Hartzler, Joseph Garfield (1880-1978)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1972 Apr 6 p. 9 [bio]

Birth date: 1880

text of obituary:

Retired Minister, Bishop

At 91, Kept Busy Making Cradles Report and Photo Courtesy The Weatherford News

J. G. Hartzler uses power tool on a cradle.

WEATHERFORD, OKLA. — Joseph G. Hartzler doesn't have time to retire . . . he's too busy making life more pleasant for babies and new parents in the Hydro-Weatherford area.

Born over 91 years ago in Allensville, Pa., Mr. Hartzler moved to Missouri with his family when he was only two years old.

In 1923 he became a Mennonite preacher. A few years later he was ordained as a bishop.

Most of the 50 years that Hartzler spent after moving to Kansas were devoted to the ministry. He "retired" from active preaching at the age of 75, a few years after his wife of 45 years had died.

HE LIVED for a while with his two sons in Alberta, Canada, then found a job with a meat packing plant in Wichita, Kan.

It was in Kansas that he met his second wife, a nurse. They moved in 1965 to the farm of his son-in-law and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Slagell, north of Hydro.

Mrs. Hartzler helped her husband design a small house and he started building. She died, however, before the house was completed.

While visiting his wife in Southwestern Memorial Hospital in Weatherford, Mr. Hartzler met Mrs. Jack Hadley, the mother of Mrs. Hartzler's "roommate."

Mr. Hartzler took up repairing furniture and Mrs. Hadley came to him one day with an old cradle that she had inherited.

"I FIXED the cradle for her," Hartzler noted. "When other people saw it, they said they wanted cradles just like it. So I started making them.

"I make three or four at a time," he added. "That way I don't have to keep changing my saw back and forth.

"There are more orders than I have time to fill.

"Several young couples have asked for cradles . . . and some of the people who have asked don't have any children. I've made a dozen or more for Hydro people who use them as magazine racks."

Hartzler's cradles are built on about the same design as the one he repaired for Mrs. Hadley with two exceptions. His rockers are bigger and his cradles don't have knobs screwed onto the ends.

"BIGGER rockers make the cradles set higher," he explained. "That makes the baby warmer, some people say. It gets him farther away from the cold floor.

"Someone had cut a spool in half and screwed it to each end of Mrs. Hadley's cradle," he added. "I didn't know what in the world the knobs were for so I asked her.

"She said that mothers would tie one end of a string to a knob and the other end to a bedpost. When the baby cried, they just pulled the string and started the cradle rocking."

Hartzler has averaged about four cradles a week for the past year, and some of the finished products have been used to accommodate his great-great-grandchildren.

BUT HE DOESN'T spend all of his time in his shop. He fishes a little and he still drives the same car he bought new in 1947.

"It has 270,000 miles on it now," he said. "I never work on the engine . . . I just put in a new one after every 100,000 miles."

And he has plenty of time to enjoy his favorite drink . . . grapejuice.

"I started drinking grapejuice about two years ago. It's the frozen kind but it's the real thing, not imitation.

"I think it's good for my blood, so I keep a pitcher of grapejuice in the 'fridge' all the time.

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1978 Jan 26 p. 10
Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1978 Feb 9 p. 11