Roy Hartner

Roy William Hartner of Loveland died Monday, May 4, 2015 after a short illness. He was 89. From tornadoes and runaway horses on the plains of Kansas, to roiling storms in the Pacific in the final days of World War II and a career at Colorado’s Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, Roy lived a quintessentially American life, both ordinary and extraordinary. He was born Nov. 6, 1925 in Clay Center, Kansas, the third child of William Henry Hartner and Minnie Burger Hartner. As a child he and his sisters started chores on the farm before sunrise and traveled to school in a horse-drawn cart. He graduated from Clay County Community High School in 1943. Because of his farming experience, he was deferred from the draft for two years while he worked in South Dakota and Nebraska. In January 1945 he was drafted into the U.S. Army. By the time he finished basic training at Camp Fannin, Texas in April 1945, the European war was over, so he was sent to the Philippines. He was on a ship in Manila Bay when news came that the atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. Assigned to help with reconstruction, Roy’s 21-day journey from Manila to Japan was interrupted by Typhoon Louise, which sundered more than 200 U.S. ships in the Pacific. In Japan, he helped build a new highway as a road grader operator. He returned to the U.S. in September 1946 and was discharged in October. Roy returned to Clay Center, where he farmed hundreds of acres on numerous properties over the years. Once home, he reacquainted himself with a neighbor, Phyllis Loie Woellhof, whom he’d had his eye on since she was 14. They married on Oct. 4, 1947 at her parent’s home at Oak Hill, Kansas. Their son Rick Arlen was born in 1950, Daryl Allen in 1958 and daughter Trudy Rae in 1963. In 1960, Roy began working for a plumbing and sheet metal shop in Clay Center. In 1965, a friend who worked at Rocky Flats told him the plant was seeking plumbers, and Roy left for Colorado. He applied for a job at the plant but was not immediately hired. So he began working for Rayback Plumbing in Boulder while Phyllis and the children finished out the school year in Kansas. Shortly before the family came to Boulder he bought a house in north Boulder. After 14 months with Rayback, Roy was hired at Rocky Flats, where he would work as a pipefitter and planner until his retirement in 1989. The next year he and Phyllis took the first of many tours by motor home, including a three-month expedition up the Al-Can Highway to Alaska. Eventually they traveled to all 50 states and in1994 went to Europe. They also traveled around Colorado and to other states to help build and repair Lutheran churches. Having moved to Louisville in 1982, in 1999 Roy and Phyllis relocated to Loveland. Roy is survived by his wife Phyllis of Loveland; two sons, Rick Hartner and his wife Rosemary of Kirkland, Arizona and Daryl Hartner of Longmont; daughter Trudy Loucks and her husband Michel of Friday Harbor, Washington; granddaughters Auliya McCauley-Hartner of Longmont, Talia Loucks of Seattle, Washington, Hailey Loucks and Joely Loucks of Friday Harbor, Marianne Hartner-Godown of Larkspur, Colorado; and a grandson, Wilson Loucks of Friday Harbor; a sister, Elizabeth Mitchell of Salina, Kansas; and a brother, Edward Hartner of Topeka, Kansas. He was preceded in death by his parents and a sister, Grace Velma Coine. Funeral services will be held on Saturday, May 9, 2015, 10:30 A.M. at Neill-Schwensen-Rook Chapel in Clay Center. Visitation will be Friday from 5-8 at the funeral home. Interment will be held at Greenwood Cemetery in Clay Center, KS. Memorials may be sent to a charity of your choice. Online condolences may be made at nsrfh.com.