Elizabeth Noel Harter

Magic maker, picture taker, problem solver, dream weaver.

Protector and shepherd of children and those who have been made to feel small.

Daughter, sister, dearest friend, heart the largest of us all.

Mother.

Elizabeth Noel Harter (Beth) was born January 17, 1989 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Vicky Lynn Harter and Noel David Harter II.

Beth was a golden, happy child, always with a smile on her face and a song on her lips. Dancing throughout the house on the tips of her toes, her impossibly blonde hair wild and seemingly floating, she brought her family joy and made them laugh even in their darkest moments.

During her younger years in the trying moments a family often has when mashed together in the car with teenagers, Beth would have pretend conversations on the little toy phone she carried with her everywhere. Her tiny voice could be heard prattling away from the back seat, lilting on until her family relented, their stony expressions melting away and dissolving into laughter. She always found ways to help those she loved when she sensed they somehow needed her.

In one quest to help her family shortly after her father was diagnosed with cancer, Beth somehow ended up standing ten feet in the air on a ladder; dusting the living room ceiling, listening to music and twirling her hair late into the night while her mother and father watched and laughed until they cried.

Beth’s sense of humor was present from the very beginning, and was so woven into the fabric of her life that even she sometimes forgot how some jokes had begun. She and her sister Ali spent hours laughing together when they were young, and shared so much history and humor together over the years that they had to write a “book of inside jokes” to keep track of them. There were so many jokes to remember that even with the book Beth and Ali couldn’t recall the origin of them all, and only knew that their nicknames for each other were Butter Lettuce and Bahooties Hotdog, and that it had always been that way.

Many of her friends from her days at Deer Creek School tell tales of that same sense of humor, as well as her mothering heart and astonishing bravery. Her childhood best friend Lisa Grady will never forget how fearless Beth was as she drove the getaway car during cold winter nights full of moving entire neighborhoods worth of reindeer decorations around until they looked like they were “humping,” and the friends fell apart together in uncontrollable laughter.

Beth could always be depended upon to help with anything asked of her. She might give you a piece of her mind while she did it (because of course there was a better way that only she knew) but she never shrank away from helping. She charged into every task with a fierceness and exasperation that could only be borne from the deepest sense of right and wrong — and the most sincere love.

When her father fell ill, Beth sprang into action as she always had. Helping her family care for both him and each other, making sure essential tasks were done. She read everything she could to understand his cancer so she knew how to best help him, made sure he did his physical therapy, showered, ate, and smiled. Her heart always wide open, she was ready with a shoulder to lean on when her family fell apart with fear and overwhelm; as every moment during that time was so important, there was so much to do and to say. It would have been impossible without her. There are no words to express how much that shoulder and heart is missed now.

After her father passed away in January of 2017, she was essential to her mother in keeping the wheels on the bus in the household, and kept her mom “on the right track” as they together figured out all of the things it seemed like only NDII knew and now might be lost forever. They weren’t.

Beth continued to be there for her mother through the years, and loved taking charge of projects for her around the house. Her sister Katie will never forget the “summer they got buff together” building a flowerbed for their mother as a surprise birthday gift while she was away. They laughed and cried and cursed and pushed Beth’s son Elliott around in a dirt-filled wheelbarrow until he had laughed so much he exhausted himself and fell asleep. Beth parked the wheelbarrow next to her in the shade as she and Katie pounded posts into the ground into the wee hours of the morning in the “Oklahoma in August” heat.

Beth had a lifelong love of music, and especially loved listening to Beyoncé and Britney Spears. When she was young, she sang her way through everything; and not only was chosen to sing over the intercom at school, but to be the lead as Dorothy in a production of “Somewhere over the Trashcan,” so titled because it was her school’s creative way of getting around any potential copyright issues.

When Beth was little, she joined her father and sisters on the family motorcycle racing team. Her mother Vicky remembers Beth during that time as a teeny tiny thing, so young she was the only one in her motorcycle class — so of course she won every race. Beth would ride round and round on the giant track, and as she passed close to the grandstand her tiny voice could be heard above the din of her engine, making up songs about her motorcycle and how she was the best there ever was at racing it. Her son Elliott sings to himself now just like she did then.

Beth was just 13 when her first niece Bella was born. As they both grew up together, the two of them would go on adventures, doing everything from marathon watching all of the Harry Potter and Avatar The Last Airbender movies and episodes together, to freaking people out by pretending they could see them peeing through the two-way mirrored bathroom at City Bites.

Family and friends also remember Beth’s love of gymnastics that began when she was young, fascinated by the Summer Olympics, and laughing at its host Bob Costas — who she arguably loved just as much as the sport itself. She enthusiastically encouraged her son, nieces, nephews, and the children she nannied for to turn somersaults and cartwheels across not only gym mats, but living room floors. Beth loved the sport so much that she even worked for a time at Metro Gymnastics as an instructor for beginners.

One of Beth’s proudest accomplishments was Harter’s Wands, a wand making business she and her father started together. During that time Beth not only filled the lives of those she knew with magic, but strangers across the world as well. After her father passed away, Beth couldn’t bring herself to continue the business without him for a time, but slowly began to regain her sense of magic and wonder as her son Elliott was born. She always said that once Elliott started kindergarten she would start the family business up again, making wands and sharing magic with the world once more.

Beth spent the majority of her working life as a nanny, caring for the children and families she worked for in the exact same way she cared for her own. She was especially close with the Lashley and Fasching families, who both describe her not as a babysitter, but as a member of the family they never stopped loving.

One of Beth’s greatest wishes was to become a mother herself. No one who knew her can remember a time when she didn’t possess the rare and magical quality of enhancing and amplifying the motherhood of every mother she knew without taking away from it; while also somehow enveloping the parents themselves in that same unconditional love and protection.

Child or adult, anyone who knew Beth and was fortunate enough to be loved by her never had to worry when the weight of the world was too heavy a burden to shoulder alone. “If you cannot walk through this, I will carry you,” was the theme of her life from the beginning to the very end.

When her greatest wish for herself came true April 26, 2018, the day her son Elliott was born, she and her family rejoiced and were thankful for not only the beautiful new life she brought in through the front doors of Beth and her mother Vicky’s home; but also in the surety of knowing that Elliott’s life would be filled with the same love, light, magic and laughter she had poured into the lives of so many others. He is the person she was waiting for. They both deserved more time.

Beth,

We will do what you asked of us. We will never lie to Elliott, we will help him and be honest with him in every moment he needs.

We will do everything we can to recreate your singing spirit with him, to believe in magic and clap our hands together, and to carry those who cannot stand alone — though the world without you will never be the same, and the sun not quite as bright.

You will be foremost in our minds for the rest of our lives. You will never, ever be forgotten as long as we exist. And you will always, always, always live on — sunshine and golden and laughing and loving — in our hearts.

Whatever, Beth.

We love you more.

Infinity no take backs.

Elizabeth Noel Harter was preceded in death by her father Noel David Harter II, her grandfather Ralph Walter Floyd, her grandparents Peggy Ann and David Leon Harter, and her uncle Mark Harter.

She is survived by her son Elliott Noel Harter Short of Edmond, her mother Vicky Lynn Harter of Edmond, her sister Mary Allison Harter and her children Bonnie Jean Street and Ryland Faye Burcham, her sister and brother-in-law Katherine Lynn and David Michael Farrow, their children Bella Lynn, Aidan William, Benjamin Michael, Emmeline Elizabeth, and Isla Allison Farrow of Duncan, her grandmother Isla Faye Floyd, her cat Maximus, and countless other family members and friends.