John Hake Sr.

John Ray Hake was born on Sunday, March 21, 1937, just south of New Castle in the rural area of North Beaver Township, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania. He was the tenth child born to George Hartman Hake and Margaret Matilda (Doutt) Hake, both of whom were descended from German immigrants. George and Margaret had met in the New Castle area, were married in December 1914, and started a large family. The Hake’s lived at various locations in North Beaver Township and Mahoningtown, before purchasing a farm in 1925 along the northern banks of Hickory Creek near an area known as Willow Grove.

John was born on the farm as the country was slowly beginning to claw its way out of the Great Depression. In June 1939, when John was age two, the last of the Hake children, a daughter named June Ilene, was born. The hard economic times caught up with John’s father George and he was forced to sell off the farm by early 1938. The neighbors attempted to help out financially but there was little anybody could do to save the farm. The Hake family moved into a house about a mile north at #502 Montgomery Avenue Extension on the extreme southern edge of Mahoningtown. This house sat on the southwest corner of the intersection of Routes 18 and 108, exactly where the bridge on Route 108/Mount Jackson Road currently spans the Mahoning River.

As the 1940’s approached the United States was immersed in isolationism and concerned with economic recovery at home. Things changed dramatically on December 7, 1941, when Japanese forces attacked the American fortress at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. As John was beginning his schooling two of his brothers, Robert and Paul, were serving or soon serving in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Many of his siblings were older and while growing up John probably spent a lot of time with brothers Fred and Dale. One odd job that John held was helping his dad with the harvesting of honey and beeswax from his collection of about two dozen bee hives located in an apiary behind the house. John and his siblings enjoyed spending the summer months in a public swimming hole called “Stone Wall” located behind their old farm.

During his school years John attended the Mahoning Public School (grades 1-2), Mount Jackson Public School (grades 3-7), Butler Area Junior High School (grade 7), Mahoning Public School (grade 8-9), and then New Castle Senior High School (grades 11-12). In early May 1955, when John was finishing up the eleventh grade, his father was killed in a tragic railroad accident in Mahoningtown. The next year John graduated from Ne-Ca-Hi along with 545 other seniors during a ceremony on Monday, June 4, 1956.

Upon graduation John went to work for the New Wilmington Telephone Company before enlisting in the U.S. Air Force in September 1956. He underwent basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and then attended Radio Operations School at Kessler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. His first assignment was to Misawa Air Base, a joint-services air base located on the northern portion of Honshu, Japan. In the Far East he took part in Cold War operations while serving as a radio/radar operator and intercepting classified message traffic. He also did a ninety-day airborne stint ferrying supplies to American-backed Chinese Nationalist forces in Formosa (now Taiwan).

His next duty station was at Bossier Air Force Base in Shreveport, Louisiana. During this stop John met Carol Alene Bacon, who was from Texas and would become his wife within a few years. Carol became pregnant with their first child in about June 1960. A few months later, in September, John completed his military service and was discharged as an airmen first class. John and Carol were separated for a while after this. She moved to San Antonio, Texas, while he moved back up to New Castle to stay with his mom. John’s first child, James Dean, was born in San Antonio in March 1961.

John had trouble finding work upon returning to New Castle and took an exam for the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. Before long he was called to undergo a two-week orientation and was sworn as a D.C. police officer on January 2, 1962. Carol soon joined him and they initially lived in an apartment on Mississippi Avenue in southeast D.C. They were married in a church in Fairfax, Virginia, on February 12, 1962. Another son, David Wayne, was born in July 1963. They moved around several times in the D.C. area and eventually lived in Landover, Maryland. John and Carol soon began to experience marital issues as Carol became homesick being so far from Texas.

In mid-1965, while Carol was pregnant again, John decided to move his family back to Texas in an attempt to save his marriage. They moved to Carol’s hometown of Liberty, Texas, and John found work as a police officer in nearby Houston. A son named John Ray Jr. was born in August 1965. Over the next few years their marriage continued to deteriorate and they separated in about 1970. They were officially divorced on July 19, 1971.

Meanwhile, in the midst of all that, John’s mother Margaret, who was in general failing health, moved down to Texas to live with him. Her health quickly worsened and she soon took up residence in a nearby nursing home. She suffered a massive stroke and passed away in September 1969. Her remains were returned home to western Pennsylvania for burial next to her husband.

John soon met Carol Ann Johnson while working a part time job as the head of security at Mercantile Bank in Houston. Carol worked in the collections department and eventually served as a vice president. They started dating and were married at Willow Meadows Baptist Church in Houston on October 12, 1972. At about the same time John was promoted to start working in the Criminal Intelligence Division, working in various departments involving white collar crimes, dignitary protection, burglary, vice, and narcotics.

John retired from the Houston Police Department in 1992 and went to work for the Harris County (TX) Constable’s Office helping seize properties so ordered by the courts. He absolutely hated the work and resigned after about eighteen months on the job. John and Carol, who had retired in 1991, bought their first RV and traveled extensively for the next five years. John went back to work as a police officer for the Veteran’s Administration (VA) in about 1997. He attended the VA’s Law Enforcement Training Center (LETC) in North Little Rock, Arkansas, before being employed as a police supervisor in Houston. With his military and police officer service time he was able to retire for good in 2001.

John and Carol still live in a townhouse on Brompton Street in southwest Houston, where they moved to back in 1983, and enjoy spending their free time traveling around the country in what is now their third RV.