Author’s Note: I met with Frank Stumbo several weeks ago with the intention of writing a story about Ontario’s history, but before it was published, Frank passed away. At that time, Frank told me, “When I die, I don’t want to die with the idea that Ontario stole the General Motors.”
This hasn’t been easy to write, knowing it didn’t publish in time, but I still wanted to get that message out for him.
ONTARIO – Before he died, Ontario’s first mayor Frank Stumbo wanted the reasoning behind the decision to incorporate the city in 1958 to be clear: Ontario wasn’t created to “steal” the incoming General Motors plant from Mansfield.
Rather, it was to keep tax dollars for Ontario schools that could have decreased if a portion of land was annexed to Mansfield.
He sat down a few weeks ago for an interview with Richland Source, but before anything was published, the 92-year-old man – who served as mayor from 1958 to 1962, served in WWII and the Korean War and founded the Ontario-based Tribune-Courier newspaper with his late wife Betty in 1961 – died Tuesday morning at Elmcroft of Ontario.
Betty died in November 2017. The two had been married for 69 years.
“I just loved Frank and Betty – the hours we spent eating fried chicken at their home; our discussions, okay sometimes arguments, about politics; their wise counsel about government and about life,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown. “And their pride in their sons Marc and Rick and their loyalty to their beloved Ontario. Frank was a pillar of the Ontario community and a true public servant.”
Stumbo’s son Rick also spoke about his parents’ relationship.
“They were pretty close. They went to work together, they worked together, they drove home together and lived together,” he said.
Yet, they never grew tired of one another.
“Usually couples need their time apart, but they didn’t need that,” Rick Stumbo said.
Current Ontario Mayor Randy Hutchinson was also familiar with Stumbo. He’d often visit the former mayor at Elmcroft of Ontario, where Stumbo resided towards the end of his life.
“I really enjoyed talking to him. He was a good guy,” Hutchinson said. “I would stop by every once and a while and have a chat with him. He was always sharp as a tack. He’d remember stuff from 60 years ago like it was yesterday.”
Everyone who knew Stumbo said he was always happy to tell stories about Ontario’s past. He knows why a group of individuals joined together to incorporate in the 1950s, and even remembers the first meeting of Ontario Council.
In the 1950s, when General Motors was bringing a plant to Richland County, Mansfield had intended to annex a portion of the unincorporated village of Ontario, bringing it into the Mansfield city limits.
“Herald Marshall, longtime president of the board of education in Springfield Township, went to them and said, ‘When you annex, would you leave the tax – the industrial tax revenues for the education, leave them back for our school?’” Stumbo said in a January interview.
When the answer was no, Marshall and others took action. According to Stumbo, they held public hearings and began the process of incorporating the village of Ontario. When a place is unincorporated, it exists based on tradition, but once incorporated, a place has elected officials and more say over its fate.
While Stumbo admitted he wasn’t too involved in this process, he remembers why those hearings were held.
“They held public hearings to decide whether or not to incorporate to save school finances, not to steal General Motors,” he said. “If the community was going to incorporate to take General Motors, you would think we’d have more than half a dozen people incorporating to protect the schools.
“There was no mention of General Motors. The only plan they had was to protect the school’s finances.”
After these steps were taken, Stumbo became more involved. He intended to run for the first council against 27 others, but someone asked him at one of the “incorporating meetings” if he’d instead run for mayor.
“I said, I don’t know diddly about elected office. And they said, neither do these other people,” Stumbo recalled the conversation.
So, he ran for mayor. And at only 33-years-old, Stumbo won the election by five votes.
“I was shocked, because I had only lived here three years, I knew no one except a handful of people,” he said.
The night after the election, he gathered all the newly-elected official in the Home Economics room at the high school.
“Now, guys, what do we do? We have no plan. We don’t have any money,” Stumbo recalled addressing the others.
They took a loan from the Springfield Township Trustees and even put their personal finances on the line to open a bank account for the newly incorporated Ontario.
The trustees also shared their building, where a Besta Fasta Pizza and the Ontario Coffee Department are now located. The first council meeting was held there.
“We had one person attend the meeting. It was a cold, snowy night. This guy walks in and I look up, and thought, ‘By golly, we have an audience,’ and I put forth my Perry Mason attitude,” Stumbo said. “Then, I look up again. Here this guy was a drifter. He came out of the cold and cuddled in the corner and fell asleep.”
They later had to wake him up when closing the building.
Sometimes council meetings would last until as late as 2 a.m., but Stumbo and the others would still have to get up and go to their “regular jobs.” For Stumbo, he was an insurance agent with Lumbermens Mutual Insurance Co.
Stumbo served two terms as mayor, then served a few years on council and as the clerk treasurer, but he was no longer involved in government when Ontario grew to be a city in 2001.
Until his death, Stumbo wrote a weekly column called “Scribbles & Comments” and served as the president of the Tribune-Courier, which began providing coverage of Ontario as the Ontario Tribune on October 12, 1961.
The Stumbos later expanded coverage into Lexington and Madison Townships, too. In June 1967, the Stumbos started the Lexington Courier. It merged with the Ontario Tribune in 1969, becoming the Tribune-Courier. Coverage further expanded into Madison, Mifflin and Washington Townships in November 1980 with the Madison Tribune, which merged with the Tribune-Courier in 1995.
“He was awesome to work with,” said longtime employee Cheryl Fink. “I’d go in a half hour early and he’d tell me about Ontario’s history.”
She also recalled “deciphering” Stumbo’s handwritten columns for publication.
Stumbo is survived by his sons Rick Stumbo of Virginia and Marc Stumbo of New Jersey and his grandson Ian of Richland County.
Ontario Council recognized Stumbo on Wednesday, Feb. 22 with a moment of silence before its council meeting at the municipal building on Stumbo Road – named after Frank himself.
