October 7, 1926 - March 8, 2021
John Frederick Hartman died March 8, 2021. He was born October 7, 1926 to Elsie Irene Lowry and Frederick Vincent Hartman in New Kensington, Pennsylvania.
Jack Hartman was a man with a dry sense of humor and had a way of choosing words that were profoundly straight to the point. When he first saw Mary (Jill) Nisbet walk into his San Francisco Alcoa Aluminum office in 1955 he said to himself, “That’s the one” and that was that. Once he convinced Jill, they built their family of five and enjoyed over 64 years together.
John grew up in New Kensington, Pennsylvania and St. Louis, Missouri with his parents, dear sister Dorothy, and various Scottie dogs throughout the years.
Having an early ear for music and a keen eye for detail, teenage Jack saw where a repairman hid the key to the Seeberg jukebox at the local malt shop. When nobody was looking he’d open it up to access the volume knob and turn up music to a level where it could truly be appreciated. That led to being a DJ in high school when he found that "a guy with a record collection and player could make a little extra money” playing music at dances.
Jack attended Principia High School in St. Louis Missouri, went to Colorado School of Mines, and then finished his degree and graduated from Washington University majoring in Architecture where he was a student of I. M. Pei.
Fresh out of college, Jack worked at J.C. Penny designing racking systems. He received a draft notice soon thereafter, and served in the US Army in Germany from 1950-1952. Jack went on to join Alcoa Aluminum following in his father’s footsteps who spent his career there as an engineer.
Jack married Jill (Mary Martin) Nisbet in 1956 and they spent a quintessential Southern California honeymoon driving their 1956 Bel Air Chevrolet down Pacific Coast Highway to the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego and back up past orange groves where they paid $1 admission each to visit a little newly-opened theme park in Garden Grove called Disneyland.
One of Jack’s lifelong interests was photography. As newlyweds he and Jill converted the bathroom of their first little apartment into a dark room where he developed prints taken with his favorite Leica camera. Jill being a talented artist and sculptor, the two of them enjoyed taking pottery classes together.
Jill had introduced Jack to skiing in their early dating years, and together they hit the slopes beginning in the mid-1950’s, later taking their kids with them on ski trips to Yosemite and Park City, Utah.
As young married couple Jack and Jill lived in Kent Woodlands near San Rafael, California. They moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where Jack designed & built their first house where their first child Sally was born. They were back out to California the following year where their second daughter Amy was born in Upland. By the time she was a year old they had moved to Rossmoor (Seal Beach/Orange County area) where they welcomed their son Jim to complete the family of five.
As a teenager Jack had enjoyed building a small sailboat with his dad, and when Jim was still in a baby carrier, Jack and Jill watched their new Jolly Roger 24’ sailboat lowered into the water. They christened it the Tiara, put Jimmy safely in the galley sink, let Sally and Amy crawl through the life jacket storage underneath the seating area at the stern (the girls learning to love the scent of fresh fiberglass for the rest of their lives) and they sailed the Tiara out around Balboa Bay and Newport, California.
Following his aluminum sales career with Pacific Extrusion, Jack moved the family up to Lucas Valley (Marin County) in 1967, and then in 1970 they moved down to San Diego where Jack fulfilled his dream of having his own company starting Combo Aluminum Products. Designing many of the products (astragals, thresholds and door frames), Jack’s 31 years of hard work built Combo into a ‘force’ in the building industry from the West Coast to Hawai’i.
While working many long days to get Combo started, Jack and Jill also designed and built a house in Granite Hills where they raised their high-schoolers. It gradually became a home base during their empty nest years as they enjoyed life and traveled to Europe, Hong Kong, Greece, British Virgin Isles, Hawai’i, and Tahiti. Jack loved to golf and frequented the nearby Singing Hills golf course with his friends.
Jack relished his spectacular HiFi and over the years through those hefty wooden cabinet speakers came classical, jazz, big band, and popular music namely Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Roger Miller, and Aaron Copland. He could sometimes be heard humming along with a voice that once sang in the choir back in his Wash U days.
He was a big fan of comedians Victor Borge and Stan Freberg’s LP records, as well as TV shows like Flip Wilson, Carol Burnett and the Muppets. He loved sharing these “classic” LP’s and shows with his grandkids through the years.
In later years, Jack and Jill left their Granite Hills home and lived briefly in La Jolla, finally settling in North County San Diego. In recent years their caregivers—who often caught them holding hands—they were known as the ‘Notebook-movie’ couple.
Jack and Jill spent their 50 and 60th wedding anniversaries surrounded by their children, their spouses and grandchildren in Kona, Hawai’i and at the Hotel Del Coronado, San Diego.
Looking back over the years Jack Hartman recently said “Jill is all I could ever want in a wife, and I thank God for such wonderful children and grandchildren. I don’t know when they’re going to pull the curtain, but I’ve had a good life.”
Jack is survived by his wife Jill, daughters Sally Morrow (son-in-law David Morrow), Amy Hartman, Jim Hartman (daughter-in-law Julie Hartman), and grandchildren (in order of age) Sophia Morrow, Keaton Hartman, Kyle Hartman, Miles Morrow, and Karson Hartman.
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