"Professor Harry Halle"

WrWritten by Joy Dun Shoemaker

The Sabina area has been blessed with at least two outstanding artists in its past. Harry Gregory, whose paintings were on display at the Sabina Public Library a few months ago, and Harrison C. Halle, better known as Harry Halle, who many older residents will remember. Harry was born in 1873 on Polk Road near Sabina. He was the son of Harrison and Harriet Custis Halle. Although he spent many years at the homeplace where he was born, his studies took him to France and Italy, as well as a fifteen year period of study and painting in Canada. Painting wasn't his only talent, as he was an accomplished pianist and vocalist. He sang in St. Michael's cathedral in Canada for eight years. He taught music at Sabina High School for a few years, carrying his accordian-size piano from room to room, teaching the students the classics and other musical numbers by playing them on the piano and occasionally vocalizing as well.

He had a studio on the southeast corner of Howard and Washington streets above what is now the office of Terry Richard's Haines Agency insurance company. Harry taught painting and piano but rarely found a student with any great promise. In 1948, when I entered Wilmington College, I took a course in painting from Professor Halle because I needed an extra credit or two to fill my schedule. My painting talent was close to nil. When I was younger, I had difficulty staying within the lines of my coloring book. By the year 1948, Harry Halle had been teaching painting for so many years that he could tell by looking in a student's eyes if he or she came for the credit or the learning. When I brought in two 8 1/2 x 11 photos - one of a dog and one of a horse - he tried to dissuade me from choosing them as the subject matter for my required two oil paintings. He said, "You already have two animal pictures. Why would you want two more just like them?" I insisted that I did want two more pictures just like the ones I had, so he sat me in front of a canvas and handed me a brush. I was allowed to add a few background brush strokes to each of the pictures and that was my contribution to the paintings. I don't remember my grade at the end of the semester, but it must have been good as the pictures were topnotch art work. The room at Wilmington College where Prof. Halle taught painting for 32 years was, to put it kindly, cluttered. How he found brushes, paints, or any supplies in the debris he had accumulated over the years was a mystery. He always added kerosene to turpentine to clean his brushes, so the room had its own special odor. After retiring from teaching at Wilmington College, he taught both art and music in Sabina. He died Sept. 5, 1967, three months short of his 94th birthday. He never married. Bob Stewart was one of the Sabina residents who looked after Harry in his waning years. He carried in food, ran errands and spent time just visiting with his old friend. Harry gave Bob and his wife Bea several of his paintings. One of them was the portrait he had painted of Bob's father, Marion Stewart, who was the mayor of Sabina for thirteen consecutive terms. Betty Zimmerman Borton, a niece of Bea Stewart's, has donated three of Harry Halle's beautifully framed paintings to the Sabina Historical Society. Two of the paintings are landscapes, which he was best known for as an artist. The third is a still life; a vase of budding dogwood that is quite striking. Our sincere thanks to Betty Borton for her generous contribution to the Sabina Historical Society.