John Wood Harpham was born in Sterling (505 W. 3rd St.) on 14 March 1919. His family moved to Park Ridge, IL, when he was two. He attended Central School and Lincoln Jr. High School in Park Ridge before graduating from Maine Township High School in 1937. He attended Northwestern University, graduating in 1941. Enlisting immediately after Pearl Harbor, he served in the U. S. Navy for three and a half years as a supply officer, achieving the rank of Lieutenant j.g. He was stationed in England and Scotland, and went into France at D-Day plus 2. On his return, he became the editor of The School Musician, and worked for a number of advertising agencies in Chicago before starting Proebsting, August, and Harpham in 1958. In 1965, he started The Harpham Company, with offices at 333 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, where he worked until his death in 1981. (source: Geoffrey Galt Harpham)
John married Mardel Marie JERRICK in 1941 in Seattle, King, Washington. Mardel (daughter of Frank Thomas JERRICK and Marie Antoinette BRUSEK) was born on 15 Sep 1919 in Berwyn, Cook, Illinois; died on 20 Oct 2006 in Park Ridge, Cook, Illinois. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]