William Cornell Harvey, husband of LaRee Westover Harvey, passed away on Monday February 9, 2026 in Chillicothe, Missouri. He was 84.

I was privileged to be able to speak at Will’s memorial but I feel so much more needs to be shared. I also feel a great need to just document some things for the benefit of my family.

Will is an important person to me, a hero of sorts and definitely my friend.

While I hope to share some fresh insights here of Will and his life, please forgive me if I repeat some of the things shared at his service.

~ Meeting Will ~

I did not get to know Will until I was in my early 20s, though his early history in California is full of stories of him with other members of the Westover family.

Will and LaRee and family came to southern Idaho where I was working in a family business not too long after I had returned home from a mission. In pursuing the business on my own my Dad felt I could benefit from having family like Will and LaRee nearby.

He was right.

Will was instant family for me. He just showed up and asked, “How can I help?”.

There was no hesitation about my age or inexperience. LaRee, my aunt, has been a steady influence all my life but Will was new to me and I found him to be an instant partner and an easy man to know.

He was calm, rational, good humored and so accepting of me as an adult.

I found Will to be a very can-do individual. Nothing seemed to phase him. His experience and skills with his hands were indispensable.

We built out two stores. We merchandised them, staffed them and game-planned how we needed to proceed.

Will did question things, but he never questioned me.

He never told me I was wrong.

He merely presented different ways to do things by suggestion. I never felt pressured or challenged in a negative way.

At one point my Dad decided to purchase some lab equipment that would allow us to offer 1-hour photo services in the camera shop, which was a new idea at the time. Although I had some experience in processing film and printing pictures, I had no idea how this new equipment worked and I was quite intimidated by it. I was willing to slow-walk the project.

Will was not. He dove right in.

All we had was a manual with schematics notated in Japanese to work with but Will sized up the equipment and started pressing buttons.

For about a day he fiddled, tested and jotted down notes. Then he spent a week trying to catch me up on how it all worked.

All that led me to skills that would power the next 15 years of my career and without Will I would have never learned those things.

Will was a self-made man in many ways.

Stories abound of him restoring cars, bringing old stuff to new life, fixing what others had abandoned and making do with mechanical skills few have.

After the Idaho adventure ended for me Will went back to school and got the certifications he needed to teach, which he did for many years into the future.

But it was never working skills or vocational pursuits that Will was all about.

Will simply worked.

His real mission was his family, the gospel of Jesus Christ and continual progression as an individual. And his efforts were beautiful to witness.

~ Watching Willaree ~

Will was just the right man, in the right place, at the right time for me.

Although slightly older than my father he never seemed to fit, in my mind at least, someone generationally different.

The same can be said of LaRee. I never grouped them in with the “older” generation.

That’s because they have never treated me that way. Ever.

I have memories of LaRee from when I was a child and she defied any kind of labeling. She babysat me when I was little and was an occasional source of fun when we would catch up to her during family vacations when she was at school in Utah.

She just wasn’t on the level with my parents or my older siblings.

I don’t know if that’s what made her safe or influential to me but whatever you call it I am appreciative of it.

That didn’t change when she married Will. In fact, they two together took that influence to a completely new level.

I know they were tasked in mentoring me but I never felt mentored. I just felt loved. That’s their superpower.

I’ve discovered over time that is a byproduct of people who are trying to be like Jesus.

Extraordinarily kind. Helpful. Compassionate. Aware.

These were all ingredients I needed in those early 20s when I was struggling to find myself.

But during those days in Twin Falls I had greater time and access to Will, who did the work of the business with me.

While we tended to work we would talk and everything from “talking shop” to talking about family, culture, history and the gospel was on the table.

Again, these things were talked to me as an adult, not as a kid.

It was a refreshing thing to me because in other circles I had not yet been afforded that courtesy.

At Will’s service I spoke a little about Will’s philosophy on “the doctrine of love”. It’s a simple truth but the time he took to share that will me in the way that he did has been lasting in my life.

I never looked at the gospel the same way after Will explained to me that love is the foundation of every gospel principle. That conversation changed my perspective and it shaped things going forward to me in both my gospel studies and my personal efforts to improve.

I’m not sure Will or LaRee realized it then or even now.

They were just being themselves. But it’s been huge to me in two critical areas: as a husband and as a father.

Will and LaRee are one of those great couples.

They finish each other’s sentences, they know each other’s tastes, they appreciate each other’s opinions and they champion each other in every possible way.

I’ve watched them pray together, discuss difficult things together, and truly enjoy each other thoroughly.

For me, who was still years away from finding my sweetheart, this was critical influence.

Other couples I had known were models for me leading up to those days in Twin Falls but to see Will and LaRee as partners during those years was a gift. It was a fresh and quite personal perspective.

It was also an enduring observance to me.

