Funeral: 2 p.m. Oct. 14 at First Baptist Church Ozark. Visitation: 1 p.m. until service time at the church. Arrangements are under the direction of Adams Funeral Home, Ozark.
Henry Thomas McBride, 80, of Ozark, died Oct. 6 in The Baptist Home of Ozark after more than a decade of battling cancer. He was born March 20, 1937, in Black Rock, Arkansas, the son of Melvin and Virgie (Holobaugh) McBride. He spent 37 years in public school education but influenced still more people through his publicly lived faith.
Henry’s quest for knowledge led him from a one-room schoolhouse to advanced education in Math and Science and a Specialist’s Degree in Education. His walk with God took him from a profession of faith as a schoolboy through six decades of service as a student, teacher, trustee, and deacon. Soon after founding a family with LeAnn, they participated in planting a church in St. Peters, and engaged the entire family in evenings of home visitation and weekends of youth work as the congregation took root and grew.
As his vocation as a public educator led him from one school to another and retirement in the Ozarks, he continued to serve as a Sunday School teacher and deacon as long as his physical strength permitted. His life was animated by a sense of wonder at and curiosity about God’s creation, which found expression in a hunger for reading, traveling and listening to people from all walks of life.
Henry was preceded in death by both parents; brother, Taylor McBride and his wife Jessie; and sister, Nellie Ehrhardt.
He is survived by his wife of 58 years and best friend, LeAnn Jane (Gaubatz) McBride; son, Brent and his wife Patrizia of Ithaca, New York; daughter, Becky Calhoun and her husband Mark of Olathe, Kansas; three grandchildren, Madison Elizabeth Calhoun, Talia Rose Calhoun, and Giovanni Salvatore McBride; brother, James “Jay” McBride and his wife Sherry; brother-in-law John Ehrhardt; and brother-in-law, Carroll Gaubatz and his wife Patricia.
Memorial donations may be made to the Benevolent Fund at The Baptist Home of Ozark, PO Box 1040, Ozark 65721 or The Missouri Baptist Children’s Home at 11300 St. Charles Rock Rd., Bridgeton, Missouri 63044.
