Donald Eugene Hartley

Visitation will be Friday, June 17, 2016 from 5pm – 8pm at Memorial Funeral Home. Funeral Services will be held on Saturday, June 18, 2016 at 10am with an interment to follow at Memorial Park Cemetery.

Don was born in Columbia on Dec. 4, 1935, the eldest of two sons of Alice (Dawson) and George Sidney Hartley. He attended Ridgeway Elementary, Jefferson Junior High and Hickman High School, graduating in 1953. He had fond memories of visiting his grandparents’ homes in Centralia, often riding the train between Columbia and Centralia. He had a horse that he kept at the farm of his Grandpa John Hartley. While in high school, he was a Sea Scout on a ship at Lake of the Ozarks sponsored by the Columbia Daily Tribune. He also played trombone in a jazz and dance band and worked at a service station as he started his lifelong passion for automobiles.

Don studied engineering briefly at the University of Missouri. He met a nursing student from Eldon, Virginia Hanly, and they married in January 1955. They lived in Kansas City as he worked as a highway surveyor for Howard, Needles, Tammen, and Bergendoff. Most notably, he surveyed the route for Interstate 70 between Boonville and Kansas City, and the route for the interstate highway around St. Joseph.

Don and Virginia had four children in six years: Gene, John, Larry, and Laura. When a two-room apartment in central Kansas City no longer was big enough, the family moved to Gladstone in 1963. Don moved from surveying to the data processing department of HNTB, where he learned punch card entry and other early computer skills. In 1968, he moved to United Computing Systems, a company that sold computer time-share services to other businesses.

While his sons were growing up, Don served as a Boy Scout troop leader, going on many campouts, including four treks to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. He also took many canoe trips with his co-workers from UCS on the rivers of southern Missouri and northern Arkansas, including the Buffalo River before it became a national river.

After his first 25-year marriage ended, he met a former classmate Loretta Stull Petrich at a Hickman High School reunion. He and Loretta were married in 1986 and enjoyed 30 years of marriage. They took many driving trips across the country, visiting friends and family in Florida, California, Texas, and other places.

Don was preceded in death by his parents. He is survived by his wife Loretta; children: Gene (Anita) Hartley Jr., John (Mary Jo) Hartley, Larry (Cindy) Hartley, Laura (Harold) Swalley; grandchildren: Cullen (Bree) Hartley, Adrienne (Nick) Pullins, Donald H. Hartley, Anna Hartley, Lindsy Jo (Tom) Swaim, Alice Hartley, Nick Hartley, and Rachael Swalley; great-grandchildren Alexis and Kyler Walker; step-children: Beth Moise, Mark Petrich, Danny Petrich, Jennifer Baker; step-grandchildren: Lindsay Smith, Ally, Cole, Dillon, Adam and Jordan Petrich; brother Daryl (Ann) Hartley.

In lieu of flowers, family suggest donation to the Boy Scouts of America Ozark Trails Council Tribes of Long Bear, 1616 S. Eastgate Ave, Springfield, Missouri 65809.