Celebrating William T. (Bill) Hartman’s Life
September 7, 1916-December 16, 2018
Dear Family and Friends of Bill Hartman,
Dawn’s and my dad, Bill Hartman, passed away on December 16, 2018, at the ripe age of 102 years. His faith in his Creator was strong; he knew where he was going. A few lines I penned about my oldest son James, who died 24 years ago, also ring true for Daddy.
“THE OTHER SIDE”
Daddy would have wanted
To traverse the tunnel,
To experience the light,
To feel the enveloping love.
It would have been
Another exploration
Of parts unknown
And also a coming home.
Daddy was a man of many parts. But all who knew him not only admired his intelligence, his honesty, his integrity, his far ranging interests, his probing questions, but also admired his humor, his stories, his grace, and his ability to get along with anyone.
Daddy was born in McKinney, Texas, to Will and Mary Hall Hartman, tenant farmers. Will had only a 4th grade education, but paid extra taxes so that his children could attend school in town. Mary was a truly wise woman, the real head of the family. Daddy was valedictorian of his high school class and went on to Texas A&M, and UC Berkeley (BA in Forestry in 1939, MA in 1951).
Daddy served in the Texas Forest Service primarily in fire control from 1939-1950—interrupted only by naval service in 1944-1945, where he refused an officer’s slot in order to get electronics training. After the war, Daddy used his electronics training to bring short wave radio communications to the Forest Service. He also pioneered using airplanes to aid fire control and to help crews fight forest fires. His favorite plane was the Tempco SWIFT. And yes, it’s true that he learned to fly in 6 hours. The US Government in 1940 was demanding an immense amount of data from the Texas Forest Service. Daddy told his boss that the only way to meet the government’s deadline was for him to learn quickly to fly and to collect the data by mapping the status of forests from the air. The Forest Service delivered its data on time and won its case.
After getting his MA in 1951, Daddy joined East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) as its land superintendent, where he managed its watershed lands on the Mokelumne River, its reservoirs, its East Bay holdings, its filter plants, and a lot more until he retired in 1979. He loved a job where he did not have to be behind a desk all the time. He instituted a coherent system for leasing watershed lands to ranchers in the East Bay and the Sierra Foothills. The ranchers liked Daddy and his system so well that they invited him many times to pack in with horses into Bear Valley before it was a resort and spend a week hunting deer. Early on, they said, “Hartman, you’ll have more wind [for climbing steep slopes] if you quit smoking.” He quit cold turkey. Our mother Arlene said that with the money he saved, he could buy a new deer rifle. Daddy also convinced his bosses that he could count cattle more efficiently by air—and started flying again. He became the one who took aerial photos each year of the Sierra snowpack to estimate its depth. Later, he led EBMUD’s efforts to open previously fenced off watershed lands to the public for recreation. All of his love for the outdoors paid off. Of course to avoid “human erosion” as he called it, he had to install a permit system in some places. He had told EBMUD’s Board that it could resist opening watershed lands for recreation and be “tarred and feathered” in the public’s mind, or EBMUD could willingly, gracefully, open land for recreation—and “take the credit for it.” The Board followed Daddy’s recommendation.
Any account, however brief, must include Daddy’s volunteer work in Alaska for the Covenant Church. Since Daddy always was involved in outside projects (most of which did not make money), Mother suggested that he try his hand at doing something “for the Lord.” As it happened, in the early 1950’s he became fast friends with missionary bush pilot Roald Amundsen, based in Nome, Alaska, who let it be known that there were no communications among villages in western Alaska, short of dog-sleds and airplanes. Daddy got donations, bought government-surplus short-wave radio equipment, and led men as they modified the equipment to meet western Alaska’s needs. The radio equipment installed, Roald, the visionary preacher-bush pilot, then kept talking about a radio station, as no public radio station existed in western Alaska. The result: Daddy wrote a successful application to the FCC, and KICY went on the air in 1960 and broadcasts today.
You get the idea…... and Daddy was equally involved after retirement. Dawn and I adored our Dad, loved his stories, benefited from his abilities, from his empathy. Dawn and he shared many sports (see Dawn Farrell’s Facebook post); I learned Morse code, camped and hiked with him, and went hunting during the coast season. And later I sent my sons west each summer to know their Grandpa, to learn the outdoors.
With thanks for seeing a life well lived,
Love, Gail, Bill’s older daughter
******************************************
William Withuhn was Gail's husband and Bill's Son-in-law.
American Steam Locomotives: Design and Development, 1880–1960
By William L. Withuhn
https://books.google.com/books/about/American_Steam_Locomotives.html?id=6guIDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false
Dear Friends and Family,
I have received the most wonderful news.. Bill's posthumous steam locomotive book, shamelessly promoted on my 2018 Christmas card, not only appeared on March 1, 2019, on time, but also, in fewer than two months' of sales, will go into a second printing. I am thrilled, and those who worked on and backed the project ( IUP & the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society) feel our efforts and convictions about the book's worth are justified fully. We are so proud.
