Robert Franklin O'Hara

He graduated from Forest City High School near Manito Illinois. He proudly served in the US Air Force in the Korean War and upon return to the US, he was transferred to Goodfellow Air Base in San Angelo Texas. Robert met and married Juanita (Petsie) Marie Moeller while at Goodfellow.

Upon honorable discharge, Bob joined the FAA as an Air Traffic Controller. He and his lovely bride transferred to Midland Texas where he worked 25 years prior to his retirement in 1981. With Bob’s excellent service and record at the FAA, an air intersection called Victor 81 (near Ft Stockton) was named after him. It was and is known as “The O’Hara intersection”.

Bob and Juanita started and raised a large Catholic family (5 kids) mostly in Midland with one short year in Austin Texas. The family was and continues to be active members of St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Midland.

He is survived by his wife of 60 years (Juanita); brother Jim (wife Ruth); daughters Teresa (husband Mike Jones); Carla (husband Steve Spencer); sons Gordon and Greg (wife Sherri); daughter-in-law Laura O’Hara; grandchildren Brad, Matt, Katelynn, Nick, Braden, Lindsey, Mason and great grandchildren Mason, Brennyn, Blake, Luke.

He is preceded by parents George and Della O’Hara (step-father J.V. Sunderland), son Kevin, brothers (Bill, Don, John) and sisters (Bonnie & Jean).

One of Bob’s many passions was writing and singing country music. He spent many hours volunteering Midland Senior Center, VFW and Amvets to name a few.

The family wishes to thank the many excellent folks at The Village at Manor Park for many excellent years of care for Bob (and Juanita while visiting) and for truly treating Dad and Mom like family. Also, the family wishes to thank Hospice of Midland for excellent care.

Visitation will be at Ellis Funeral Home on Sunday Feb 26th from 6 to 8pm with a Rosary at 7:00pm. Funeral Mass will be held at St. Ann’s Catholic Church on Monday Feb 27th at 2 pm with graveside services immediately following at Resthaven Memorial Park.

In lieu of flowers, please donate to your charity of choice or St. Ann’s Catholic Church at 1906 W. Texas, Midland, TX 79701.

Eulogy:

Hello, my name is Brad Barnhill. I’m the oldest grandchild and my mother (Teresa) is the oldest of 5 children. Today, I have the honor of sharing some stories from our loving family about Robert (Bob) O’Hara whom I affectionately called simply “Grandad”.

I would like to tell a story of how a small deed my Grandad did which would ultimately touch and shape my life as he may have done so with many of you. I attended San Angelo State. In my senior year, I was working 30-40 hours while taking 20 hours for some unspeakable reason. The truth is that I was very burned out and may have been secretly looking for a way to take a break or even quit school. I thought the budget was sorted out until I saw the bill for books and additional lab fees and quickly realized this might be a legitimate chance to quit.

There was no more money available and mom suggested grandad may be able to help. I wasn’t ever going to ask him (he had the reputation for being… let’s say frugal…. Long story short, he loaned me the money. So the entire situation kind of had the opposite effect. Instead of quitting college that semester, somehow I continued on and here we are a few days or years later. Let’s just say it’s a little extra motivation when someone puts stock in you despite life’s tipped balls. He did that day.

DON’T QUIT

My Mom has another perspective on what happened back then which I would also like to share. She went on to explain how much grandad loved me and often bragged about me to everyone he knew. She was sure that he probably took credit for his “helping” me achieve all my success to this day.

Mom went on to explain how she wanted me to understand his complicated & what I deemed a “frugal” life. Grandad had grown up during and after the depression days, lost his dad at a young age and how he helped financially finish raising his younger siblings with him working odd jobs, etc,,,. She went on to explain how grandad had joined the US Airforce to better his family situation. I guess it all turned out according to God’s plan.

