Alice (Coates) Harris was a respected librarian, educator and volunteer in the city of South Pasadena, California. To those closest to her, she was much more than that. She was a beloved wife, mother, grandmother and sister.
When Harris passed away in 2016, her family decided that Hastings College – nearly 1,500 miles from her California home – was the ideal place to honor her memory.
The lively brunette grew up across the street from the College in a storybook English Tudor on East Seventh Street built in 1931 by her grandfather, Lloyd Coates. Harris attended Hastings College from 1945 to 1947 and was active on campus as president of the Theta Psi Beta Society and a member of the Symphony Orchestra and Student Association. Her brother, George Coates ’51, was a Hastings College graduate, and her sister-in-law, Betty (Brannen) Coates, attended the College.
To continue the Hastings College legacy of Alica (Coates) Harris and the Coates family, her daughter Mary Rooney and son James McIllece, along with other family members, established the Alice Nadine (Coates) Harris Endowed Scholarship, awarded each year to a female student preparing for a career in education or library science. The Hastings College Foundation preserves gifts to the endowed scholarship as principal and uses only a percentage of the yearly growth for scholarship aid. In this way, the funds support students now and for future generations.
In her obituary, Harris was remembered as a woman who loved children and animals and inspired others with her “passion for youth education, politics, women’s rights and lifelong learning.”
Harris studied English education at Hastings before following her then-husband, Donald McIllece ’49, to Omaha. She graduated from the University of Nebraska-Omaha in 1950 with a bachelor’s degree in education and later earned her master’s degree in library science from the University of Washington. In 1965 she married George Harris and moved to South Pasadena, where she was a devoted elementary and middle school librarian for the San Marino School District until her retirement.
Harris was preceded in death by her husband and her brother, George Coates, who spent 45 years in the Army and National Guard, including service as Adjutant General of the Washington National Guard. Following his retirement in 1985, he worked as a consultant for the military for 10 years. He died in 2007, his wife Betty in 2017.
The original Coates’ family home in Hastings has a decades-long history of owners associated with Hastings College. Dee (Wattles) Yost ’72, public service librarian in Perkins Library, lived in the home until her death in 2007. The College purchased the home in 2013 as a residence for then-President Don Jackson ’70. The current owner is Dr. Jesse Weiss, associate dean of academic affairs and professor of sociology.