Prayers, please, for Duane Harbert & his wife

Prayers, please, for Mary Harbert, wife of Duane Harbert, Class of 1951, who has begun her life in an assisted living facility in the Marlton, New Jersey area where they have lived for decades.

Duane’s parents are former Thoburn School principal Frank Harbert and former Worthington Grade School teacher Goldie Harbert, both deceased.

Duane and Mary’s sons are James, David and the late Tom Harbert, who passed away in 2014. Jimmy and wife Diane live in Taylor, Pennsylvania. David and wife Margie live in Stratford, New Jersey.

Duane is a long way from the days when he played as children with neighbor Joanne McDaniel and the late Theresa Demus, Class of 1950. Joanne still lives at the bottom of Kings Alley in Worthington.

Duane’s brother, John Harbert, Class of 1955, and his wife, Karen Colvin, also class of 1955, are deceased. They had four children. 

Siblings Ted, Farrell, Bill, Gerald, Paul, Phil and Eva Harbert are Duane's cousins. The children of Agnes Wood and Griff Harbert, who was Duane's dad's brother, were Monongah High graduates in the 1940s and 1950s.

Duane was part of another family during his Monongah High days, when he lived in Worthington. I facetiously called us The Gang That Terrorized Marion County.

We would gather nightly, either at the bus stop between the Tropea Grocery and Carlot’s Grill, or jumping into a car driven by Frank Franze, Class of 1950, who today lives in Slidell, Louisiana, which was owned by Frank’s father.

Others in the gang were the late Lawrence “Sonny” Godby, Lawrence and Regina Boone Godby’s son and the late Jackie Godby’s brother; Steven “Bucky” Satterfield, who lives in St. Albans after retiring from a long career as a West Virginia Highway Patrolman; Anthony “Tony” Eates, who is retired and living in Fairmont with wife Lucy; Robert “Satch” Kasper, who had a successful career sitting at the bargaining table for Ford Motor Company before retiring to his homes in South Lyon and Grand Lake (Presque Isle), Michigan; Donald “Jake” Halpenny, clarinetist supreme for United Mine Workers and Vingle bands, living in Fairmont; the late Joe Manzo, who survived the Korean war; the late Tom “Judge” Starcher, who began his prowling in Carolina; and me, the runt of the litter, who was the last one to jump into the Franze vehicles when it barely stopped moving as it went by our Church Street home and on to the latest adventures.

Obviously, Duane and I go back a long way and have a lot of history together, so it is particularly painful to learn of Mary’s situation.

If you want to contact Duane, who goes by his first name of Donald these days, his address is

Donald D. Harbert
222 Mill Road
Marlton, NJ 08053

His email address is donaldharbert@msn.com

His phone number is (856) 767-5807