A hardworking, dedicated, and driven man, George Hensel was a blessing to everyone he met.

It was 1927 that Eric and Myrtle (Munson) Hensel were blessed with the Christmas day birth of their first baby boy George Frederic Hensel on December 25, 1927 in Clinton Iowa.  He was the first of five boys, joined in his family by his siblings, Richard, Eric, Donald and David.  At age 11, George lost his mother who died giving birth to twins Donald and David.  Life was difficult being raised by a single father during the depression, so being the oldest George was required to get a job that year.  He delivered newspapers before school to give money to his family to survive.  It was during these early cold mornings walking to the depot to pick up the papers he got frostbite in his feet and they never regained feeling.  After his mother died, he used the paper route money to also buy bus tickets for her father, his grandfather, to come see them.  He never forgot the local dentist who allowed him to work in his yard in exchange for dental work.  He became his high school student body president and at the end of World War 2 in 1946, at the age of 19, he joined the United States Marine Corps.

That created opportunity he often spoke of and, thanks to the GI bill, he became the first member of his family to attend college.  While at DePauw University he joined Delta Upsilon fraternity and continued his work ethic while studying and bussing tables in the dorms to pay for his room and board.

George’s life was forever changed when he met Barbara Taylor at DePauw, the daughter of pharmacist Harold Taylor and homemaker Elizabeth Taylor from Granville Ohio.  After falling in love, they were married August 30, 1952.  However, struggle was not over even with the blessing of their first child.  Michael David was born mentally retarded, paralyzed from the waist down with spina bifida.  Given months to live, Michael had an incredible smile and lived until he was 12 years old.  Seven years later they gave birth to Charles Leslie.  Chuck was named for George’s best childhood friend Charles Leslie Foster who disappeared in an Air Force jet crash on Mt. McKinley.  Then came their only daughter, Karen Elaine, who until his death he called “Princess”.

George was a devoted husband and father, working hard his entire life for his family.  After college graduation, he worked in marketing for RCA in Indianapolis setting up distributorships across the country before then moving into marketing for Blue Cross/Blue Shield.  Upon retirement, he worked at Target in Castleton.  As a young father, he
was active in Skiles Test Little League, the Lions Club and served in the United States Marine Corps and the United States Marine Corps Reserve.  As a family, they enjoyed yearly two week vacations to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.  However, the Marine life never left him, as he got up each morning by 5am and if he wasn’t 15 minutes early he was late.  On vacation he would sit at the beach to watching the sunrise.  He always said “God gives us blessings if we only stop long enough to see them”. He saw those blessings in the sunrise and sunsets.  He loved Indiana summer nights listening to the symphony of cicadas.  He was an avid gardener, growing the best Indiana tomatoes family and neighbors loved.  And he enjoyed classical music as well as singing along to big band music.

Throughout his life George worked to teach his children to appreciate the small thing in life like the sunsets, teaching his kids how to ride a bike and at very early age teaching all his kids and grandkids how to drive.  He was famous for surprising his grandkids with Hardee’s breakfast sandwiches or Roslyn Bakery sweetheart rolls on a Saturday morning. He always said “life is short, tell those in your life you love them everyday because you never know”.  A man of faith, his favorite poem was “Footprints”.  Over and over he reached out to those less fortunate to help them.  Growing up in the depression in Iowa with no heat in the boys upstairs bedroom, he wore a stocking cap to bed to stay warm.  His childhood home had no inside bathroom.  His father, born in Germany, ruled with an iron fist. Fortunately, his father married Elfrieda Spohn who took the boys in as her own.  With little money available, she made homemade bread that eventually became a treat to all the boys and all the grand-children.  He praised her often throughout his life for taking on the responsibility of loving a widower and his boys and providing him a mother for his final years at home.  He never looked back on what he didn’t have, instead scraping during the depression made him even more grateful for all he had until the day he died.

He loved telling bedtime stories to his own children and then grandchildren.  To this day, we don’t know if all of them are true but part of the fun was he would never let on.  In his final months while he could no longer stand on his own and grew weaker, he worried about his family literally everyday asking “what can I do to help you?”
He is preceded in death by his 12 year old son Michael, his parents, step-mother Elfrieda and three brothers Donald Allison, Eric and Richard Hensel.  He is survived by his wife Barbara of 63 years, two children Chuck (Nancy) and Karen and six grand-children:  Taylor, Cole and Carly Stergar,  Nick, Patti and Jenny Hensel and two step-grandchildren: Tristin Thompson and Callie Landrum.  George is also survived by brothers David Allison, Tom (Judy) Hensel and sister Jan (Mike) Krueger.
George Hensel of Indianapolis, at age 87, died May 30th 2015.  A private family service with military honors will be held on Tuesday.  True to how he lived his entire life, his last act is to help others by donating his body to the IU Med Center just as he and his wife donated his son Michael’s brain to help others one day survive spina bifida.  Feel free to help us celebrate his life and sign George’s guest book to leave your own memory of him.