Bartow Littell, early GHS graduate, dies at 96

By STEVE KORNACKI

ARIPEKA - Bartow Littell, who was Babe Ruth's fishing guide during trips into the Gulf of Mexico and at nearby Hunter's Lake in the early 1920s, had a life worthy of a story even without his connection to the ``Great Bambino.''

Littell, 96, died Friday in Dallas. He was born in Aripeka on New Year's Eve in 1907.

Littell, who graduated from Gulf High School in New Port Richey in 1925 and is the school's second-oldest living graduate, in February said he played left field on Gulf High's baseball team and captained its basketball team. He said he ``also played some baseball at the University of Florida, but mostly sat the bench'' and played polo in Gainesville.

Life was an adventure for Littell, who became a professional polo player in Argentina after graduating with a degree in civil engineering from the University of Florida in 1930 and finding no other job available during The Great Depression.

After that, he ``caught a freighter for Venezuela'' and mapped pipelines for Pan American Oil Co. Upon returning home, he did surveys and topographic maps across the country for the federal government. His first marriage, to Esther DeHaven, lasted 12 years until their divorce in 1946.

``Then I assisted [Dr.] Wernher Von Braun in developing the Redstone rocket in Huntsville, Ala.,'' Littell told The Pasco Tribune in February.

While surveying in Mobile, Ala., he met his second wife, Ora Mae, to whom he was married 54 years until she died Jan. 2 of a heart attack while Bartow was driving her to a doctor's appointment near their home in Brewton, Ala.

``She let out a scream you could hear for five miles and then just slumped over,'' Littell said.

The couple lived in Miami while he worked for a company commissioned to help build Cape Canaveral.

``I designed and supervised the building of seven launch pads and built a railway system that took rockets from the vertical assembly building to the launch pads,'' he said in February.

They lived in Brewton most of the year upon his retirement, returning to their single- wide trailer in Aripeka for several months each year. He was the oldest of five children, but never had children with his two wives. Ora Mae had one son, and Bartow treated her three grandchildren like his own.

One of his nephews in Alabama coaches a youth baseball team in the local Babe Ruth League.

Littell never got to see Ruth play for the Yankees. Asked to select his all-time favorite baseball player, Littell chose Mickey Mantle, a Yankees outfielder he did watch play in the 1950s and 1960s, when televised games became popular.

``In his prime, he could do it all.'' Littell said.

Littell treasured all of his experiences, from baseball to polo. From fishing to rockets. From the Babe to Von Braun.