Harold was born in 1924 on a farm near Andover, Kansas in Butler County,
     to Marion Jessie Mitchell and the former Vada May Rawlings.
       For the most part Harold was raised in rural Augusta, Kansas. He went
     through the eighth grade at Banner School and to the Augusta High School.
       As a boy growing up Harold helped his father farm. His first paying job,
     at age twelve, was as a water hauler to a threshing crew, for fifty cents
     a day. By the time Harold was fifteen he had worked into a better paying
     job as an all around farm hand, making thirty dollars a month.
       Besides farming, Harold's father worked for Butler county running a road
     grader which was pulled by a Caterpillar tractor. As a child when Harold
     got to go to work with his father, he usually sat up in the homemade cab
     with the driver of the Caterpiller, which provided him with a good vantage
     point for looking back to watch his father operate the grader. At lunch
     time they would stop and build a campfire along the roadside to heat up
     coffee and toast cheese for sandwiches. It was al great fun to Harold and
     thus he was first introduced to the road construction work that he would
     later take up in life, as one of his own occupations.
       Other occupations for Harold have included being a bartender, a grocery
     salesman, a truck driver, a roughneck, a draftsman, a jig builder, a
     carpenter, a welder, an ironworker, a boiler maker, a plumber, an electrician,
     a heavy equipment operator, a sheet metal mechanic and a cabinet maker.
       In October of 1942 Harold decided to join the service. He became a
     construction specialist in the Coast Guard working as a carpenter's mate, 
     running a pile driver building sea walls, warfs, etc. Harold was honorably
     discharged from the service. He received a medical discharge on April 18,
     1945 at the rank of coxswain.
       While in the service, Harold gained a wife, Iris C. Black of Jasper,
     Alabama and with her he had five children. The children were: Peggy Ann
     who was born in 1946, Jerry Ray born in 1948, Judy Faye born in 1950, Janet
     Ruth born in 1952 and Steven Lynn born in 1955.
       Iris died in 1962 and in in 1965 Harold married a Barber County born girl,
     the former E.A. (Van) Hamilton, thus establishing his tie with Barber County.
     This Barber County tie, eventually, let to Van and Harold deciding to move
     to Medicine Lodge in 1976, where Harold decided to put his knowledge of
     carpentry to work as a means of trying to make a living.
       Though Harold is a newcomer to the area, he has, already, made many
     friends and is looking forward to making many more friends, in his new
     found home town of Medicine Lodge.   
                
     Source:Chosen Land - Barber County, Kansas, pg. 332 
     Submitted by: Harold R. Mitchell