After her parents divorced, Candace “Candy” Craig spent every other weekend with her father, Jerry Hart, at his Hillsboro home.
“We hung out and would go to Spinning Wheels (skating rink) on Friday nights,” she said. “But my dad didn’t just drop me off; he went in with me. He was the coolest person in the place – all the other kids wanted to be around him. He was just fun.”
Mr. Hart died April 3 of a heart attack, at age 72. He had been a helicopter pilot and a local musician.
He grew up in St. Charles, the son of a preacher and a homemaker. As teens, he and his sister, Kay, sang and played in venues around the area.
He was married shortly after graduating from St. Charles High School and had a son, Dale. He went to sign up for the military in 1969 only to find he had been drafted.
“He hadn’t gotten the letters,” Candy said with a laugh. “When he went to sign up, they said, ‘Hmm…we’ve been looking for you.’”
He was trained as a helicopter pilot and flew nearly 900 hours of combat missions in Vietnam, earning a Bronze Star for meritorious service.
“He talked about how beautiful the countryside was as he flew over it, with all the different colors of rice fields,” Candy said.
He was never wounded in battle, but did bring back a scar from the war.
“He said the American soldiers would have cigarette packs in their chest pockets, and these little Vietnamese boys would try to steal them,” Candy said. “They would have razor blades between their fingers, and they’d slap the soldiers’ chests to cut open the pocket and get to the cigarettes.
“It happened to my dad, but he didn’t have a cigarette pack; he had a New Testament Bible, and the razor slid off and cut him.”
Back in the States, Mr. Hart was divorced. He met Candy’s mother while he was stationed at Fort Benning, Ga., and they were married in 1975. Candy came along the following year.
“Dad stayed in the military until 1981,” she says.
The couple bought a house in Hillsboro and Mr. Hart went to work for Fostaire Helicopters in St. Louis.
“Don Miller was the traffic person for KMOX radio/TV, and Dad was his pilot,” Candy said. “They did live reports all around the area on a daily basis. I remember sitting at Don’s desk when I was a little girl.”
Mr. Hart was divorced again in 1986, but remained close to his daughter, who lived in House Springs with her mom and stepdad.
Candy said despite his crazy sense of humor, her father was an excellent pilot.
“Flying with him was really fun,” she said. “When I was really little, he flew with a trapeze artist named Dave Merrifield in a Sky, Ski and Stage show in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. Dad piloted a helicopter with a trapeze hanging below it, and Dave would get down there and do tricks like hanging by his teeth.
“Dad would make one pass around the lake, then swoop in real low so Dave almost touched the water. It was awesome. They did three shows a day, seven days a week from May to September.”
Later, Mr. Hart flew narrated scenic tours in the St. Louis metro area, as well as safety flights.
“He also flew power line patrols to inspect the wires, towers, connections. And he flew pipelines in remote areas, looking for leaks, vandalism and soil erosion,” she said.
Mr. Hart flew Sen. John Danforth on a campaign tour in spring of 1982 and piloted the helicopter that held a cameraman shooting footage for an episode of American Sportsman that summer.
Around 1990, his health issues began to intensify. In addition to suffering from diabetes and the effects of exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam, he had several heart attacks, his daughter said.
“He gave up flying in 1992,” Candy said. “I know that was very hard for Dad.”
He drove a schoolbus for a while, then operated a repo business for a short time with his wife, Jean, who he had married in 1990. Triple bypass surgery in 2004 slowed him down considerably.
“But then, he basically spent the remainder of his life playing music,” Candy said.
Music had been a thread through his entire life, from the long-ago performances with his sister through his time in Vietnam, when he was commended by a major for his “contribution to the welfare and morale of his unit” with his “foot-stomping music.”
In retirement, he formed a band that played country and gospel in many places around the area.
“If he felt bad, he didn’t talk about it,” Candy said. “We all knew he had issues, but he was still going strong. He was always trying to do things for other people.”
He was working on repairing a tractor at church when the end came.
“His wife was sitting in the car, and she dropped something and bent over to pick it up,” Candy said. “She said when she straightened back up, he was slumped over. It happened just like that.”
“There’s an old quote that goes, ‘There are no strangers; only friends you haven’t met.’ That’s how he lived his life, just making friends with everybody. He touched so many lives.”
“Life Story,” posted each Saturday on Leader Publications’ website, focuses on one individual’s impact on his or her community.