In later years, as I married and my wife and I brought children into the world, Will and LaRee were constant models. They were in some ways just a few years ahead of us in bringing up their children and trying to make a living and through it all they were constant, faithful, and absolutely united.

We could go years without seeing each other and yet every time we did they were absolutely consistent, completely loving, and persistently optimistic.

That has been simply huge to me.

As a father, there are a couple of notable things I’ve never shared with anyone about Will and LaRee.

When I was courting my wife, who was a single mother with a five year old, I questioned why it didn’t bother me to become a step-parent and raise another man’s biological child.

I had received a spiritual witness that Sandy was “the one”. And yet our whole story didn’t go the fairytale way I expected.

I had never considered the idea of marrying someone with a child and, if I’m being honest, I wondered why that thought never bothered me.

I know it was the spiritual witness. And I do not discount that in any way.

But there are others I thought about. My mother, for example, had a step father. My brothers both married single moms.

But really, having an up-close view of both LaRee and Will as step parents or adoptive parents was a large influence on me.

Of course, it was only years later that I met and married my wife and became the instant Dad. But the memories of LaRee and Will in those roles were very fresh in my mind.

I was also not ignorant to the fact that my eldest daughter, who was that five-year-old challenge to the new Dad that was me, was going to face something of an identity crisis.

That was a very real thing to me – because of my Mom and because of others I knew who were adopted or part of blended families.

The challenges are very real for adoptees and I knew from just watching Will and LaRee go through it that it wasn’t always smooth or easy for them either.

They were real influences into my hopes of being successful at it.

Their persistence in loving first in spite of the challenges that inevitably come up with growing kids and evolving adult children has been teachable to me.

Of course, there have been hard times.

Times of heartache. Moments of challenge where love is the only thing that can be done.

And love is what they have done.

First thing, every time.

That example, like so many other things, has been exactly what I have needed to see at just the time I needed to see it.

Perhaps one of the most hopeful things I’ve witnessed in my life was what was said by Will’s children at his memorial.

Those were not expressions of anything less than total love and they were the result of years of work both Will and LaRee have spent just loving their kids.

No matter what has happened in the past, or what might happen in the future, love will lead to healing and understanding.

Now, I’m well aware I am skirting the policy I have of not talking about the living on these pages. I generally avoid that for many wise purposes.

But if an exception is made here it’s because in these most precious thoughts I consider Will and LaRee of one heart and one mind.

Years ago, one of them sent me an email with the address of willaree@whatever.com. I chuckled at that not because it was clever but because it was just so appropriate.

Of course they are different people with distinct personalities but on these matters of love for each other and for others they are one.

I’ve witnessed it, I’ve known it and I’ve felt it. I admire it. I try to rise to it.

For me, with my bride, it remains an ideal. And thanks to such humble role models like Will and LaRee, it remains possible.

Below I have added the published obituary for Will as well as embedded the video produced for his service showing pictures of Will with his family and friends.

These things are great but they only tell part of the story.

I know Will wants nothing of his many business cards or his vocational resume on his headstone.

I’m fairly certain that if Will had his way the pictures and videos of those he loves, particularly of his children and grands, would be most prominent.

They are his life’s work.

So too is his discipleship of Jesus Christ.

He was constant in these pursuits and I’m assured they remain his pursuits even now.

One parting memory here I have to share:

In 2021, my father’s final year, LaRee and Will came out to Utah to go on a little family history trip with Dad and me. It was going to be what Will called a “cemetery crawl”.
It was a sacrifice of their time and resources. But at the end of the day it was really about loving Dad and loving me.

The trip for Dad was a little difficult and it turned out to be somewhat surprising because Dad himself took it to a place none of the rest of us expected. We visited places of his boyhood adventures and heard memories I’m not sure Dad had shared before.

Dad’s efforts to untangle all the mysteries and connections of family heritage was pretty significant in the last few years of his life.

He wanted to visit those faraway pioneer cemeteries and Will took us there. At 80-years old Will handily four-wheeled us in the spring mud to take us to those places. And those were insightful visits and good activities for us to pursue.

But for me the real gold of that trip came in a cheap hotel room in Kanab, kicking back on beds and talking into the night with LaRee and Will.

Just visiting. Nothing off limits. Good, honest, candid and fruitful conversation that lead to teachable moments and lots of pondering.

It didn’t matter if it was 2021 or 1985.

Will and LaRee are and were exactly the same. Money in the bank. Light in the dark. Love in a painful season. All that is right and good about family.

How very grateful I am for them.

Their lives of service go beyond the walls of their home, the volunteering in the community, and their work in the Church. It doesn’t stop, either, just because the body has died. It’s all about love. It’s all about family.

I do know that.

I know that of my parents. I know that of others I love who have finished their journey here.

Will was a constant to me in this life. And because I know that I know exactly the man I will see again when I go where he is now.

That brings me great comfort.