Joe Ervin O'Hare

Joe Ervin O’Hare was born in Jackson, Mississippi on October 17, 1933. His parents had various jobs during their lives. Samuel Peter O’Hare was a farmer, milkman, store clerk, and finally an accountant and Elizabeth Hahn was a nanny, factory worker, and finally a housewife. Their lives revolved around church meetings, church events, large revival meetings, and gospel singing concerts in Mississippi and then in Columbus, Georgia. Joe grew up during the Great Depression and during World War II, and understood that his parents worked hard and had no money for luxuries, except for that one time that his mother came home and was appalled to find that he had used an entire bag of war-rationed sugar to make a cake.

Leo Hicks, his wife Sevilla, and their eight children belonged to the same church as his parents, and he first looked with interest at one of their daughters, a pretty, curly-haired girl named Ivora, aged fifteen. He asked her if she would like to go with him on one of the rides at the Georgia State Fair, and they began dating after that, under the eagle eye of her father. He asked her to marry him when she was 17 and he was 18, and they stayed together for the next 71 years, raising three daughters, three grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, and one great-great grandchild. There were many changes as he grew up, but three constants would always sustain him, the work ethic inherited from his parents, the love of his family, and his love of music. He was raised on gospel music and began to take piano lessons at the age of six. He played swing tunes on the piano for his friends, and the baritone horn with his high school marching band. During his retirement, he attended the “Rock and Roll Church” in Destin, whose services included singing, saxophone solos, and guitar bands.

Except for a short ambition to be a well-digger when he five years old, and witnessed this fascinating job taking place in his own back yard, he turned to a more long-lasting interest in photography at ten years old when his grandmother Skidmore gave him his first Kodak box camera. Hearing of his interest, a neighbor gave him some old darkroom equipment. This eventually led him to move to study photography at the Los Angeles Junior College at the age of 15 for one year. He returned to Columbus, Georgia and began to work at various photographic studios, shooting family portraits, weddings, and special events. He was not happy at his work, for the pay was low, dealing with demanding clients was difficult, and the hours were long, which seriously cut into dating time with his girlfriend, Ivora. The two were married in 1951, and he took all of his savings, $200, out of the bank for an extended two-week honeymoon, driving from Georgia to St. Augustine, Florida.

After his return to Columbus, he was hired for a Civil Service job as an Army Photographer at Ft. Benning, Georgia. This government contract job would prove to be helpful for his future career as a civilian optical engineer, first at the Eglin Air Force Base at Fort Walton Beach, Florida, where Joe and Ivora lived from 1953 to 1961, and then at Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) in Tullahoma, Tennessee. Over the course of his 34 years at AEDC, he moved in position from an engineering aide to that of section head of the electro-optical engineering division, working on advanced optical instrumentation techniques for recording aerodynamic tests at the AEDC supersonic/hypersonic wind tunnel. He worked with high-speed photography, flow visualization techniques, thermographic mapping, and holographic interferometry used for the space program, from Project Mercury to the space shuttle. He was a member of several scientific organizations, including the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), where he on the National Board of Governors for six years.

During these years, Joe was working hard to support his family, his wife Ivora, and three daughters named Cindy, Scarlett and Connie. He attended night school in addition to his regular work and often put in long hours to finish projects. However, one adage of Joe’s was always “I work hard to play hard.” He was an avid outdoorsman who enjoyed hunting, fishing, camping and spelunking. He took pilot lessons in 1968 and bought a share in a Cessna 182, which was used for family vacations. He loved carpentry, making items as small as a napkin holder and as large as a table with stools for his family’s dining. Ivora kept him busy with a “Honey Do” list of small repairs, but he also tackled large projects, such as building his own backyard pool with side walls made of concrete blocks. Over all was his lifelong love for all kinds of boating; Joe owned 18 boats over his life from an 8-foot rowboat, a 14-foot ski boat, a 29-foot Gulf fishing boat, to a 42-foot houseboat.

Joe and Ivora had travelled to Cypress Gardens during their honeymoon, and Joe had become interested in water skiing. He bought a water ski boat, built his own skis, and joined others who liked water sports, launching his boat from their trailer lot off Cinco Bayou in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. He and his friends operated a ski show for audiences, including a ski show for the first ever Billy Bowlegs Festival. In Tennessee, he continued to ski, presenting ski shows to the Air Force and at AEDC picnics. However, Joe and Ivora never forgot the magic of Florida, taking trips with the entire family for swimming in Fort Walton Beach numerous summers. In 1976, Joe bought a Cabin Cruiser, which was towed down to Florida in the summers for fishing in the Gulf. In 1977, Joe and Ivora bought a 42-foot Gibson fiberglass houseboat, which they eventually decided to use as their only residence, living on the boat at Tim’s Ford for six years.

After the death of his father in 1979, they bought a house for themselves and Joe’s mother on the lake in 1983. Although his mother died before she could move in, Joe and Ivora lived in this lake house for ten years and had many visitors for parties, picnics with roasted goat meat, and visit. These visitors included his daughter, Cynthia, married to Robert Lee in 1971 and to Perry Jordan in 1985. His daughter Scarlett, an LPN married to Ron Robinson in 1976. And Connie, an archaeologist who worked in Hawaii. The lake house was a favorite place for weekends for the grandchildren, Bob Lee, Elizabeth Lee, and Samuel Jordan, who could play ping pong, swim off the pier, go boating and fishing, and ski or jet ski.

In 1994, Joe took early retirement, and Joe and Ivora decided to retire to Florida. They purchased a house in Destin, and, just as important, a boat, a 30-foot Phoenix Offshore Fisherman for fishing in the Gulf. Old friends and relative visited often, staying at the house, and going fishing in the Gulf. At Thanksgiving, Christmas, and summer visits, the family, including Bob Lee, Master Chief in the Navy as a nuclear electronic technician, his wife Tamara, and their three children, Austin, Madison, and Meghan. On Joe and Ivora’s 49th anniversary, they went to the old Gibson Hotel in Apalachicola, where Joe sat down at the piano and played “I Love You Truly”, the same song he had first played for his new bride at that same hotel during their honeymoon in 1951.

Joe and Ivora had enjoyed their lives as a couple, as parents, and as members of a wide circle of relatives and friends. There were bad times also, towards the end. Ivora was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2016, their daughter, Cynthia, died in 2019, and Joe was diagnosed with a melanoma of the lung in 2018. Ivora recovered, but Joe had debilitating arthritis and many other medical problems brought on by cancer and the chemotherapy treatments he had to take for four years. In March of 2023, he developed a blood infection, probably connected to the chemotherapy and cancer.

He was hospitalized, but could not recover, and he decided to go into hospice care so that he could be at home with his family in the end. There was one last chance to talk with friends and one last chance to visit with family, including his great grandchildren Austin, Madison, and Megan. He was able to hold his first great-great-grandchild, Graham Lee, in his arms for the first and last time. Joe died in his sleep on March 10, 2023. We will all miss him terribly. He wished to buried in the same grave-lot as his mother and father and his daughter, Cynthia in Columbus, Georgia, where his parents raised him, and he married his love, Ivora.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.shcolumbus.com for the O'Hare family.