Navigation
• Home
• E-mail Us
• Submit Info
• Perpetual Calendar
Other Links
• Beware Genealogy Scams• Meet My Best Friend
Last Updated
December 8, 2007
From a letter from Lori K. Bray, Harold's granddaughter
Harold Herbert Hartwell was born in Pendleton, Ore. According to family lore, he was a sheep herder. My gramp was a mechanic in Missoula, Montana his whole life. He fought in WWI and WWII. He worked as a civilian with the Army Engineers on the Alcan Highway in Alaska and on the airstrips in the Aleutian Islands. While working at the "City Garage", he was badly burned while changing oil on a vehicle. As a child, sitting on his lap, I remember what I called his "checker board chest". (My mother says it was skin grafts.) Harold loved to camp, fish, and enjoy the beauty of Montana. He died in 1983, while eating breakfast at my Uncle Guy's one morning. They were sitting there and Harold looked up and said, "I guess it is time for me to go home", and died. He was 90 yrs. old. Harold was a "fiddler". He taught Dorothy and O'Nora the violin, piano, etc. (As a child he taught me the violin, but it angered him that I played by ear. In grade school, one of the violins was mine. It made me "1st chair" status. When he switched it with another violin, I was moved to 2nd chair.) He taught my Uncle Guy carpentry and mechanics. Harold was a family man. He took his children to the yearly Hartwell reunion in Idaho for many, many years. (He had lots of children and grandchildren and never called any of us by our names. He nicknamed every one of us. I was Pug Wug my whole life with him. He never missed a beat. He was a gentle and quite man. (And a damn fine "fiddler.")
This site is in the process of being rebuilt. If you find any broken links on this page, kindly let us know..
We lost our internal database due to a computer crash. We will not be able to add any new family members until we rebuild the 20,000 family member database.