James Austin Barnhart, a highly decorated World War II veteran and a noted Baltimore physical therapist and teacher, died July 17 of Parkinson's disease at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium.
The longtime Riderwood resident was 84.
Mr. Barnhart, who was the son of a Baltimore & Ohio Railroad accountant and a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised in Hunting Ridge.
After graduating from Polytechnic Institute in 1944, Mr. Barnhart enlisted in the Army and served with the Army's 10th Mountain Division ski troops in Europe.
Mr. Barnhart fought during the elite mountain warfare unit's rout of German artillery forces that were entrenched in the ridges of Mount Belvedere in the Italian Alps in February 1945.
The campaign, which allowed Allied forces to advance into the Po Valley and included taking the adjacent mountain peaks, came at a cost. The Italian campaign inflicted 4,888 casualties on the 10th, including 978 soldiers who were killed in action.
Until Monday, Mr. Barnhart's family knew that he had been awarded a Bronze Star. But when they examined his discharge papers, they learned that he had earned two more.
Jake Barnhart, Mr. Barnhart's eldest grandson, had interviewed him years ago for a school oral history project.
"He said he had received it for rescuing his commanding officer, who had been wounded. He went down a ridge and even though it was extremely dangerous and foolhardy, rescued the man," his grandson said.
"He was suspicious as to why the Germans didn't open fire on him. He thought maybe they thought he was a medic. Anyway, he put the officer on his back and hauled him up the ridge," he said.
After the war, Mr. Barnhart enrolled at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he played lacrosse and earned a bachelor's degree in 1950 in physical education.
He briefly taught in Baltimore public schools before entering the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1951 from its physical therapy training program.
Mr. Barnhart established a private physical therapy practice in Towson, where he worked for 39 years until retiring in 1989.
When the Greater Baltimore Medical Center opened in 1965, Mr. Barnhart established and was chief of the hospital's physical therapy department for a number of years.
In addition to his practice and work at GBMC, Mr. Barnhart was also on the faculty of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he taught physical therapy.
"I first got to know Jim when we were classmates at the University of Pennsylvania. He was a wonderful guy, and his death is a terrible loss," said William Neill 3rd, who had headed the physical therapy department for 55 years at James Lawrence Kernan Hospital until his retirement last year.
"He was a role model for us. In those days, there weren't may physical therapists in private practice, and he was very successful," said Mr. Neill, a Ruxton resident. "He was very popular with the students at Maryland. He was a strong man and dedicated to his field."
Mr. Barnhart also served as director of physical therapy at Children's Hospital, Maryland Masonic Home at Bonnie Blink, and Edenwald and Broadmead retirement communities.
Dr. James M. Hitzrot, a retired orthopedic surgeon who had lived in Ruxton, is an old friend and former colleague.
"Jim had a large and devoted physical therapy practice. He was a devotee of skiing, tennis, hikes and weight loss, and was an example to all of his patients and friends," said Dr. Hitzrot, who now lives in Bedford, Mass. "He was a friendly and outgoing man who was a leader in the field of physical therapy."
Mr. Barnhart was an avid skier and enjoyed sailing. He was a life member and past commodore, vice commodore and fleet captain of the Potapskut Sailing Association on the Magothy River.
Mr. Barnhart also designed his home on Acorn Lane in Riderwood, where he had lived since 1955.
He was a longtime communicant of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Ruxton, where he had also been a Sunday school teacher.
A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at his church, 1401 Carrollton Ave.
Also surviving are his wife of 60 years, the former Eleanor Morris; a son, James B. Barnhart of Towson; a daughter, Bonnie B. Kramer of Denver; two sisters, Ann Louise Dunning of Sherwood Forest and Beth B. Anderson of Oregon; and three other grandchildren. Another son, Robert M. Barnhart, died in 2008.