Harold Burdette Hashbarger

Harold Hashbarger

Harold (son of S. Oscar Hashbarger) was born on 11 May, 1899, in Marion Township, Henry County, Ohio. He attended school near where he was born in a one room country school called the Hashbarger School. He attended high school in Leipsic when the family moved there, and in 1916 they returned to a farm and Harold helped his father farm till 1919. He then took employment in Detroit at the Overland Motor Car Company, and later went into real estate selling and house construction.

On 20 December, 1923, he married Margaret Brown in Highland Park, Michigan. He returned to Ohio and managed the Gallup Elevator and was employed with the McMillon Feed Co. Harold also worked as a maintenance man on sewing machines with a glove factory. In the spring of 1930 he returned to farming, and in 1935 he moved to the farm he had until the time of his death.

Harold also ran the township road grader and worked on the Ohio Turnpike while construction was being done in that general area.

From 1930 till 1952 Harold and his family attended the Zion Church of God, where he was superintendent. A large number of the Sundays in the year the minister and his family would have their Sunday dinners at the Hashbarger residence. Harold was president of the PTA in Hamler for two years, and also served on the farm bureau board for two years. He was very active with the Republican party, and served as 4H counselor.

Harold was a man with a wonderful personality, never unfriendly to anyone. He did all of his own blacksmith work when farming with horses, and as the threshing rings died out and tractors began showing up across the country in place of horses, he then converted a Reo speed-wagon into a tractor by shorting the body and adding large steel wheels on the rear. This tractor served for many years on the farm, and having a 45 gal. gas tank on it, one could go for many hours non stop.

Harold was extremely well read, and an optimist in his living. He was an ardent theologian, and would spend much time with his Bible and reference books in preparing his Sunday School lessons.

Harold and his father, Oscar, both with proud family heredity, were the ones who primed the interest to have this history done.

At the time of his death on 8 Sept., 1962, he was a member of the Hamler Methodist Church. Harold was buried in the cemetery his great-grandfather started and near his father's grave in Marion Township Cemetery on the Ridge Road in Henry County.