Gary G. Hake

Gary George Hake was born on Friday, May 20, 1955, in Taylor Hospital in Ridley Park, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. He was the second of three children born to Robert “Bob” Hake and Dorothy Marie (Greisiger) Hake. His father Bob was born in New Castle in western Pennsylvania to parents of German ancestry. As a teenager he had moved down to Baltimore, Maryland, where he graduated from high school in about 1940 and subsequently served in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II. His mother Dorothy was from Clifton Heights near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where her parents had settled after emigrating from Germany in 1917. Bob and Dorothy, who had met during the war, were married in January 1946 and soon made their longtime home in Ridley Park.

While growing up in the Ridley Park area Gary attended Leedom Elementary School and Ridley Middle School. Gary was the middle child as he had two brothers named Robert, about nine years older, and Bryan, about ten years younger. During his high school years Gary attended Ridley Park Senior High and undertook practical training at the Delaware County Technical High School-Folcroft. He graduated in May 1973.

Gary took up residence in the Ridley Park area and after a while took up the occupation of a construction mason and served as an assistant construction supervisor. He started his own business as a professional landscaper in 1978. A few years later, in May 1981, he met his future wife Jori Leanne Harvey in a restaurant in Chichester, Pennsylvania. Jori was a 1977 graduate of Chichester Senior High School in Boothwyn and working in the mental health field. In fact she wrote to me in 2010 and said, “When I met Gary I was working in an acute care psychiatric facility - but it’s not where I met him! Ha ha.” They hit it off and eventually eloped on December 17, 1983. On that day they were married in a little wedding chapel on Main Street in Elkton, Maryland, as a handful of family and friends, including his and her parents, were on hand to witness the brief ceremony.

They initially resided at #731 Clymer Avenue in Ridley Park, a block away from Gary’s parents. They had a daughter named Jessica Evelyn (“Jess”) born in December 1985. In September 1986 they moved to a house at #4111 Mount Vernon Avenue in nearby Brookhaven, where a few years later, in May 1989, they had another child named Allyson Marie (“Ally”). Both of their girls attended elementary and middle school in the Penn-Delco School District. In about 1995 Gary closed up his self-employment business and went to work for Gordon Eadie Associates, a premier residential landscaping company located in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.

In 1998 the Hake’s moved west to Cochranville in Chester County and Gary soon took a job as a groundskeeper with the West Chester School District. Jori also returned to school. She earned several college degrees in the fields of Elementary Education and Special Education and continued in her pursuit of a Doctorate of Education degree. Their girls Jess and Ally both graduated from the Octorara Area High School in Atglen in 2004 and 2007 respectively. Gary and Jori continue to live in Cochranville.