Photos courtesy of John McHenry, Camp Hill
Ira R. McHenry was born on the 22nd of March in the year 1913 in Benton to Jay McHenry and Irene Fox McHenry. He was their firstborn. His three younger siblings preceded him in death--lively Jack who was a pilot missing in action in World War II, his beloved sister Betty, and his brother James, who just died in May of this year. Ira grew up with a hands-on knowledge of death. Death in the natural world of plants and animals and death in the human world, as his father was an undertaker in Benton and Ira sometimes assisted in the business.
Ira's daughter, Irene, started the touching eulogy for her father in this fashion at a memorial service for him Saturday in Elizabethtown. Because Ira so closely matches the strong stock that comes from the upper Fishingcreek Valley, we thought it fitting to paraphrase some of the thoughts Irene so eloquently expressed when she said her last good-bys. We'll tell you some of the stories that she shared. We hope that you enjoy them.
In the eulogy for Ira McHenry, daughter Irene reminded those in attendance that Ira was cheerful, balanced and optimistic, saying that he genuinely liked people and was interested in everything unique about people. Ira was a ceramics teacher at the senior center in Danville for 16 years. He made his "own bread, yogurt and herbal remedies; he learned tai chi and taught it to others. He loved science fiction, never missing an episode of Twilight Zone." He calculated biorhythms of his family. He meditated with his biofeedback machine from Radio Shack. Irene remembers that their house was filled with Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines. Ira helped Irene design and sew a prizewinning kite for a fifth grade project. He built a complete stereo system for the house from scratch. He built lava lamps and other lighting gear for son John's rock and roll band in the late 60's.
Irene told the assembled family and friends at the Sell Chapel at the Masonic Home in Elizabethtown that "Ira developed a sixth sense with animals, no doubt from weeks of sleeping with baby chicks during his high school animal husbandry project, from driving the cows home after school every day, from accompanying his father on many hunting trips with the dogs, especially the coon hounds and their incredible night maneuvers. If Ira had raised horses, Irene contended, he would have been a horse whisperer. As it was, Ira was a dog whisperer, a cat whisperer, a snake whisperer, a bear whisperer. He had an unending fascination with and love for animals and nature."
Ira wrote a regular column for The Danville News during his retirement years. In an article titled "Love Affair with Nature Gone Wild" Ira told several stories.
Here is one of Ira McHenry's stories about snakes, and we'll tell it in Ira's own words.
"One of my most interesting snake experiences occurred as an adult. We had taken our daughter to a church camp for a week's outing and were out of the car and talking with some friends. I was standing near a tall hemlock tree and noticed a large black snake coming down a limb. Oh yes, they can climb trees. This one had been robbing a bird's nest of eggs or newly hatched young. I reached up and took the end of the limb in my hand. The four-foot black snake continued down over my arms and body and into the grass, assuming that I was part of the tree."
Ira's daughter, Irene, remembers her cousin Jim telling about riding in the back seat of Ira's car when he encountered a live snake on the ledge by the rear window. Irene said that Jim has been afraid of snakes ever since!
Another story about Ira, which we caution readers never to try to duplicate, involved a black bear looking for something to eat. Ira grabbed a couple boxes of hot dogs and started breaking them into pieces and tossing them to the large bear. Ira wrote that he "squatted down and she took a couple of steps closer and laid down in from of me like a dog. It was a completely unbelievable action. She began eating hot dogs out of my hand, as I fed them to her one by one. Then she began to leave. I saw her go to a tree and go up it just like a monkey. On the first limb, about 25 feet off the ground, I saw that she had told her cubs to stay up in the tree until she came back. Is it any wonder nature is so fascinating? God has given all the animals of creation, large and small, the ability to communicate with their own species."
Ira got his love of hunting naturally. His grandfather, Ira, and his father, Jay, both were avid hunters. At the rear of the property containing Jay McHenry's funeral home, there were dog pens everywhere to support all the hunting dogs the family kept.
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Photos courtesy of John McHenry, Camp Hill |
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Ira Ricketts McHenry (1844-1934) |
Another picture from 1912, showing the bear from the picture on the left and several deer shot during the same hunting season. Ira McHenry is shown on the right. The picture is believed to have been taken behind what is now the drug store in Benton, where the McHenry family had a barn. |
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| Notice the fedora hat (A soft felt hat that is creased lengthwise down the crown and pinched in the front on both sides.) on Mr. McHenry, as well as the hunting attire in both pictures. | ||
Irene at the eulogy for her father, reminded Ira's many friends and his family that he "was not only a keen observer and passionate lover of nature, he was also a curious, lifelong learner" which combined to make him a very good teacher for everyone. Ira taught his daughter about being in the woods with a baby after she ran out of spare diapers that sphagnum moss will work in a crisis for a diaper change. On a fishing trip at the seashore, Ira harvested what he called "wild sea asparagus," cooked it for dinner and ate it. Irene remembers that was when "we learned that Dad had some mysterious communion with nature that kept him from getting sick, while others did get sick from eating it." Ira demonstrated to his children that on the summer solstice, an uncooked egg can be balanced upright on the table. He invented gourmet wilderness dishes: with a bunch of elderberries, "you can cook up a fine blackberry pie over the campfire with a bit of flour and bacon grease."
Donald Rabb remembers the new gadgets Ira always had. Don remembered one of them that is now quite common, "but back in those early years it was a forerunner. He had a small, flat, bright flash light with elastic bands on it to make a sort of head lamp so he could fish for catfish at night and see to bait his hook." Ira delighted in showing Donald a "new gadget just about every time we were together." Ira had all kinds of survival items in case he became lost in the woods, which proved to be a very handy thing the night that he was really lost about 10 years ago.
