Wilber Hardee: Eastern North Carolina Icon Special to the Daily Reflector by Fred Harrison
It was just this past summer that one of eastern North Carolina's most memorable restaurateurs passed away. After a career spanning more than fifty years, Wilber Hardee left an indelible mark on the twentieth century's fast food culture.
Born August 15, 1918, in Pitt County, N.C., Hardee moved with his family to a 125 acre farm in the Poplar Point section of Martin County shortly after his birth. He received his early schooling in the local Mills Schoolhouse and later in the schools in Hamilton, N.C.
In his autobiography, The Life and Times of Wilber Hardee: Founder of Hardee's, published in 2000; Hardee relates one of his earliest memories, a family tragedy connected with his older brother Leslie, whose discovery and consumption of a hidden jar of homemade whiskey left him severely brain damaged. Though specialists at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore managed to save his life, Leslie became an invalid for nearly a decade before his death on May 29, 1925. According to Hardee, the incident "demanded much of the time and energy of my mother. Sending Leslie away to an institution was not an alternative for our family in those days so he was kept at home." Perhaps too young to be impacted profoundly by the incident, Wilber Hardee would later encounter his own battles with alcohol.
During the late 1930s, Hardee began making a living playing guitar with a local band called the Tobacco Ramblers, a group often featured on the leading regional radio station WEED in Rocky Mount. In addition to working at the A&P in Tarboro and selling scrap metal on the side, he soon began accumulating a sizable savings account.
In 1939, Wilber and his father opened a new service station with a fast food grill in Parmele, N.C. As he notes in his book, "our living quarters were back of the business, so expenses were low and business was brisk. We did well and I settled down to opening the grill which I enjoyed greatly."
Interrupted only by service in WWII, this would be the first of more than 80 business ventures launched by the venerable king of fast food. In addition to the original Hardee's Restaurant which opened on the corner of Charles and 14th Streets in Greenville on September 3, 1960, some of his more memorable operations over the years have included the Do-Drop Inn (Winterville), the Silo (Greenville), the Little Mint Chain and Three Steers Restaurant (Greenville).
In 1945, Hardee married Kathryn Roebuck of Robersonville. The couple raised four children and for many years worked side by side running their myriad of businesses. However, as Hardee admits in his memoir, high living, financial pressures and heavy drinking put a toll on the marriage. Kathryn suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died on Oct. 21, 1980.
Most noteworthy among Hardee's recollections is the straightforward account of his famed December 1960 business arrangement with partners Leonard Rawls and Jim Gardner, which cost him controlling interest in the company, later to become the nation's fourth largest fast food chain. Equally interesting is a similar interview given by Hardee nearly ten years earlier in Grady Jeffrey and Charles Heatherly's 1992 volume, Jim Gardner, a Question ofCharacter.
The North Carolina Collection is a division of the Joyner Library's Special Collections. For further information call 252-328-6601or visit the website at www.ecu.edu/cs-lib/ncc/index.cfn .
Fred Harrison is a staff member with the North Carolina Collection.
