Van Glenn Harker was born on October 12, 1945, at the Rigby clinic in Jefferson County, Idaho, to Ivan Walker Harker and Gayl Lovell Harker. His middle name honored his uncle Glen Harker, Ivan’s younger brother, who had died in his mid-teens.

Van grew up in Lewisville and Idaho Falls. He was mechanically inclined from a young age — he took automotive shop in high school and worked at a gas station in Idaho Falls. Around 1963, he moved to Seattle to take a job at The Boeing Company, working on the SST (supersonic transport) program at wages that far exceeded what he could earn in Idaho. He later settled in Federal Way, Washington, with his wife Deanne, whom he had met at Idaho Falls High School and with whom he was temple-sealed at the Idaho Falls Temple on the same day as Norman and Marilyn’s sealing.

In Federal Way, Van built an elaborate woodworking shop in the garage of his home, enclosing a carport and eventually adding a bedroom and family room to the structure. He was a regular and affectionate presence throughout Norman’s adult life, appearing in accounts of nearly every significant family event from the mid-1960s through the oral history sessions. Norman and Marilyn’s sons were in Seattle visiting Van and Deanne the day the family moved to Vancouver in August 1980.

Van had inherited a heart condition that worried Norman. He died on October 27, 2012, in Kent, King County, Washington, and was buried at Auburn, King County, Washington on November 1, 2012.