Harold W. Handley

Harold Willis Handley (November 27, 1909 – August 30, 1972) was the 40th governor of the U.S. state of Indiana from 1957 to 1961.

A veteran of World War II, and furniture salesman by trade, Handley began his political career as a state senator.

Harold Handley was born November 27, 1909, in LaPorte, Indiana, one of the three sons of Harold Lowell and Lottie Margaret Brackbill Handley.

His father was a merchant who sold furniture.

He attended local public schools before enrolling in Indiana University.

His classmates included William E. Jenner and George N. Craig.

Handley became good friends with Jenner; the two later became important political allies.

Craig however, would become Handley's major opponent within his own party.

Although Handley was an able salesman, his company was one of many that folded during the mid-1930s because of the continuing Great Depression.

Handley took a new job as a salesman at Unagusta Furniture Corporation, a North Carolina furniture company, but in turn folded in less than a year after he joined it.

It was during his period of unemployment that he began to become involved in politics.

He studied at the school for four years and graduated in 1932 with a bachelor's degree in economics.

After school Handley returned home where he joined his father's sales department.

He formed the Young Republicans of LaPorte County in 1935 and in 1936 he made an unsuccessful run for the Indiana Senate.

He remained active in the party and ran for the senate again in 1940 and was elected along with a strong Republican majority to both houses of the body.

In the first session of the Indiana General Assembly of his term, he supported the Republican position of repealing almost a decade of Democratic legislation and reorganizing the executive branch of the government to decentralize control away from the governor.

After the United States entered World War II in 1941, Handley resigned from the senate and enlisted in the army as a lieutenant, but eventually rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

He was assigned to the Eighty-eighth Infantry Division headquartered in Mojave desert.

Despite making multiple requests to be sent overseas, the army kept him in the United States for the duration of the war to serve as a trainer for new recruits.

As fresh soldiers arrived in the camp he was responsible for overseeing the drill sergeants and ensuring they were properly trained before they were dispatched to serve as reinforcements to the main body of the division.

During his time in the army, he met Barbara Jean Winterble, a psychiatric nurse working at a Red Cross post near his base.

The two were married on February 17, 1944, and they moved back to LaPorte after Handley was discharged from the army in 1946.

He took a new job in furniture sales and a second job in sales a small movie production company.

He soon had two children, Kenneth and Martha Jean.

Handley returned to politics in 1948 after winning election to his former senate seat.

It was still a period of Republican domination in the state, and he quickly rekindled his friendship with then-United States Senator William E. Jenner.

Thanks to his longtime friendship with state party leader and United States Senator William E. Jenner, he was able to secure the nomination to run for lieutenant governor in 1952, during which time he opposed many of the actions of Governor George N. Craig.

In the 1952 state convention, George N. Craig, a dark horse candidate, won the nomination to the consternation of the party leadership.

Jenner and others had hoped to have a more conservative nominee for governor.

They successfully maneuvered Handley as their candidate to win the nomination to run for lieutenant governor.

Party tickets were not run at that time, and Handley ran a separate campaign for office, advocating a significantly different platform than Craig, who was calling for many progressive reforms.

Thanks in part to the popularity of Dwight Eisenhower, Handley won a landslide victory and defeated his Democratic opponent E. Spencer Dalton by 230,420 votes.

In his role as President of the Senate, Handley became an early opponent of Governor Craig.

His popularity rose among the conservative leadership of the Indiana Republican Party and aided him in winning the nomination and subsequent election as governor in 1956.

He was elected during a period of conservative domination of the state government.

He successfully implemented major parts of his party's agenda that affected the state for decades.

After raising the gasoline tax 50% to balance the state budget, his opponents branded him "High Tax Harold", ignoring the fact that he also eliminated state property taxes.

He launched an unprecedented mid-term campaign for a United States Senate seat but ended in defeat and he finished his term as governor.

He operated a successful public relations business in Indianapolis for several years and in 1969 served on the Constitutional Revision Committee that authored a set of major amendments to the state constitution.

He personally advocated mental health reform in Indiana and after leaving office he remained active in several charities that helped the mentally disabled, winning a Drummer Boy Award in 1970.