A revered leader in church, civic and business life, Earl Hall Barr, 86, died unexpectedly Wednesday afternoon.
Barr was stricken while at work at the business he and his wife, Hazel, have owned and operated for 60 years. Barr’s Furniture, Inc, is a mainstay among locally owned retailers at its location in the Mt. Leo area.
He was active in more than a dozen yearly missionary visits in Brazil, where he was credited with bringing “many hundreds, if not thousands, of souls to Christ,” according to Jim Ramsey, director of missions for the Central Baptist Association. Ramsey was one of the volunteers who accompanied Barr on many of those trips.
“Earl loved the Brazilian people. He poured his heart into work there,” Ramsey remarked, adding that Barr would “go door to door all day long” proclaiming the gospel and trying to win souls to Christ.
It was in Brazil’s sprawling former capital, Rio de Janeiro, that Barr met Fernando Rocha in 2019. “We met because of the gospel. Our connection was the love of the Lord,” said Rocha, who moved to the United States and became senior pastor of McMinnville’s Cornerstone Baptist Church in May 2022.
As one of the deacons at Cornerstone Baptist, Barr was a trusted and beloved source of encouragement, comfort and guidance for Rocha in his local ministry as well as in his personal life.
“In my church work or in personal life he would say something with deep meaning. He was never superficial, and I felt like he was communicating with me as an individual,” the pastor related.
A Warren County native and U.S. Army veteran, Barr was a son of the late Roe and Bertha Hutchins Barr.
Among his survivors is his wife, Hazel, whom he met at a church league basketball game at the former Morrison High School. “Earl was playing basketball and I went to the game with my first cousin Ray Talbert, who knew him,” Mrs Barr remembered.
“It was a chance meeting. It just progressed from there,” she told the Southern Standard. But the young man’s wholesome reputation had preceded him. “I knew he was a good guy.”
The couple dated for nearly two years and were married on Dec. 26, 1964. “The day after Christmas would have been our 59th anniversary,” she remarked.
Besides his widow, he is survived by son and daughter-in-law, Mark and Kim Barr, and brother and sister-in-law, Elmer and Pat Barr. He was preceded in death by brothers, Leo and Solon Barr and sisters Erma Barr, Chris Bouldin, Roena Fuson, Geneva Carroll and Marie Vinson.
In community and civic life, Barr was a member of The Rotary Club of McMinnville since February 1987, during which time he earned the prestigious Paul Harris Fellowship three times and achieved the rank of Sustaining Member of Rotary International the past 13 years. He was also a member of Gideons International.
“Earl was a faithful member of Rotary, a Rotarian with a genuine heart for service to others whether here in Warren County or in distressed and underdeveloped places half-way around the world,” Noon Rotary President Michael Barnes observed. “We will all miss him greatly.”
Graveside services and interment will at 1 p.m. tomorrow (Dec. 23) at Gardens of Memory, with Fernando Rocha officiating. The family will receive friends from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday at the parlors of McMinnville Funeral Home, which is in charge of arrangements.
The family suggests that memorial donations be directed to the Gideons International Bible Memorial Program.
