Hart, Hiram J "Dude"
A Hardin County man, born before the Battle of Gettysburg was fought,
is dead. He was Hiram "Dude" Hart, 102 years old, who passed away
wednesday evening, December 30, at the Lynnhurst Nursing Home, where he
had been a patient a few days. Before that, he was under
treatment at Hardin Memorial Hospital. Mr. Hart who spent most of
his life in his native vicinity of Eastview, moved to Elizabethtown 17
years ago and lived alone in a small residence on Glendale Hill. Almost
to the last, he retained a remarkable degree of physical and mentor
vigor. On the morning of his 100th birthday he walked two
miles. He frequently walked to downtown
Elizabethtown. However, in the last year, his eyesight failed to
such an extent that he rarely left his small home. There he sat
on his front porch in the summer and by a small fire in a stove in the
winter, for which he cut the wood himself. He was a reader of The
News well past his 100th birthday. Probably his last trip away
from his residence was when two friends took him to the Van Meter
poling place, there to cast his vote in the Presidential
election. Mr. Hart said often that he had never failed to vote
the straight Democratic ticket, and once in response to a question, and
he attributed his long life to his party regularity. When he
approached the polling place last November, he was importuned by a
young woman to cast his vote for one of the candidates for the county
school board and he replaied, "All I want to do is vote the straight
Democratic ticket." Mr Hart served several terms as constable in the
Third District, where Eastview is located, and once it fell to his lot
to arrest and bring to trial a man, later sold at the Court House door
in Elizabethtown for vagrancy. Mr. Hart remembered friends, both
young and old, and he liked to talk about his Court House association
with three former officials, Juge David Rider, Fuller Gross and Frank
Corley. Mr. Hart was a member of the White Mills Christian Church
for 84 years. His parents were Mr. and Mrs. Hiram Hart Sr.
He was the third of eight children. His wife, formerly Miss Sarah
Love, died in 1919, and he was never remarried. He was the father
of 10 children; of whom seven are living; Mrs. May Swartz and Mrs.
Henrietta Snyder of Elizabethtown; Mrs Dinnie Richardson of New Albany;
Mrs. Carrie Eggleton and Mrs Generose Smith, both of Louisville; two
sons, Charles Hart of Louisville, and Ed Hart, city; and 20
grandchildren. Funeral and burial services were held Saturday
afternoon at the Eastview Baptist Church and cemetery by Dr. V. C.
Kruschwitz.
source ELIZABETHTOWN NEWS OBITUARY – 01/05/1965, submitted by Frances
Ede
|