On a lighter note, my Mom recalls how she used to like paint her Dad’s toe nails and curl his hair. She explains how she had some pink hair rollers she would put in his hair. One particular event sort of put an end to the curlers. Apparently she had put the curlers in her Dad’s hair just in time for one of his friends to stop by the house to pick up something. After her Dad was frantically running around the house in an attempt to remove them, she had quickly opened the front door and let his long time friend (Oscar) in just in time to see the pink rollers in his hair. Needless to say that was the last time her Dad let her do this.

My many cousins (Matt, Nick, Katelynn, Braden) share similar stories for memories of how my Grandad touched their lives at an early age. Most of my cousins affectionately called him “Pee Paw”. My cousin Matt explained how Pee Paw would dress up as Santa Claus and visit his school. At the time, Pee Paw was fairly slim and of course did not have the Santa Claus like features. He had put on his fake beard to show up at his class just before one Christmas. Matt says that he immediately recognized him but did not say anything until later in the day when he happened to visit him. Of course, Pee Paw denied it was him while we now know and reflect on how he must have been smiling inside. Pee Paw had this playful and humorous side to him that we all knew and loved.

My aunt Laura explains how Robert (she called Bob) was an easy going father-in-law. She recalled how he loved his Blue Bell ice cream and candy. It was always fun to watch football on the couch with him and Brandy. For those of you who did know Brandy, she was one of Laura, Kevin and Lindsey’s many loved dogs who was otherwise known to Bob as “Soupbone”. She goes on to say that one of her and my cousin Lindsey’s memories of him were singing “She’ll be Coming Around the Mountain” and other country and Christmas songs which brought a smile to their faces and his alike.

As mentioned about the sweet tooth we all knew my Grandad had, my Aunt Carla likes to tell the story of the game she would often play with her father. Aunt Carla was the baby of the family so she liked to think she had special treatment and favors with him. No matter where they would be in this world, every time he would walk in the door, she would immediately greet him and proceed to check every pocket looking for a sweet treat. The arrangement she had with him was if she could not find some candy, he would have to give her all the change in his pockets. In hind site, she realized he would often not provide her the candy as part of “The Game”. As parents, we all now reflect and know he was secretly trying to avoid the dentist.

My aunts and uncles recall his charity work at The Senior Citizens Center of Midland. They often laughed at how he was probably much older than most of the folks going there at the time but he would talk of the “old folks”. Those of us that knew him well, know how he loved to socialize and to talk to just about everyone he would come in contact with and at the same time was helping out with his volunteer services. He also volunteered at other places such as the VFW and Amvet’s. My aunts and uncles would often laugh at how he would even help bring in the shopping baskets as he liked to put it “down at the Walmart’s”. That was the kind of person he was which was always trying to help others. Even if it were just the little things such as Walmart or helping out with one of many garage sales Aunt Sherri would have by just keeping her company.

My aunts and uncles as well as others that have known the O’Hara family long enough, often laugh about the stories about the infamous “Chainsaw”. For those of you who don’t know who Chainsaw was, he was one of only a few dogs that the family had. He was a house trained and smaller Pitbull that Uncle Greg had brought home who ended up being the “baby” of Uncle Kevin. Uncle Kevin had many tricks he would do and pull with Chainsaw but this is another story all together. Chainsaw was truly a large part of the family history during his relatively short life. My uncle Steve was recalling a story of how Chainsaw would be in the house which was common and not to my Grandma’s liking. Grandad would say to Uncle Steve to not feed him table scraps but would be the first to give him some. Chainsaw would like to gently rest his head on your leg and gradually apply more and more downward pressure until he thought you noticed him. In this particular story, he said Grandad stood up and walked away with his hands up in the air telling Chainsaw to “frisk him”. One would have to know Chainsaw to know how he watched every move one would make in hopes of getting a tasty snack. In this case, it was as if Chainsaw had a look of disbelief that Grandad really walked away without giving him at least a crumb and was “holding out on him”.

