COLUMBUS
Thomas “Tom” Harry Hartman, 90, of Columbus, passed away at home on Monday, December 12, 2022.
Tom served in the US Army as an armored tank mechanic from 1952-1954, followed by a job in the Continental Division of Ford Motor Company. He was proudest of his two next jobs in the 1960s working first as an engine machinist on Andy Granatelli’s Novi racecar and then for Carroll Shelby on the Ford Cobra, the one featured in the 2019 movie “Ford vs. Ferrari.”
In the late 1970s, he worked for inventor and entrepreneur, William Lear in Reno, Nevada, as head of engine build-up and testing. In the 1980s and until a disabling stroke in 1993, Tom machined prototype coin-handling parts for slot machine manufacturing companies. In addition to automobiles, Tom was fascinated by trains, airplanes, and antique farm engines, taking pictures of them at museums, shows, and swap meets. He also enjoyed photographing flowers, birds, and zoo animals.
Upon moving to Columbus in 2007, Tom joined the Bartholomew County Radio Controlled Fliers club and began collecting and tinkering with vintage scale model airplane engines.
Tom was born August 21, 1932, in Wayne, Michigan, the son of Harry Hartman and Eleanor Keehl Hartman. He is survived by his sisters Annette Vedder and Edith Zima, and his third wife since 1995, Cynthia Scott. Tom’s surviving children from previous marriages are Kim Hartman, Marie Kathleen Henri, John Hartman, and their daughters, Emma Henri, and Shelby Hartman.
Donations may be given to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbus, Indiana, or to the Bartholomew County Radio Controlled Fliers Club.
A celebration of life service will be scheduled on a later day.
Arrangements were entrusted to Jewell-Rittman Family Funeral Home.
