Ernie was born at the Naval Air Station on Chincoteague Island, Virginia, where his father, Ernest S. Tharpe, Sr. (who retired a Navy Captain, having served aboard the USS Bunker Hill in the war in the Pacific), was stationed after the war.
Ernie’s father and mother, Sarah McCall Tharpe, were both of Moultrie, Georgia, where Ernie’s two grandfathers ran a mule trading business and a general store, and where the high school stadium is still named for Mack Tharpe, his father’s brother, a former assistant football coach at Georgia Tech, where he coached Ernie’s father and uncle.
Ernie was many things: husband to his wife of 52 years, Kathy (Surratt) Tharpe; father to his son Shaw (Ernest S. Tharpe III, of Avon, Connecticut) (Lori); brother to his two sisters, Sally Tharpe Rowles, of Charleston, South Carolina (Ben), and Susie Tharpe Click, of Atlanta (Clyde), and his brother Sandy, previously of St. Simons Island, Georgia, who predeceased him; grandfather to three step-grandchildren; uncle to seven nieces and nephews. He was honest and loyal, a friend to many with a wonderful sense of humor who brought laughter to many gatherings. Ernie was a gifted athlete in his youth, a champion at tennis and squash, which he taught to son Shaw, who became a tennis professional. Ernie was a lover of sports – which ran on two televisions at all hours in his home office to the end.
A 1972 graduate of the University of South Carolina (where he met and married Kathy), Ernie loved the South Carolina coast and spent many holidays in the Low Country, including many Thanksgivings where the traditional feast was preceded by Ernie’s own Low Country Boil. He was a highly skilled cook of southern cuisine (which he and Kathy enjoyed together), in a family of highly skilled cooks; a grill master (until the deck caught fire); the maker of the best homemade sangria, the best shrimp and grits. For a time he was also a banker (at the former Citizens & Southern National Bank in Atlanta), like his father and uncle before him. For a time he was a repo man, then a floor plan financer of new car dealers.
Ernie served as a supremely devoted son and (utilizing his skills acquired in banking) financial adviser to his mother from the time of his father’s death in 1988 until the time of her death in 2015, at 91. His mother always said he was a “beautiful baby,” which was hard to imagine when he weighed 225 pounds. She also said she was certain he would become a preacher (he did not).
Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.hmpattersonOglethorpe.com for the Tharpe family.
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