David Dwight Harshbarger, 82, died on Dec. 5, 2020, in Morgantown. He certainly expected to live longer. A full obituary appeared in this newspaper on Dec. 13, 2020 and can still be read on the Hastings Funeral Home website.
The evolving conditions of the COVID pandemic strained our ability to plan a larger community celebration of his life, so we will forego that formality. Honoring Dwight’s request, a small group of local family and friends donned masks and gathered outdoors for a Buddhist ceremony soon after his passing. In mid-October, half of his ashes will be returned to the Harshbarger family cemetery plot in Milton, where he was born and raised. The other half will be placed at the Hawks Nest Workers Memorial near Summersville.
Hundreds of workers who died of silicosis after drilling the Hawks Nest Tunnel rest in unmarked graves there. Dwight wrote “Witness at Hawks Nest,” historical fiction blending a few characters he created with well-researched facts, to chronicle this dark episode in West Virginia history. While we return his ashes to two places that held deep meaning for him, we invite those who knew Dwight to meet a friend for coffee and share a story about him. Dwight would have liked that much better than a formal celebration of his life.
