Larry DeFord Hansbarger, 82, passed away Friday, July 23, 2004.

He was the beloved husband of Joan Arline (Beatty) Hansbarger for fifty-one years and loving father to: Mark Beatty Hansbarger of Lake James; Brian DeFord Hansbarger, Clear Lake; Alan Dean Hansbarger, Auburn; and Karen Elise (Hansbarger) Barrett and her husband John Brian Barrett of Clear Lake, Indiana.

Born November 13, 1921 in Canton, Ohio, to Earl David Hansbarger and Ruth Matilda DeFord Hansbarger/Martin, Larry is survived by his wife, four children, seven grandchildren, two great grandchildren and younger brother, Alan Minnich Hansbarger, of Ansonia, Ohio.

Both Larry and his brother Alan were engineering graduates of Ohio State University and honorably discharged World War Two veterans. Larry was a First Lieutenant in the Third Attack Group Fifth Airforce stationed in the Pacific and occupied Japan, as a B-24 Liberator weather reconnaissance pilot.

On Sept. 20, 1952, Larry married Joan Arline Beatty of Greenville, Ohio. They lived in the Chicago area of Lombard, Illinois for three years while Larry worked and traveled for the Oil Insurance Association.

In 1955, Larry, Joan and their new son, Mark, moved to Clear Lake, Indiana, to take over Joan’s parents’ resort at Clear Lake known as the Clear Lake (Cottage) Apartments. Joan and her parents, Herschel and Susanna Beatty, owners of the Banner Lumber Yard of Greenville, Ohio, built the Clear Lake Apartments on the lake’s north shore during the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, and which the family still operates to this day.

Larry worked in the engineering department of the Hillsdale, MI plant of the Chicago based conglomerate Allied Products Corporation. He became assistant manager of their Eaton Rapids, MI plant, commuting from Clear Lake. When Allied purchased some thirteen acres of the Studebaker Corporation in South Bend, Indiana, he supervised the operational start-up. Following that, he was promoted to corporate Vice-President of Manufacturing and Physical Resources for Allied.

Larry served the Town of Clear Lake for 13 years. Initially he was clerk treasurer and later served on the Board. When he retired in 1970, he was Chairman of the Board. He was instrumental in the hiring of a town marshal and many town improvements including the purchase of the Clear Lake Town Hall. Until then meetings were held at the various homes of the Board members and the clerk treasurer.

His retirement from the town board was due to his extensive traveling and assisting with Allied’s appropriations, maintenance and other improvements to the company’s almost forty diversified plants throughout The United States and Belgium. Allied's Atlanta, GA carpet mill plant was pictured in the exciting “buggy crossing the railroad while Atlanta burned” scene in the movie, Gone with the Wind.

In the mid 1970’s, Larry and wife Joan were half partners in the construction and development of Clear Lake’s Hazenhurst Shores Condominiums, one of the first condominium projects in Indiana. The condominiums were built on the former site of the historic Hazenhurst Hotel, which had closed a few years earlier.

Larry leaves behind grandchildren by son Mark and wife Elizabeth Ann (Barrett): Joseph, Susanna, and Michael; son, Alan and wife Teresa Jo (Moore), with children, Alexander, Jolena, Holly, and Jonathan; as well as great grandchildren by Joseph Barrett Hansbarger and Amanda Strong of Angola: with children Passion and Christopher.

Becoming winter residents of Corkscrew Woodlands in Estero, Florida (north of Naples) in the 1980s, Joan and Larry were active in the community, with Larry’s membership of the neighborhood’s “W.P.A.”, volunteering to improve the community with various projects.

Larry was in good health, was very vigorous, enjoyed computers (despite occasional comments to the contrary), worked in the family owned resort and real estate business, and loved flying. Unfortunately, his last new flying experience was the Samaritan helicopter flight from Angola’s Cameron Memorial Hospital to Parkview Memorial Hospital in Fort Wayne after he was stricken suddenly by a brain aneurysm on late Tuesday, July 20, 2004. He passed away on Friday afternoon, July 23, 2004, surrounded by his family.

Joan Hansbarger
300 Lake Drive Clear Lake
Fremont, IN 46737-9556
(260) 495-4335