performed duty on several carriers throughout the Atlantic Ocean.

He was living in Washington D.C. and serving under Fleet Admiral Ernest King in Washington D.C., when he met the daughter of a Paramount Studio executive.

Lovely and poised, Jean Fontaine grew up in large cities and had never been west of Chicago when she succumbed to Romberg’s small-town charm.

“She’d never had a suitor who talked to her about raising Rhode Island Red chickens,” said his son Charlie Romberg, of Spokane.

The couple married in 1946 and moved to Oregon, before coming to Spokane where they had two children, Carole and Charles (Charlie).

Romberg, an insurance agent at the time, purchased the Andre Insurance Agency, which he re-named Andre-Romberg Insurance Agency.

Under his guidance, Andre-Romberg grew into one of the city’s larger firms. In 1979, he sold the agency to his son and a partner, Dan Carney, but maintained an office there until his death.

Many of the agency’s employees were like family to Romberg, who treated the female office staff to a catered luncheon at the Spokane Club, every December.

Doing the right thing was important to Romberg, who impressed those values upon his children, his son said.

Although Romberg was a strong Republican, he never discounted opposing political views.

“Dad could disagree with someone and still like them. If you were his friend, you were his friend for life,” said daughter Carole Romberg, of Fairbanks, Alaska.

He volunteered for political and economic development committees, and served on Spokane International Airport’s board of directors, which put him in contact with interesting and controversial political figures, like, Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi.

However, he was most passionate about education, chairing a levy drive for Spokane Public Schools and serving on the Governor’s Committee for Higher Education.

He never forgot educators who’d touched his life, sending cards and letters to former his former teachers in Nebraska and setting up and endowment for a teacher of the year award for Scribner Public Schools.

His daughter remembers him creating bedtime stories that placed the kids in the middle of epic adventures featuring Inca Indians and Daniel Boone.

The family piggybacked vacations with Romberg’s reserve assignments, visiting Gettysburg, Yorktown and other historic sites.

“Dad had such a love of history,” his daughter said.

While serving at the Naval Reserve Air Station at Geiger, Romberg met Frank Raab, a Beverly Hills, Calif., resident who became a longtime friend.

People immediately trusted Romberg, Raab said, and found he was a man of his word.

“He was not a complicated guy. What you saw was what you got,” Raab explained.

“He was a leader. There was no doubt about it – a leader in business and a leader in the Navy.”

People instinctively liked his father, Romberg said.

“He had a great sense of humor. He could laugh at himself.”

That famous sense of humor extended to stories about his Labrador retriever, Moora, who through a combination of mishaps, managed to wound her owner without mortally injuring him.

“He was really accident prone, but he never got hurt. God was smiling on him,” his son said.

Once, during a hunting trip, his father set a loaded 22-rifle on the front seat of the car. While he momentarily looked away, the rambunctious Lab jumped on the seat, her paw hitting the trigger and sending a gunshot blast into her owner’s leg.

“He used to get a whole lot of grief from his friends about his dog,” his daughter recalled.

The warmth he conveyed to friends was also extended to those who married into the family.

“He always treated me very much like a lady. He was always very proud to introduce me as Mrs. Romberg,” said Karen Romberg, who is married to Charlie.

Always a gentleman, loved ones say he never second-guessed life’s misfortunes.

After losing his wife, Jean, to cancer in 1996, he maintained his sense of gratitude to God, telling loved ones he was blessed to spend 50 years with her.

He considered himself lucky to be around to watch his three grandchildren grow into adults and to get to know his great-grandson, now 2.

When he turned 80, Romberg wrote a letter that he sealed, requesting that it be read at his memorial service.

The letter expressed profound gratitude for his life, education, country and, most of all, for the love of family and friends.

His daughter summed up her father as part of a disappearing generation of men known for their loyalty and valor.

“Dad, I think, really set the standard for honor and integrity.”