Ran carnival business involving his entire family for decades
As the owner of a family carnival business, Harry J. Reinhart Sr. spread happiness wherever he went.
Every summer for nearly 70 years, Mr. Reinhart took his family carnival to local churches and volunteer organizations, helping to raise millions of dollars when it was needed most.
“The carnival is one of the reasons that our school still exists,” said Rudy Richtar, chairman of the St. Anne Catholic Church fair committee, about the parish school in Castle Shannon. “It’s our biggest fundraiser every year.”
“Most parishes really depended on them for their schools. I know we did,” said the church’s retired pastor, the Rev. Don Breier. “It made a big difference in keeping the school open.”
Mr. Reinhart, 85, of Brentwood, died Saturday of heart complications.
He was the owner of Reinhart Amusements, a company that was started as an arcade called Moore Amusements in 1910 by his uncle, Homer E. Moore.
Mr. Reinhart was born on Pittsburgh’s South Side. His mother died two weeks after his birth and he was raised by Mr. Moore and his wife.
The company eventually became Reinhart Amusements in 1950, and Mr. Reinhart turned it into a local carnival, purchasing concession booths, tents and rides, including a Ferris wheel, Tubs of Fun, a “helicopter” ride, and a merry-go-round, which are still in operation today.
After he graduated from South Side High School in 1951, Mr. Reinhart served in the U.S. Army as a corporal in Germany from 1953 to 1955.
In 1952, he met Mary Nancy Klein, who was volunteering as a ticket seller for the Ferris wheel at her church’s carnival on the South Side.
“I met him when I was 16 and then he went away to the service,” she said. “When he came back, he spotted me one day at church and asked me for a date.”
The couple married in October 1960 and eventually settled in Brentwood, where they raised eight children and operated the carnival as a family affair. Over the years, the company has expanded to include the couple’s 23 grandchildren and other family members.
“Everyone in the family contributes in one way or another, from the very oldest to the very youngest. We all have full-time jobs and worked at night at the carnivals,” said Mr. Reinhart’s daughter Kristen Dorfner, a Brentwood lawyer.
The company put each of Mr. Reinhart’s children through college and it hosted as many as 25 carnivals annually from May through October during its heyday, which was mostly in the 1970s.
“St. Anne’s would net $100,000 or more every year from the carnival” at the height of its popularity, Father Breier said.
Flagging church attendance and parish mergers have resulted in fewer carnivals these days, though Reinhart Amusements still runs about a dozen each summer and the company will continue to be operated by Mr. Reinhart’s family.
“It’s a new generation and they all are committed to it,” his daughter said.
During the offseason, Mr. Reinhart would spend months updating and maintaining the equipment, making sure it was all in tiptop shape for summer.
“His rides were so safe and have been for years,” Mr. Richtar said. “He was a perfectionist about his rides — he spent all winter working on them. I have no qualms at all when I put my grandchildren on his rides. There’s not one nut or bolt out of place.”
Mr. Reinhart made safety a priority and was one of the first operators in the country to install safety belts on his Ferris wheel in the early 1980s, when they weren’t required.
“My kids ride these rides, and if they aren’t safe enough for them, then they aren’t safe enough for anybody,” Mr. Reinhart said in a July 1981 story in The Pittsburgh Press.
Although health problems sidelined Mr. Reinhart in recent years, he continued being involved in the business, even though he had to use a wheelchair at times last summer, his daughter said.
“He’s always been involved — right up until the end he was still asking questions to make sure we remembered things,” she said.
Many customers who got to know Mr. Reinhart as children brought their own children and even grandchildren to the carnival, and they often gathered to greet him in his trademark red chair with white lettering, Ms. Dorfner said.
“We would take the chair from location to location and that’s where my dad sat every night,” she said. “One of the first things families did was stop to see him. It was part of the routine.”
Mr. Reinhart was deeply religious, family and friends said.
“Every year, on the last night of the carnival he asked us to pray that they would break it down safely and return to the next carnival safely,” said Father Breier, who met Mr. Reinhart more than 50 years ago. “He was a great mentor to his children and taught them that hard work never hurt anybody and that faith and family came first.”
“He was very adamant about his faith and his family and his friends,” Mrs. Reinhart said.
The carnival opened its 69th season this year on Monday night at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church in Baldwin Borough. Though her dad isn’t there to welcome the customers he’s known for decades, he’s there in spirit, his daughter said.
“My dad would always say, ‘The show must go on,’” Ms. Dorfner said. “He waited to die until everybody was here, setting up for the season. I think he wanted to make sure we were all together at the place that made him happiest, and that’s exactly what happened.”
Along with his wife and daughter, Mr. Reinhart is survived by his sons, Harry Jr., of Trafford, Michael, of the South Side, and David, of Jefferson Hills; his daughters, Beth Ann Aubele, of Frisco, Texas, Kathleen Thompson, of Baldwin, Ria Zandier, of Jefferson Hills, and Kari Fedak, of Pleasant Hills; 23 grandchildren; and one great-granddaughter.
His funeral was Wednesday.
The family suggests contributions to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital at www.stjude.org or 600 Waterfront Drive No. 210, Pittsburgh 15222.