While there are many Chainsaw stories involving Grandad that my family often laughed about, there are also plenty of other dog stories with some of the other famous dogs the family had such as Brandy, Taz and Molly. Aunt Carla likes to tell a story of how Molly (Spencer family dog) was not allowed on the couch at their house in McKinney Tx. When they would come to Midland, Molly would often come along as a family member she was to all. As soon as Molly would walk in the door, she would head straight to the couch. The funny part of the story is how Grandad would act like he did not like any of the dogs, but he was the first one to spoil them all. When Aunt Carla would walk in the door, Molly would give her the look as if she were thumbing her nose that she was in fact sitting on the couch and Grandpa let her.

My Uncle Gordon recalls one of his many memories of his Dad. As the story goes, he and his older brother (Uncle Greg) had many little jobs such as mowing yards and throwing newspapers. In hind sight, my aunts and uncles laugh at how behind the scenes it was really their Mom that had the paper route as she would get up early with them to run these paper routes but this is an entirely different story. Moving on with the story! At the time, the boys had a little money in their pocket and randomly purchased a mini bike they came across and just had to have. Of course, they did not get permission to buy this and brought it home much to their Dad’s surprise. Needless to say, he was not happy with this particular purchase. Well, the mini bike lasted all of about one week. Uncle Gordon further explains how he and Uncle Greg worked on that mini bike day and night trying to revive it. After many frustrating hours of work with no success, their Dad had bought a newer and running mini bike. It seemed that he had recognized how this one of many events had further pulled his kids together and was in fact teaching them some hands on skills. Uncle Gordon went on to become a Mechanical Engineer later in life and who knows how much this one event could have influenced that decision to become an engineer. Uncle Greg went on to also use these hands-on skills where he now owns his own water well business. My uncles both reinforce the idea for how hard working of a man their father was and all in the name of creating better lives for his wife and children and their families.

As many of you probably know, my grandads career was working with the FAA as an Air Traffic Controller mostly at the Midland airport. He had received his training after joining the US Airforce and proudly serving our country in the Korean War. All of my Aunts and Uncles recall the countless stories for when they would go with their Dad to the old control tower. Hard to remember the times when something like this would be allowed. The many memories he created with the children for going up and down the stairs and buzzing in the gate at the top to be able to watch the airplanes up close for landing and taking off. This was truly a career that my grandad knew and loved and was very passionate about.

As I mentioned about my grandad’s military training and career, I recall a quick memory I had of him teaching me how to polish my shoes and to tie a tie at the age of 10. My other grandad taught me how to drive a John Deere tractor but this grandad took the time to show me this one skill in life I would of course go on to use many times including today preparing for the beautiful mass in celebration of his life.

I’ll conclude with a final story my Uncle Greg likes to tell. This had to do with my Grandad when he first had moved to Manor Park. As one can imagine, it would not be your favorite thing to move out of your house of more than 50 years. As the story goes, Grandad would whisper to and gestor to my Uncle Greg to help him “escape”. At that time, a stroke had taken his ability to walk and to speak. Of course, Uncle Greg could not do this and those of you that knew my Grandad, know how persistent, stubborn, determined and plain hard headed he was. So, of course Grandad made and would continue to make repeated attempts to “escape” in his wheel chair. One of the first times, he had backed his wheelchair out to roll down the ramp into a very nice parked Lincoln which is another story in itself.

Grandpa grew to know and make the best of his place of residence he would call home for greater than 8 years. Of course, everyone would have loved to take him home but these were not part of God’s plan. He and our family would learn to know how the folks at Manor Park would truly treat him, Grandma and the family as if they were their family. I’m sure the folks there would tell you how much Grandad would “light up their lives” with his smiles, gestors and singing. You see while God may have taken away Grandpa’s ability to speak, it seems he did not take his ability to sing. Those of you that knew my Grandpa, know one of his passions was writing country music and singing these and many of his favorite songs. Well, in conclusion, God has now granted Grandpa what he initially wanted so badly which was to “escape” by calling him to heaven. We all know now that Grandpa is now smiling down on all of us and lighting up the heaven with his smiles and his singing. Grandpa has joined his Son Kevin in heaven and they are singing and watching all the games they want with truly the greatest seats of all.