Charles Hartung

By the time he was 85 years old, my kind and generous dad, Charles Edward Hartung, had known for many, many months that he was living on borrowed time. Finally, on a recent spring evening, his weary body succumbed to the ravages of diabetes and renal failure. He is survived by me, his only child, Shelley Ellis, of Billings; his well-loved grandson, Adam Ellis of Brookyn, NY; one sister, Genevieve Barnes of Tacoma, Washington; and several nieces and nephews, particularly Tom, Jeanine, Ron, and Lois, who offered strength to me as I struggled to write this obituary. My dad experienced very few regrets in his adventurous life and left behind hundreds of friends. Please forgive me if I have neglected to mention any friends and family members who loved my dad. Chuck, as most folks knew him, was born February 20, 1934 to Adam Hartung and Margaret Henry, the last of eight kids (a "Depression baby" as he told me he was called). For much of his young life, he worked hard, along with his parents and siblings, in the fields of eastern Montana, thinning and weeding sugar beets. My dad told me that he got his sense of humor from his mother, Margaret, whom he always recalled with love. He made it to the end of the eighth grade and then lit out for the territories at 16. He was blessed with an organic intelligence and a strong work ethic, so after apprenticing himself for several years to men wiser than himself about machines and cars, he started up his own business, Hartung Motor Exchange, in Billings in 1964. He operated this successful business for more than thirty-five years. Then he attempted to retire, but he was still happily grinding crankshafts at the age of eighty-three. My dad did high-quality work, was trusted by his customers, and never short-changed anyone. He also kept his machine shop ridiculously clean, and when I was a kid, it was my job to scrub the bathroom. My dad could not stand a grubby bathroom. Hartung Motor Exchange was bought by dad's excellent friend, Ken Dvorak, and is now Hartung Engine Shop. Ken and his family are some of the dearest people in this world. After dad sort of/kind of finally retired, he took up golf with the same passion that he had taken up everything else he'd loved in his life--bowling, billiards, precise machine work--and made a bunch of new buddies, foremost of whom was his best friend, Ken Lanning. These five or six golfers had more fun than any group of guys should have. I golfed with these fellas for a few years but I was dreadful at it, so I caddied for dad as he aged and grew more frail. I should mention that when dad was quite young, he lost his left eye due to an accident, which meant that he had absolutely no depth perception. The human brain is an amazing organ, however, so dad was eventually able to function as if he had two healthy eyes, for the most part. He regularly golfed in the low 90's, not bad for an 80-plus-year-old guy with diabetes and renal failure and one eye. My dad is predeceased by his smart and talented wife of 65 years, Helen Marie Standish. When my mom died in August of 2018, dad's health deteriorated rapidly. He and mom had been best friends since they were both 20 years old, and he was unable to continue living without his pretty bride. Nine months after her death, he became stardust as well. Dad came from a large family, as was common in the 30's, and six of his brothers and sisters died before him: Ray, Floyd, Robert ("Bill"), Adam Jr., (his grandson's namesake), Elsie, and Dorothy. Only his sweet sister Genevieve survives. I'd like to extend a great deal of gratitude to the nurses, volunteers, and other staff at Riverstone Hospice Home for their loving care during my dad's final, difficult days. They were consistently attentive to his needs and kept him warm and free of pain right to the end. A memorial gathering will be held at a future date to be determined. Dad was a remarkable man whose life meant something special to those who knew him and whose death reminds us to hold those we care for close and tell them we love them every day. Albert Einstein said, "We are slowed down sound and light waves, a walking bundle of frequencies turned into the cosmos. We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music." We all live on borrowed time.