ORANGE — It’s fitting that Thomas A. Harty was an avid hiker. Because his life took many different paths during his nearly 96 years on Earth.
He was a Boy Scout leader, World War II veteran, global traveler, foundry man, salesman and house builder. But the four people who sat around a table on a back porch on Warwick Road last week still refer to him as “Pop.” Donald Harty, Kathy Harty, Janice Lanou and Thomas Edwin Harty sipped coffee and nibbled on coffee cake as they reminisced about their father on Sept. 28, shortly before the one-year anniversary of his murder.
The elder Harty was slain during a home invasion on Oct. 5, 2016, at 581 East River St. that left his wife, 77-year-old Joanna Fisher, critically wounded. Fisher died from her injuries the following month. But Harty’s children don’t seem to remember their dad as a man who died — but rather as a man who lived, and made countless friends along the way.
Some of those friends were people he met on hiking trails from the North Quabbin region to the Grand Canyon.
Harty’s hiking career started in 1927 with his first climb up Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire, some seven years after he was born in Barre on Oct. 27, 1920. He climbed the mountain hundreds of times, every month of the year, and eventually conquered all the 4,000-foot peaks in New England, walked the Long Trail from the Canadian border to North Adams and completed the Appalachian Trail at 75, using the trail name T.O.M. (The Old Man).
He led yearly excursions to the Grand Canyon in Arizona and daughter Kathy Harty says receiving the key to Phantom Ranch, a lodge within Grand Canyon National Park, in 2013 was the “proudest moment of his life.”
At the time he was killed, Harty had been planning his next trip.
Harty’s children say their father’s first taste of adventure came when he got involved with the Boy Scouts in the mid-1960s, starting with a trip to Yellowstone National Park. Tom Edwin Harty says the three-week trip consisted of 17 Boy Scouts and three Scout leaders in a beat-up school bus nicknamed “Clang” that the adults bought for “a couple hundred dollars.”
Donald Harty recalls that trip’s first night, spent in a family campground in Niagara Falls, Canada. He says some of the boys were being loud and rambunctious and his dad had to repeatedly tell them to keep the noise down.
“The third time he came out, he didn’t see the tent stake and stubbed his toe on the tent stake. And, I swear, I heard some words come out of my father’s mouth that I had never heard before, and some of the words I’ve never heard since,” Donald Harty said with a laugh. “And, after that, the whole campground got quiet. … That’s the side of him you never saw.”
He also recalls one part of the ride home, when the travel party was going to a baseball game between the Minnesota Twins and the Washington Senators in Minnesota.
“The bus had a generator problem. It wasn’t charging, and so on the way to the ball game, my father pulled into a junkyard and bought a (replacement) off some other junky truck. So, as all us kids and leaders were watching the game, he was out under the bus, changing the generator on the bus,” he said. “And off we went – it was fine the rest of the trip.”
Like many men of his day, Harty served in the military during World War II, working on a minesweeper stationed at Chesapeake Bay, Md., from 1943 to 1946. Donald Harty remembers watching the television show “Combat!” and being inspired to ask his dad about his service — perhaps he took part in the Battle of Midway?
“He said, ‘Well, I was an electrician’s mate and my job was to keep the washing machine running and play cribbage with the captain,’” his son says. Kathy Harty says her father came out of the Navy the heaviest he ever was in his life, between 230 and 240 pounds.
“As he said, ‘The Germans didn’t get into Baltimore,’” Tom Edwin Harty remembered.
The elder Harty got married in 1942 to the mother of his children, Winifred, who died in 1981. He eventually met Fisher, his second wife, and the two wed in 1998. Fisher’s children didn’t have much to say for this story, though her son, Larry Fisher, said the two are missed every day.
Larry Fisher had previously said his mother was born in New Haven, Conn., and graduated from East Haven High School in 1957. He said she was involved with founding Valuing Our Children, an organization dedicated to addressing the needs of youngsters, the Pioneer Junior Women’s Club, and The Oracle, a now-defunct volunteer weekly newspaper in Orange.
Kathleen Koonz, one of Joanna Fisher’s daughters, previously said her mother was an elementary school aide when the family moved to the area in 1970 and her mother loved working with young people.
Joanna Fisher was named the sixth recipient of the Barbara Corey Award by the North Quabbin Community Coalition at its annual luncheon in 2003. The coalition’s most prestigious award honors a person who has made a significant impact on the quality of life in North Quabbin.
Thomas A. Harty and Joanna Fisher left behind their children, six grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.
Even at 95, Harty, who spent much of his career at Rodney Hunt Co., was working part-time as a salesman for Donbeck Sales, a company founded by Donald Harty and his wife. Donald said the visits to his clients also served as “real fertile recruiting ground for people to go to the Grand Canyon with him.”
Sitting at the counter at Mom’s Country Kitchen Thursday morning, Earle King said Harty “was just an amazing guy.” He recalled a Lions Club Walk for Sight from Gardner to Athol on a “blistering hot day” in 1995 when Harty repeatedly passed younger veterans who had just gotten out of the service.
Paul Anderson, a fellow Navy veteran and the owner of Trail Head Outfitters & General Store at 1 South Main St., remembers Harty as a good friend and loyal customer who supported local business.
“He was the type of guy you just warmed up to automatically,” Anderson said, adding that he admired all Harty was able to do at his age. “The type of guy who would give you the shirt off his back, never had a bad word to say.”
His outdoor prowess was so well-known that Kris Burns and Jeanie Miller, who own Miller’s River Cafe inside Trail Head, named the Trekker Tom Turkey sandwich after him years ago.
Harty’s children say their father never watched much TV until he heard Rachel Maddow talk about the Grand Canyon and became a fan of the television host and political commentator. He even wanted to invite her on his next trip to the Grand Canyon.
“He always loved strong women, and he loved Hillary Clinton,” Kathy Harty says. “And when he saw what the Republicans were doing to smear Hillary Clinton, he said, ‘I’m never voting for another Republican. That’s it.’ And he never did.”
Donald and Tom Jr. said they cast votes for Clinton in memory of their father in last year’s presidential election.
Though the elder Harty was not overly political, Donald recalled a story about his commitment to the local democratic process. A few years ago, Mr. Harty was disappointed he was unable to get to Town Meeting because he could not drive at night and Fisher was unable to drive at all due to a spinal stroke years before. So he walked to the side of the street outside his home and stuck his thumb out to hitchhike. Eventually a group of joyriding teenagers picked him up and dropped him off at Town Hall, and the driver even gave Harty her cell phone number to call if he could not get a ride home.
“He was the most trusting man in the world,” daughter Janice Lanou said.
An open house celebration of Harty’s life was held at Hartman’s Herb Farm in Barre on Nov. 12, 2016.
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 258.