Most of you saw my Christmas card for 2018, which showed a photo of Bill's military caisson at his Ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery (April 2018) as well as a photo of the planned cover of the posthumous book--his magnum opus about steam locomotive design whose manuscript had lain years (decades?) in file drawers and on computer hard drives. Titled American Steam Locomotives: Design and Development 1880-1960 , the tome has a ponderous name, which belies its surprisingly engaging style. Within the world of railroad history and railroad buffs, Kevin Keefe and Jim Wrinn of Trains andClassic Trains have movingly /commented on/reviewed the book in their blogs, The book's substance and style have elicited comment after comment even on Amazon.
If you had not realized that Bill's steam book is OUT, take heart--and share out joy. Bill would have been so pleased.
Proudly,
Gail
P.S.Bill two earlier books (published in the 1990s, but still available) aimed their often stunning spreads at a less technical audience, sometimes even the casual reader,I love Spirit of Steam and remember how hard Bill worked on the photo captions, treating each as a micro-essay.
*********************
APPENDIX 1
APPENDIX TO SHORT STORIES COLLECTION1
WHEN MOMMA SAVED MY LIFE
AS TOLD TO “BUB” RALPH H. HILL JR., GAIL WITHUHN, AND LINDA KAY
HILL DURING VISIT OF AUGUST 30, 2016.
Bub asked me to tell him something about Momma (his
Grandma). I told him that she saved my life several times. He
asked be to elaborate on at least one of the occasions, so I
did, the story is below. (Note: this happened when I was a
senior, but I forgot to mention whether I was a senior in high
school or college; I think it was when I was a senior in high
school, because the girl involved was from Terrell, which is
about 20 miles southeast of McKinney.)
There was a very pretty girl from Terrell. She was my
girlfriend. One time we went on a date somewhere. I went to
get her at 4:00 p.m. in the afternoon. We stayed out until 8:00
a.m. the next morning! I did not elaborate on what we did.
Soon after that, the next day I think, she married another guy.
She told me that she married him, because if she did not, the
guy was going to kill me! So she figured the best thing to do
was to marry him. I did not know what to do; I was not scared
of the guy, as I had a pistol myself.
So I talked to Mamma about this. She told me to do nothing.
When I asked her why, she said it would not turn out good in any
case. If he killed me, no jury would convict him for doing so.
If I killed him, I would probably go to jail. So, you see Mamma
saved my life by giving me that advice.
I also told Bub that Lord must have had a plan for me not
to be with that girl. It would probably not have worked out.
1 This was a collection of over 100 one/two-page short stories which were
assembled and distributed to relatives approximately 12/4/1996.
WHEN DR. ERWIN SAVED MY LIFE, PROXY’S MOON, AND SOME MEMORIES OF
AGGIELAND
AS TOLD TO “BUB” RALPH H. HILL JR.
DURING A PHONE CALL JAN. 14, 2018
DR. ERWIN
Bub asked me whether I could remember Dr. Mack Hill of
McKinney who was McKinney’s first pediatrician. (Dr. Hill is one
of Bub’s relatives on the Hill side of the family.) I told him
that the only doctor that I could remember was “good old Dr.
Erwin,” who saved my life one time.
When I was at Texas A&M (at College Station, TX) I was on a
“trick” horse riding team. The sergeant gave me a horse that he
claimed was pretty tame. Well, I was just sitting on the horse,
and two other horses ran by which excited that horse. I cannot
remember exactly what happened after that as far as the details
of the fall; however, the horse ended up stepping on my face,
stomach, and ankle. I was pretty banged up. Pretty soon I had
blood poisoning and limping around on crutches! I was in pretty
bad shape. Somehow I got back up to McKinney. Bub asked me how
I got to McKinney and I cannot remember. But, you know, in
those days it was easy to hitchhike if you had on a uniform.
Dr. Erwin took some kind of white paste and put it into a big
hole that the horse had made in me when he stepped on me. That
white paste must have been some of the first antibiotic
treatment. Within a very short time it had cured the blood
poisoning.
PREXY’S MOON
In those days the tradition was that the students could not
go home for Christmas vacation until the Prexy’s Moon was shot
out. This was a light on top of the Academic Building.
Apparently, there were a lot of guys shooting at that light with
30-06’s which were army surplus. Well, we got to go home for
Christmas Vacation.
BONFIRE
I asked Bub if they still had the bonfire at A&M? He told
me all about the bonfire disaster in 1999 when Suzanne had
worked on it. (Suzanne Hill Zoss is Bub’s daughter.) He also
told me about how he worked on it in the late 1960s. After Bub
started telling me about it, I remembered that I knew about it.
Anyway, back in the day it was completely constructed out of
outdoor “crappers”. It was a lot of trouble finding enough of
them to build a bonfire out of.
VETERINARIAN CLASS
I took one class that the veterinary students took. The
professor told us that to be a good veterinarian, you had to be
very observant. To emphasize his point he took out a glass full
of urine and stuck his finger in it. Then he stuck his finger
into his mouth and licked it off. He then told the students to
do exactly as he had done. None of the students seemed
squeamish, and all of them did the same thing. The professor
then pointed out to them that none of them were very observant,
because he used a different finger when he licked it.
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