Dorchester Times: Dorchester's Max Harling Passes At 82

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Dorchester's Max Harling Passes At 82

Longtime Dorchester resident and business owner Max D. Harling passed away Thursday at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Lincoln at the age of 82 years 11 months and 9 days. He was a Korean War veteran and Purple Heart recipient.

A funeral will be 10 a.m. Monday, January 18, at the United Methodist Church, Dorchester with Pastor Thomas Tennant officiating. Interment will be in Dorchester Cemetery with military services conducted by the U.S. Marine Corps and Dorchester American Legion. The family will receive family and friends for one hour prior to the service on Monday at the church. Memorials have been established to the Dorchester American Legion or to the Wilber Care Center. Honorary pallbearers are Shelly Bruha and Ike McKim.

Max Dale Harling was born February 5, 1933 on a farm southeast of Friend to James and Bernice (Aitken) Harling, the second of four children. As a boy, Max moved with family to California and several locations in Nebraska and Wyoming. He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps on February 9, 1951, in Cheyenne, WY and was discharged on February 9, 1954, at El Toro, Santa Ana, California. While serving during the Korean Conflict, he received the Purple Heart on two separate occasions, along with several other medals. Returning from Korea, Max began his employment career at Klippenstein Implement in Friend and furthered his education earning a degree in Diesel Technology from Milford Technical School in 1959. On July 20, 1963, Max was united in marriage to Sharon Dee Rose and to this union a daughter, Rebecca, and a son, Patrick, were born, along with an infant son who passed away at birth.

From 1962 until 1988, Max was employed at Crete Implement and later was self-employed at “Brand X Repair” in Dorchester until he retired in 1995. He was a member of the VFW #4959 in Crete, American Legion Post #264 in Dorchester and the Disabled American Veterans.

Max is survived by his daughter Rebecca Harling and her husband, Buck Boje, of North Platte, his son, Patrick Harling, Fergus Falls, MN, a granddaughter, Samantha Rose Harling, Moorhead, MN, his brother and sister-in-law, Gary and Gail August, and his sister and brother-in-law, Carol and Ed Zak, and a number of nieces and nephews.

He was preceded in death by his parents, James Harling and Bernice August and his step-father, Floyd August, an infant son, his wife Sharon in 1989, two sisters, Virginia Inderlied and Melva Johnson, and a brother, Noel Harling.

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Dorchester: A Good Little Family Town

Dorchester, Nebraska (est. population 630) is located in northern Saline county. Close in proximity to Interstate 80, Dorchester is only 25 minutes from the state capital of Lincoln (est. population 250,000) and about 55 minutes from Omaha (metro population 725,000).

Dorchester's median resident age is 37 years. In 2005, Dorchester had a median family income of approximately $35,600. The median house value was about $63,000. About 95 percent of Dorchester residents commute to work via Interstate and highways.

The village has a quality public school, which received a $4.1 million expansion and modernization in 2008; it offers a small classrooms and individualized attention. Total enrollment of grades K-12 is around 230-250 students.

Ancestries of the Dorchester area are primarily German (42.4%), Czech (24.9%), Irish (12.5%), English (5.4%), and Dutch (4.9%).

Dorchester Historical Facts

* On July 4, 1871, the railroad reached Dorchester.
* Incorporated in 1881, Dorchester's population grew from 200 to 500 by 1882.
* In 1882, Dorchester had 90 buildings, 35 of which were businesses or public facilities. Brick buildings lined both sides of Washington Avenue for two blocks.
* Dorchester's longest-running newspaper was The Dorchester Star, which was published until the late 1940s.
* By 1889, Dorchester's population is said to have reached 800, while the town housed an opera house, a two-story brick schoolhouse with a bell tower, and four churches.
* By the 1910s, Dorchester had electricity, a water tower and a fire department.
* Dorchester's main arteries, Highways 6 and 33, were graveled in the 1940s.
* Dorchester's first irrigation well was drilled on Chris Weber's farm and rural electrification was finished following WWII.

A Village with History

Dorchester is one of the "alphabet towns" on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad line built west from Lincoln. The town site was selected for its pleasant location in the northern part of Saline County, about eight miles west of Crete. This situation is an attractive one, being on the level prairie land, midway between the West Blue River and Turkey Creek. The first named stream is three miles north, and the latter about the same distance south from the town. Dorchester was platted in 1870 and incorporated in 1881. The name "Dorchester" came from either for a suburb of Boston by that name or a town in England. No one is sure. Two of the very first settlers were James Seely and Edward McIntyre, who both made Dorchester their permanent home.

Dorchester: In The Beginning

Here is a look at Dorchester around 1890, less than a decade after its official incorporation, as documented by Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska:
* POPULATION: "About 300, and is made up of a substantial and progressive class of citizens, who are moral and industrious. ... The town grew but very little until the year 1879, for the reason that Pleasant Hill, on Turkey Creek, a short distance south, was the county seat and naturally drew a trade for quite a large scope of country."
* BUSINESS: "The business and professional interests of the town are represented by three general merchandise stores, two drug, one grocery, one furniture, two hardware, and two millinery stores, one bank, two restaurants, two hotels, three livery stables, a post office, one newspaper office, two elevators, two lumber yards, two coal yards, two blacksmith shops, two lawyers and four physicians."
* SCHOOL: "The schoolhouse is a good one. The schoolhouse was built in 1872, since which time the public schools have been continually kept up. The present schoolhouse is 24' x 40' in size, two stories high. The school is graded and consists of three departments. The house is found too small, and arrangements will soon be made to increase its size."
* CHURCHES: "There are three substantial churches."
* HOMES: "The residence portion of the village is made up of neat houses of different styles of architecture, but none of them very large."
* NEWSPAPER: "The Dorchester Star, which was established August 21, 1881, by H. C. Bittenbender, who edited it until January 19, 1882, when he sold it to Ryerson & Bullock, the present proprietors. The Star is a bright weekly paper, five-column quarto, in size, and is Republican in politics."