Harry Adam Zoller, a retired grocery store manager and World War II veteran, died May 29 of complications from a stroke at a Citrus County, Fla. hospice.
The former Linthicum resident was 94.
Born in Goose Run, a rural community outside Marietta, Ohio, he was the son of Harry S. Zoller and Clara Rucker. The family farmed and lived in an 1819 log cabin built by ancestors, who were early Ohio settlers.
In 2004, Mr. Zoller wrote a memoir, "Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth," that detailed his life through his 20s. He recalled living in the cabin, which had a dirt floor covered with homemade woven rag rugs.
"Thanksgiving in the depth of the Great Depression was a do-it-yourself affair," he wrote. "The men hunted together for the meat. The women cooked all the trimmings together in the kitchen, laughing, telling stories and sharing their cooking secrets.
"We had vegetables because we grew them," he wrote. "We had fruit because we picked it. We had meat because we hunted for it. We had bread because we baked it. ... We spent the day together, enjoying the leisure we so seldom enjoyed in the countryside, where there were always chores to do."
When he was 13, he moved with his family to Marietta and worked delivering the local newspaper. He wrote in the memoir that he studied diligently — he had previously attended a one-room school — but had no tuition for college.
His high school principal intervened and set up a one-year scholarship at Marietta College. He was a work-study student under a federal National Youth Administration program.
At the end of his first year, he needed money to continue at the college, so he moved to Baltimore's Brooklyn neighborhood to work at Marietta Concrete. There he built farm silos and boarded with local families.
He soon met Emma Elizabeth "Betty" Giles. In his memoir, he recalled a date with her in August 1941 on a moonlight cruise aboard an excursion boat that departed from today's Inner Harbor:
"The Bay Belle was at the dock and the music playing was the dance tunes of 1941 — 'In the Mood,' 'It Had to be You' and 'Harbor Lights.' I was glad I had taken dancing lessons. We danced several numbers quietly and then abandoned the floor to jitterbuggers. ...She raised her face to me at an angle so vulnerable, I knew in an instant that this was an invitation to a kiss."
Mr. Zoller wrote that he soon embraced crabbing and fishing. He proposed marriage the night of the Pearl Harbor attack, Dec. 7, 1941. They married that Christmas Eve.
He joined the Army Air Forces and became a radar countermeasures officer. Assigned to Saipan, he flew numerous bombing missions over Japan. He remained in the Air Force Reserve and retired as a lieutenant colonel.
After the war, Mr. Zoller fulfilled his dream of a college education. He earned a bachelor's degree in business administration at the Johns Hopkins University. He also worked as a stack supervisor at the downtown Enoch Pratt Free Library.
Beginning in the 1940s, he joined his brother-in-law, Claude T. Giles, whose family owned food businesses in Brooklyn. He managed two convenience stores, the Giles Handy Marts in Ferndale and Glen Burnie, and later operated the Severn Food Market on Crain Highway in Severn.
"My dad had a poet's heart, and he also had a mind for business," said a daughter, JoAnne Zoller Wagner of Pasadena. "He pretty much joined the Giles family. They welcomed him wholeheartedly."
He continued his education by earning a master's degree in liberal arts, also from Johns Hopkins. He became increasingly active at the Linthicum Heights United Methodist Church and served as a lay member to the Annual Methodist Conference.
He retired in 1985, then began assisting at a senior health insurance program. He prepared taxes at the Pascal and Brooklyn Park senior centers. He volunteered until 2012.
A memorial life celebration service will be held at 2 p.m. July 8 at the Linthicum Heights United Methodist Church, 200 School Lane.
His wife of 63 years died in 2004.
In addition to his daughter, survivors include two sons, Lawrence Zoller of Cary, N.C. and Darryl Zoller of Hanover, Pa.; two other daughters, Jane Kegan of Lecanto, Fla. and Nanette de Andrade of Durham, N.C.; a brother, Howard Zoller of Orlando, Fla.; 13 grandchildren; and 16 great-grandchildren. A daughter, Susan Montañes, died in 2003.
jacques.kelly@baltsun,com