Harry J. Moyer, 1918-2012: Longtime mayor served Lima

11/1/2012

LIMA, Ohio — Harry J. Moyer, the city’s sec­ond-lon­gest-serv­ing mayor and its first to serve three terms, died Tues­day in Shawnee Manor Nurs­ing Home. He was 94.

He had sur­gery af­ter suf­fer­ing a bro­ken hip and was in fail­ing health the last month or so, his daugh­ter, Kaye Win­er­man, said.

Mr. Moyer was mayor of Lima from 1974 to 1985 and coun­cil pres­i­dent the pre­vi­ous four years.

“Harry was first and fore­most an ad­vo­cate for the city of Lima, whether it was for busi­nesses that were here or busi­nesses that were look­ing to come to Lima,” said John Nixon, the cur­rent pres­i­dent of coun­cil. “He was very pro­ac­tive and pos­i­tive about the Lima com­mu­nity.”

He was a fa­mil­iar fig­ure be­fore he ran for of­fice. For de­cades, he was pro­pri­etor on Mar­ket Street of Harry Moyer’s Lug­gage Shop, which also sold fine leather goods, jew­elry, and gift items. He served on a com­mit­tee of busi­ness and civic lead­ers that per­suaded Ohio State Univer­sity to build a cam­pus in Lima, his son-in-law, Dr. Mark Win­er­man, said.

The shop was his live­li­hood, and “he en­joyed be­ing with peo­ple,” his son-in-law said. “It was an op­por­tu­nity to meet them and hear their sto­ries. It was his life, re­ally, and I think that’s how he got into pol­i­tics. He be­came a leader in a lot of dif­fer­ent civic or­ga­ni­za­tions and from there into a po­lit­i­cal ca­reer.”

David Berger, the cur­rent mayor who was first elected in 1989 and is now Lima’s lon­gest-serv­ing leader, called Mr. Moyer “a very suc­cess­ful com­mu­nity pro­moter,” not­ing his in­volve­ment in a down­town streetscape plan and the de­vel­op­ment of the Veter­ans Me­mo­rial Civic and Con­ven­tion Center of Lima and Al­len County.

“He was a pos­i­tive, up­beat guy,” Mr. Berger said. “He had a real sense for peo­ple and the re­tail busi­ness and brought that to bear on his job as the mayor.”

Mr. Moyer closed his store to take the full-time job of mayor. He was cred­ited for his work to at­tract the de­fense di­vi­sion of Chrysler Corp. to the tank plant in Lima.

Mr. Moyer, de­feated by four votes in 1985, at­tempted a come­back against Mr. Berger in 1989, but he did not win re-elec­tion.

When Mei­jer opened in Feb­ru­ary, 1993, he be­gan greet­ing cus­tom­ers, who called him “Mayor Moyer,” his son-in-law said. “People from the en­tire re­gion were fa­mil­iar with him.”

He was born in 1918, in New York to Ger­trude and Max Moyer, and the fam­ily moved to De­ca­tur, Ind. He was a grad­u­ate of De­ca­tur High School. He was an Army Air Corps vet­eran of World War II, serv­ing in En­gland and North Africa.

After­ward, Mr. Moyer worked in the lug­gage de­part­ment of a Fort Wayne, Ind., de­part­ment store. He mar­ried the for­mer Val­ette Kaye on Jan. 13, 1946, and he opened a lug­gage busi­ness in Lima.

His wife died April 5, 2006. Their son, Steven, died pre­vi­ously.

Sur­viv­ing are his daugh­ter, Kaye Win­er­man; sis­ters, Dol­ores and Frances, and three grand­chil­dren.

Ser­vices will be pri­vate. Ar­range­ments are by Chiles-Laman Funeral & Cre­ma­tion Ser­vices, Lima.

The fam­ily sug­gests trib­utes to the Amer­i­can Heart As­so­ci­a­tion; St. Rita’s Med­i­cal Center Hos­pice, Lima, or the Alz­hei­mer’s As­so­ci­a­tion.

Con­tact Mark Zabor­ney at: mzabor­ney@the­blade.com or 419-724-6182.