Cliff Haverkamp has a zeal for life

CEDAR RAPIDS - It's quiet at Cliff Haverkamp's house.

All the family members who gathered to throw him a 90th birthday party last week have gone back to their homes in Minnesota, Colorado, Indiana, California and Jordan.

But Haverkamp is far from lonely.

This mover and shaker is a familiar face to folks who have toured Brucemore mansion, searched for their seats at Orchestra Iowa concerts or listened to the New Covenant Bible Church choir or Chorale Midwest and New Horizons Band concerts.

Before the flood, the retired electrical engineer also shared his wisdom at the Science Station, and at one time, volunteered at the Granger House Museum in Marion, too.

“If you don't keep active, you aren't living,” he says. “You have to keep active to keep your mind active and keep your health up.

“I was never one to not do anything,” he says from his southeast-side home, just blocks from the Brucemore estate he loves so well. He's been volunteering there 17 years, since about the time his wife, Leona, died in July 1995, two months shy of their 50th wedding anniversary.

“We were apprehensive about how Dad would go on without Mom, because they did so many things together,” Robin Hart of Amman, Jordan, the oldest of Haverkamp's four daughters, told family and friends gathered for his birthday party July 31 at Bever Park.

“But we underestimated Dad's love for life. If anything, he became more of a committed volunteer.”

“Cliff's amazing,” says Kandi Allison, volunteer coordinator at Brucemore. “He'll do anything, not just as a tour guide, but he'll help with parking, too.”

At age 80, he learned how to play baritone horn - which his wife played in high school - so he could join the New Horizons Band.

“Cliff was and is the only member of our group who had no experience whatsoever at playing an instrument when he joined the New Horizons Band,” says Alan Lawrence, director of the band for people ages 55 and older. “He showed a lot of pluck and determination to take on this activity at an advanced age.”

That same spirit has served Haverkamp all his life.

Born and raised in Orange City, he graduated from high school in 1938 and joined the war effort in 1941. A navigator on a B-17 bomber, his plane was shot down over Germany in 1943 and Haverkamp spent

16 months as a prisoner of war, before being liberated by American forces in 1945.

He came back, married his hometown sweetheart, finished his degree in electrical engineering on the G.I. bill at Iowa State University in Ames, then landed a job at Firestone in Akron, Ohio. His career brought him to Cedar Rapids in 1961, working first for Collins Radio, then Square D and Quaker Oats, before retiring in 1986.

A lover of the outdoors who gave up cross-country skiing a couple of years ago, Haverkamp and his wife took their daughters on tent camping trips across the country. He also has traveled extensively overseas, including two Chorale Midwest trips, first to Europe, then to Russia in 2000. In 2010, he and three of his daughters traveled to Jordan and the Holy Land to visit Hart, who has built on her father's spiritual example by being a missionary.

“Can you imagine seeing him trek through the narrow streets of Old Jerusalem or climb around Kerak Castle in Jordan at age 89,” she said during her dad's birthday party.

With all this behind him, the man with an email account and a new Facebook profile still has plenty on his “to do” list:

“Keep living, keep doing things, keep singing, keep playing.”