Thelma Harshbarger

Thelma Harshbarger was a wife, mother, and grandmother. She was 93 years of age at the time of her death. She was born and raised in Pawnee, OK. She had known her husband of 72 years since she was a child, as he he hunted and fished with Thelma's brothers. Erwin passed away in 2012, and her son Brian Scott Harshbarger passed away in 2014. She is survived by her daughter Fannie May Harshbarger and her grandson, Jessin Thomas Cordry. Her mother was Fanny Spillers Bowman, and her father was Jim Bowman. She was born in 1931 and passed away on January 2, 2025 after a long fight with lung cancer. Thelma always put others first and loved taking care of friends and relatives. She loved to cook and try out new recipes, with the latest added just a few weeks ago, a lemon bunt cake recipe. She shared her recipes with whoever asked for them. When she was younger she entered many canned goods in the County Fair and brought home a number of blue ribbons. She also won a statewide women's roller skating contest for being the fastest woman on roller skates, winning a war bond. She loved traveling, and her favorite place to go on vacation was Red River, New Mexico. Most of those trips were camping events, with fresh trout as an occasional catch. As she and Erwin grew older the altitude proved to be too much for her high blood pressure, so they went to the canyonlands instead. She was always ready to go see new places. She loved dogs and had many over her lifetime. The most recent was a Yorkie named Skippy and a small dog named Ranger. She also loved to feed squirrels, rabbits, birds, and turtles, with 3 wild turtles coming back each year. They would liver under the steps each summer. Living in the country she was able to see many other animals fairly regularly, with deer, opossums, racoons, armadillos, and others. She loved to drive fast, and said any speed under 70 m.p.h. was boring. She was uniquely gifted at talking her way out of speeding tickets. Many nieces and nephews said she was a favorite aunt, always ready and willing to help out whenever she could. Several nephews lived with the Harshbarger family for weeks or months at a time. She started working at age 14 at Cheatham's Stores in Pawnee, and worked there for many years, along with her sister Ella Rankin, who was in charge of hardware, her sister Iva Karraker, who was in charge of the grocery store, her sister Nora Hatfield, who assisted in various departments. Thelma was in charge of several areas, which included dry goods, the jewelry counter, the fountain, candy counters, stationary, hosiery, and many other items. She worked at the Sweet Shop on the OSU Campus for a couple of years, decorating cakes and cookies. She came up some unique designs which were very popular, including a 3-D cheeseburger cake with lettuce, tomatoes, hamburger, and melted cheese on what appeared to be a sesame-seed bun. Another popular cake looked like a pair of blue jeans, complete with stitching on the pockets, sides, etc. She also baked and decorated wedding cakes at the shop and for several nieces, nephews and other relatives After the Sweet Shop she moved to Mercury Marine in Stillwater, where she worked for many years as a Quality Control Inspector, using gauges to measure tolerances in the parts to a thousandth of an inch. She was aware of the safety issues with any possibly bad parts in the engines and other parts of the boats, and was put into some departments to bring them up to standards. Twice she was flown to Mercury Marine Headquarters in Fon du Lac, Wisconsin on the company jet for her expertise on solving problems with various parts. Thelma enjoyed many tv programs, especially games shows, old movies, westerns, old tv shows, Survivor, the Bachelor, and many others with religious programs being her most favorite. When the new tv and antenna would not pick up her favorite religious programs she decided to keep the old one too, so she had 2 tvs she watched regularly. Thelma was a very religious person who prayed multiple time a day and for many people. She loved being and having prayer partners, as these people were very important to her. She read her Bibles frequently, along with daily inspiration and other similar books, and had a concordance that she used to look up the scriptures on many topics. She would make notes about what she was reading and how the wording was sometimes different in the different versions of the Bibles she had. The large print versions were much easier to read than her older Bibles. She loved Jesus and God and has gone to be with them.

Thelma has gone but will not be forgotten.