Ira loved his computer, a Commodore, and Donald Rabb remembers that Ira had a Commodore about eight years before Donald got his first computer. Ira loved the data-base feature and made lists of Painter Den members and used them to check off attendance at work days and other meetings. He always made the ballots for voting. Don remembers that one of the unique things he made was a list of all the groceries he usually shopped for at the market in Danville. He had vertical columns marked off where he could find each item in each numbered isle and on which side of the isle and the number of the shelf where the item was located. Another column was to put a check mark for each item that he wanted that particular day. He claimed that it cut down greatly on the time it took him to shop for groceries.
Ira loved his family, nature, and, of course, computers and new gadgets of all kinds. His family witnessed his love every time they gathered around a table for a meal. Irene remembers that "He would say the blessing with tears of awe in his eyes. He thanked the Creator for the bounty of the food, the love of family, the beauty of nature and asked God to help us be of service in this world."
A few years ago at Painter Den Club, Ira was sitting in the woods when Wilbur Kocher noticed a flock of turkeys slowing making their way toward them. Ira agreed to "take a shot," and loaded a couple of shells from his gun that had been handed down from his grandfather Ira. He slowly raised the gun and balanced it on a cooperating horizontal plane that he found. His aged hands trembled slightly and his deteriorating eyesight obviously was a problem. When he finally pulled the trigger, the bullet meandered out of the barrel of the gun and fell harmlessly a few hundred feet in front of Ira. It turns out that Ira was using his grandfather's bullets and they had completely lost their oomph!
Ira and Lois met on a neighborhood dance floor in Benton 64 years ago. Their relationship survived Ira's wartime years in Italy and North Africa. After Lois moved to the Masonic Village, she and Ira saw each other frequently. Lois rode the shuttle to Ira's nursing care building and always carried with her a Hershey chocolate bar, which he promptly devoured, even though his allergies to chocolate made him sneeze. The couple would conclude each visit by singing a phrase to each other from one of their favorite courting songs: "I love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck." Today, Lois carries on that unending love by singing that little tune at the end of her phone calls with her children.
I love you a bushel and peck
A bushel and peck and a hug around the neck
A hug around the neck and a barrel and a heap
A barrel and a heap and I'm talking in my sleep
About you, about you
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A service of Thanksgiving for the life of Ira Ricketts McHenry (March 22, 1913-November 24, 2005), formerly a resident of Benton, York and Danville, was held Saturday at Masonic Village, Elizabethtown, the place he had called home for one year, two months and one week. The memory of Ira was surrounded by his wife, Lois, and children Irene and John, their spouses, family members and friends. Ira's son John accompanied much of the music by playing the djembay and Irene led a service of remembrance in which Ira's many contributions of service to each community in which he lived was remembered. Tom Morris, Ira's nephew by marriage, reminded those in the John S. Sell Chapel that "every man dies, but not every man lives." Tom reminded everyone of how Ira had lived. Internment service will be held at the Benton Cemetery on Saturday, April 1, 2006.
Ira Ricketts McHenry, 92, formerly of Benton, York and Danville, died November 24, 2005, surrounded by family at Masonic Village, Elizabethtown, PA. Born on March 22, 1913, in Benton, Ira was the eldest son of the late James Whurley "Jay" McHenry and Irene Fox McHenry. Surviving are Ira’s wife of 63 years, Lois Fine McHenry, living at Masonic Village; daughter Irene Elizabeth McHenry and her husband Randy Granger, Philadelphia; son John Jay McHenry and his wife Marsha, Camp Hill; grandsons Michael McHenry Koehler and Matthew Blair McHenry; and step-grandchildren Gordon and Willa Granger. Ira was preceded in death by brothers James and Jack, and sister Elizabeth "Betty" Phillips.
Ira graduated from Benton High School in 1932, and Rochester Business School in New York.
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Ira was a WWII veteran, serving in the Army finance corps in Italy and North Africa. Photo courtesy of John McHenry, Camp Hill |
After retiring as a contract administrator at Allis Chalmers in York, Ira was a school bus driver for Northeastern School District, Manchester, PA.
He was a member of the Benton Christian Church; a Master Mason of 44 years at Zeredatha Lodge No. 451, York; an honorary lifetime member of Painter Den Club; and a former member of the board of directors of the Columbia/Montour Area Agency on Aging with training at Temple University as a volunteer ombudsman. Ira enjoyed serving as a volunteer with the Laubach Literacy Program and as an active member of the Danville Senior Center where he was a ceramics teacher for 16 years. He wrote a regular bi-monthly column for Seniority Matters, in the Press-Enterprise, Bloomsburg. Ira was also an avid hunter, fisherman, nature lover, and cook. His unceasing desire to learn included special interests in astronomy, history, photography, natural foods, music, electronics, computers, art, religion and all manner of gadgets.
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The McHenry family house as it looked "then" (before 1910) and as it looks today |
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In this picture, the house was used as a funeral home. The main entrance was straight ahead into a living room. The stairs to the second floor made a 45° turn from the living room to go to the second floor. Funerals were conducted in the room on the right side of the house. |
In this picture, the house has mixed use, with commercial on the first floor. There is an apartment on the second floor which is reached from the outside and up an inside stairway. The building is adjacent to the D.R. QuickMart, Main Street. | |
