Harry Judson Lang

HARRY JUDSON LANG,  89, of California died on Sunday, July 17^th 2016.  He was born March 28^th 1927 in Castle Shannon, PA, son of the late Frank and Mable (Angemeer) Lang of Castle Shannon, PA and husband to the late Anita “Neitz” Lang.    Jud ran track at Mt Lebanon High School lettering all four years.  When war was declared against Japan he enlisted in the US Navy soon after graduating from high school.  He was stationed at Pearl Harbor and assigned to a destroyer.  He recounted that one day they asked over the ship’s public address system if anyone knew how to type.   He reported that he learned to type in high school.  He was pulled from the ship to serve on the island typing orders for the many men entering the war.  He was awarded the Pacific Theater Ribbon, the American Theater Ribbon and the Victory Medal.  He toured the Hawaiian Islands when possible, after the war, and on a visit to Hilo Hawaii, he witnessed the devastating tsunami that hit and destroyed most of that city in 1946.   He learned to surf on the beach at Waikiki and often told stories about walking the beach all the way to Diamond Head and only seeing one hotel, the Royal Hawaiian and no other buildings.   Many years later, when asked to return to the islands for a family vacation, he declined, saying that he wanted to remember the islands as they were, unspoiled and open.

 After the war, he attended Penn State, running track and graduating with a teaching degree.   He moved to California to teach and met his future wife, Anita on a double date.   They married and built a house together on Malden Road, digging the foundation and putting up the walls and roof themselves.   The property was originally a corn field, but soon he began planting trees.  He took young saplings from the local woods during hikes.  It was not uncommon for his backpack to be filled with food on the hike out and filled with young tree sprouts on the way back.  Now the property is entirely forested with mature oak, pine, white birch, maple, dogwood, chestnut, blue spruce, red peach and many others.   It is amazing to see trees that I planted as a boy, now too large to put my arms around.

He was a teacher by nature. He loved to teach.  He taught art in high school and middle school in California for 37 years and teaching evening art classes in the surrounding communities for 20 years.  He loved helping students develop their art skills and watching them create things they did not think they could make.  He often said that the thing he enjoyed the most, was to watch their eyes light up when they created something they were proud of.  Because of teaching, dad seemed to know everyone.  He could often remember names of students he had decades earlier.  As boys, it amazed my brother and I how many people knew him.  It happened so often.  We would be somewhere far from home and someone would walk up to him and say “Mr Lang, remember me?”    But what was even more amazing, was that he always seemed to know their names.    Kids that he had not seen for 20 years, he would not hesitate to address them by name and for some, reminded them that he had taught their father or mother too. 

For those that new Jud well, they knew of his love of antiques and collecting.  Some might call it an affliction; others might say it was a passion.  He loved finding his treasures.  He could not pass a yard sale or flea market without stopping.  More than once, my brother and I would spend the day at an estate sale, dad hoping to find that special prize.  People would call and say they had an old chair or table for sale and in a minute, he was off to see them.  He had his favorite secret antique places to visit each week and soon he had the house filled with his “finds”.  He had to build several sheds to accommodate even more acquisitions.  He was always looking for items that, for us boys, seemed like “junk”, but dad knew their value.  Once he had an antique dealer from Philadelphia come to the house.  My brother and I watched as the man purchased a glass lamp shade.  After he left, dad took us out and bought a new VW Bug with the money he received from that “junk”.  From then on we did not question his special “affliction”.   He will be greatly missed.

In addition to his parents and wife he was preceded in death by a brother, Floyd Lang and a sister Vivian Lang.

Left to cherish his memory are two sons and daughters-in-law, Randall Judson Lang and wife Judy of Olympia , WA, and Kenneth Gordon Lang and wife Marsha of California, PA.  Also surviving are grandchildren, Kaitlyn Conti, Colin Lang, and Jacob Sartori

Friends will be received in the Mariscotti Funeral Home, Inc., Anthony N. Mariscotti, Supervisor, 323 Fourth Street, California, PA on Monday July 25. 2016  from 2-4 and 6-8 pm.  Everyone is asked to meet directly at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 136 Sacred Heart Road, Monongahela, PA 15063 for funeral services on Tuesday at 11:00 am.

Interment will follow in Mon Valley Memorial Park.

Online condolences may be expressed at www.mariscottifuneralhome.com

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