Harold R. Wilde, administrative secretary, businessman, and public relations director, was born in Milwaukee in 1911 and attended grade and high school there. His father, Walter Wilde, once was in charge of the port of Milwaukee, and was head of selective service in Wisconsin in World War II. Harold Wilde graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1934 where he wrote for the Daily Cardinal, broadcast for radio, and co-authored a Haresfoot follies.
During the four years that he taught in the industrial arts department of the Milwaukee school system, he established himself in art and civic circles of that city. In 1938 he went to Washington, D.C., as secretary to Senator Alexander Wiley, and the following year married the Senator's daughter, Winifred. For a number of years he did research and administrative work as a member of Senator Wiley's Senate staff; but returned to Milwaukee in 1943 to become director of the Great Lakes Harbors Association, for which he also edited the Great Lakes Outlook.
In 1947 Mr. Wilde again went to Washington, this time to become staff director of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The following year, though, he resigned his Senate appointment to return to Wisconsin and become vice president of the Norcor Manufacturing Company, a metal fabricating company in the Fox River Valley. He was responsible for handling products and sales, and also directed the engineering. Although the company greatly expanded while he was associated with it, for personal reasons he resigned from Norcor in 1950 to become director of public relations for Globe Union, Inc. in Milwaukee. There he resumed an active interest in civic affairs.
Mr. and Mrs. Wilde had three children, Alexander, Wallis, and Harold, Jr. Harold R. Wilde died in 1962, at the age of fifty-one.
