Harold Hargrove

Harold Hargrove

July 25, 1921 – January 27, 2025

Harold Hargrove, 103 years young, of Sweeny, Texas, passed peacefully in his sleep on Monday, January 27th, 2025 in Sweeny, Texas. 

Born to Oma and Jesse Hargrove in San Augustine, Texas on July 25th, 1921, Harold was the 2nd of eight children, raised in the piney woods of East Texas. As a child and later as a young man he worked on the family farm, learned to fish (his favorite pastime) in the Sam Rayburn Reservoir, as well as other local lakes, ponds and rivers, picked cotton, worked at the local lumber mill and various other jobs available to a youth of the that era. 

When the country joined World War II, Harold joined the country in the fight, serving in the U.S. Navy as a pilot trainee until his training was cut short by a debilitating illness, followed by months of convalescence in the Santa Cruz Naval Hospital. Ultimately, he received his honorable discharge, enrolling at Stephen F. Austin College in Nacogdoches, Texas shortly after, where he obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Literature.

It was while attending Stephen F. Austin that he met his future love and wife, Sylvia Helpenstell, in Nacogdoches. After a brief courtship, circumstances pulled them in different directions for a period until fate eventually determined they were made for each other. Marriage, newborn daughter, Rebecca, and a job at Phillips Petroleum soon followed, where Harold proceeded to fleece his co-workers on a regular basis in the weekly poker games at the company clubhouse. By all accounts, being a kind and gentle soul, (as many have described Harold through the decades) he generally avoided the ire of those whose financial losses may have precipitated the occasional dust-up were he a lesser gentleman. Case in point, at least one speeding ticket was narrowly avoided by Harold’s 2nd child, Roy, one late night in West Columbia, Texas due to the officer - upon learning the identity of the young boy’s father – musing, “Harold Hargrove, eh? He took more than one of my paychecks years ago! Good man, your Dad. Now, get out of here and slow the hell down.” 

Drawing on his literary degree, Harold penned his first novel over the course of a few years during the late 80’s, holding-off on its self-publication until some years later after his mother, Oma Hargrove, had passed. As the mostly non-fiction account of the Hargrove family escapades during Harold’s Prohibition and Depression-era youth in San Augustine contained an eyebrow-raising narrative or two, (one allegedly involving his uncle, father and the skillful production of intoxicating beverages) he thought it best to avoid the potentially uncomfortable conversation with Mom about oversharing. 

Harold spent the better part of two decades with Phillips Petroleum, much of it as a foreman carpenter, before owning his own convenience store, later working for Brown and Root Construction and finally spending his last years before retirement driving a Yellow Cab in Houston, Texas. 

Retirement for Harold involved an array of challenging and fulfilling tasks such as wade-fishing for Speckled Trout in the Gulf of Mexico, fishing the jetties at Surfside and Quintana beaches for Speckled Trout and night-fishing on the Colorado River…for Speckled Trout, of course. Other hobbies and interests included in no particular order: reading many hundreds of paperback western novels, picking and selling hundreds of pounds of pecans any year there was a crop worth picking, riding his bicycle around the expansive Sweeny Metropolitan area, proudly maintaining his house of 56 years, cooking and eating an incredible variety of sausage, and fishing. He was, above all else, a master fisherman, capable of coaxing a trout from its home with far greater ease and consistency than his son ever was. This, no man could deny. 

In his later years after Sylvia, his much-beloved wife of 59 years, passed, his daughter, Rebecca, ultimately became his care-giver in the last years of what amounted to a pretty dang astounding life of 103 times around the sun. 

In addition to his wife, Sylvia, Harold was preceded in death by brother Jacko Hargrove and sisters Johnnie Vivian Cloud, Dorothy “Baby Jane” Butterfras, Carrie “Tootsie” Hearn and Omagene Hargrove. 

Harold is survived by brother, Jesse Jean Hargrove and his wife Sammye, sister, Lu Ann Campbell, daughter, Rebecca Hargrove, son, Roy Hargrove and his wife Grace, granddaughter Kamri Rodriguez, her husband, Adam, great granddaughter Iris Luna Rodriguez, and a host of nieces, nephews and their children. 

To make a long story a little shorter, everyone loved the old man. He truly was a kind and gentle soul and never had a cross word to say about anyone unless they deserved it, which in his eyes was exceedingly rare. He will be sorely missed. Say hi to Mom for us all, Dad.