Loss of a local legacy

• Hardy

Beth Rickers/Daily Globe Hardy Rickbeil poses for a photo shortly before his 100th birthday in June 2008.

Talk about it

WORTHINGTON — Remarkable. Mentor. Generous. Promoter. Considerate. Coach. Volunteer. Honest. Friend.

Those are just a few of the adjectives and nouns that have been used by friends and colleagues to describe Hardy Rickbeil in the last couple of days. Until very recently, Hardy had resided at The Meadows senior living facility in Worthington and was still a very active and vital member of the community. But Hardy was hospitalized early last week, having suffered a small stroke, and was moved to South Shore Care Center, where he died Sunday at the age of 101.

Born June 21, 1908, in North Dakota, Hardy moved at age 12 with his family to Worthington, where his father became the proprietor of the local hardware store. He grew up helping in the family business, but went away to college with a dream of becoming a basketball coach. That dream was cut short, however, when his father suffered some setbacks and health issues, and Hardy returned home to help out, eventually taking over the business.

“I was not happy about that,” admitted Hardy about leaving college in a Daily Globe article marking his 100th birthday in June 2008, “but it was a real opportunity. I had the opportunity to dig right into the community as a businessman with the Chamber of Commerce — back then it was called the Commercial Club — and I became a Mason and a member of Kiwanis.”

Hardy’s relationship with longtime friend Bethel Knapp blossomed into a romance, and they were married in 1931. The Rickbeils had two children, Richard “Dick” Rickbeil and Dianne Rickbeil Frerichs, and their family later grew to include 11 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren. Bethel died in 2003.

Under Hardy’s ownership, the Rickbeil’s hardware enterprise grew to encompass appliances, furniture, marine, repair shop and warehouse and delivery services in 40,000 square feet of display and storage space in downtown Worthington. Hardy incorporated the business and made several of his employees officers of the company. He also became involved in state and national associations such as the Minnesota Retail Federation and National Retail Hardware Association.

Although he never had a career as a sports coach, he became a coach to his employees and was always a “straight shooter,” according to George Habeck, who worked in the appliance store for 26 years.

“Hardy was the one who really interviewed me, and he said, ‘Remember this, try to follow this (priority) in your life: God, your country, your family and then your job. Try to keep that in perspective. Don’t ever put your job in front of those other things.’ That really impressed me right from the start.”

But Habeck was also a bit perplexed when Hardy gave him “homework” along with the job.

“He said, ‘Here’s a book. I want you to read this and give me a report,’” Habeck remembered. “The book was ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People.’ I asked some of the other (salesman), Frank Schuster and Mike Christensen, about it, and they said, ‘Yeah, we had to do that, too.’”

Hardy did his own homework, studying trade journals and merchandise materials and underlining as he went, keeping abreast of all the latest information. He stressed exercising both mind and body throughout his lifetime.

“From my desk, I could see Hardy’s desk upstairs” in the appliance store, Habeck said. “I could see him on the phone talking, then all of a sudden he’d be gone, then I’d see him again. He was doing deep knee bends while he was on the phone. He was multitasking. And this was when he was in his 80s. Up to the very end, he had a very sharp mind and was always up on everything, stayed on top of everything. He kept a file on every individual who worked there, and when I retired, he presented me with the file folder.

“He took a personal interest in you, too,” added Habeck. “He knew I had high blood pressure, so every once in a while he’d leave me an article that he’d read about high blood pressure. Besides losing a former employer, I also lost a friend.”

All of Hardy’s family, colleagues and friends recall that he lived his life by the Golden Rule — do unto others as you would have them do unto you — but he utilized and created many other slogans in his business dealings.

“Rickbeil’s had a slogan, ‘We serve to serve again,’” recalled fellow downtown businessman Russ Rickers, whose photography studio shared an alley with several of the Rickbeil’s stores. “‘We sell the best and service the rest,’ he’d always say about the repair department. Hardy would always talk about competition, that competition is good, something like ‘Competition makes you better if you have what it takes.’”

Hardy’s promotional efforts extended beyond his own business and into the community. He was involved in many local service organizations and activities and in retirement became a counselor with SCORE, offering advice and services to people who wanted to start their own local business.

“He was a great promoter of our community, and you could tell that he loved life and his town,” said Darlene Macklin, executive director of the Worthington Area Chamber of Commerce. “Over the years I received numerous phone calls from Hardy, suggesting a new idea for either the Chamber or the community. And he loved to send me articles that he found through his many readings on improvements for Worthington as well.”

At the age of 96, Hardy accompanied Macklin and Worthington Regional Economic Development Manager Glenn Thuringer to a Minnesota Chamber of Commerce legislative reception in St. Paul, where he touted his belief in the Rule of 72 —a simplified way to determine how long an investment will take to double, given a fixed annual rate of interest.

“He was so concerned about young adults starting retirement funds, so he was handing out information to those who attended and encouraged them to distribute the information to their employees,” Macklin recalled. “That was such a good evening for Hardy that he received a standing ovation from the 1,000-plus individuals who attended.”

Later in life, Hardy became an active member of The Meadows senior living community, and his was a familiar figure inside and outside The Meadows facilities.

“He always made things neat and clean and used to police the alley,” behind his business, recalled Rickers. “He would walk around there and pick up anything that wasn’t supposed to be there. He did that at The Meadows, too. When he went out to The Meadows, he had an orange reflective vest and would walk along the roadside and pick up stuff.”

In the 2008 article, Hardy said the grounds patrol provided him with exercise and relaxation. He loved to be outdoors and once was an avid big game hunter, although now his hunts were for trash.

“These cumulus clouds are fantastic,” he said about being in the outdoors. “It’s almost heaven on earth, so why be in a hurry to die?”

Hardy took his own advice to heart and kept his priorities straight, focusing on faith and family first, although never neglecting his business. He was devoted to wife Bethel, visiting her on a daily basis when health difficulties required her to be in a care facility, and showed a keen interested in all his children’s and grandchildren’s activities.

“I think he was always so willing and excited to be able to relate to whoever he was with, whether his kids, grandkids or great-grandkids,” reflected grandson Mark Rickbeil, who now lives in Billings, Mont.

One of Mark’s most cherished memories of Hardy’s interaction with his great-grandchildren came during a visit to Worthington a few years ago.

“Our oldest boy — he’s 11 now, but was 7 at the time — had just lost his two front teeth, and he was so proud of those two teeth being gone,” Mark recalled. “He went to show Grandpa, and Grandpa pulled his dentures out and said, ‘I don’t have any front teeth either.’ We have a picture of the two of them smiling without their teeth.”

Since he learned of Hardy’s death, Mark has been going through mementoes of a three-week car trip he took with his grandfather — a trip that became a tradition with all of Hardy’s grandsons when they turned 16 and could share driving duties.

“During our trip, he brought along a cassette recorder, and each day while driving or at the end of the day, we’d sit down and record something. He’d do most of the talking, because as 16-year-old boys went, I didn’t have much to say,” Mark related. “When I look back, you could easily say the generation gap exposed itself, but for the most part, we had such a good time. He did a great job of incorporating both fun and educational things together.

“Up until the day he died, he never stopped wanting to learn new things,” Mark said about Hardy’s most memorable quality. “… No matter what his political view was, he was always very open to understanding and learning what somebody else’s point of view might be, whether that solidified his point of view or caused him to rethink it.”

A time of visitation for Hardy Rickbeil will be from 1 to 2 p.m. Saturday at First United Methodist Church, 408 11th St., Worthington, followed by the funeral service at 2 p.m. Private family burial will be in Worthington Cemetery.

Benson Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangements.

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