Henry Hall Ware, III of Darien, Georgia, passed away peacefully on July 10, 2026 at the age of 90.

Mr. Ware (Hall) was born December 16, 1935 at the St. Joseph Infirmary in downtown Atlanta, the son of Henry Hall Ware, Jr. and Katherine Catchings Ware. He received his primary education at R. L. Hope elementary school, which was located on Piedmont Road in Atlanta where the Tower Place office/retail/entertainment complex is now located. He attended North Fulton High School and graduated from The Darlington School for Boys, in Rome, Georgia in 1953. He graduated from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, in 1957, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History, where he was a member of the Navy ROTC and the Alpha Tau Omega (ATO) fraternity.

Hall served honorably in the US Navy as an anti-submarine warfare officer on the USS Goodrich (DDR 831), a destroyer. While in the Navy, he made lifelong friends and traveled the world. Photos of naval officer “Hedgehog” Ware skiing the Alps with Navy buddies and scooting around Rome with pretty Italian ladies suggest he made the most of his time abroad.

Hall graduated from the Emory University Lamar School of Law in 1963, where he served as editor of The Journal of Public Law, the school’s law review. He earned an LLB degree and signed on with the Atlanta law firm King & Spalding, where he specialized in corporate and banking law and attained the grade of Senior Partner.

Early in his career, a King & Spalding mentor introduced Hall to Mary Glasgow Chiles, a beautiful, sassy North Carolina debutante who quickly snatched up the handsome, tennis-playing, motorcycle-riding attorney. Hall and Mary were married on June 6, 1964, a date Hall chose because it coincided with D-Day, a day he’d never forget, having grown up with a victory garden during World War II. Hall and Mary raised four daughters in Atlanta: Georgia Chiles, Mary McCluer (Molly), Virginia Catchings (Ginny) and Henrietta Britton.

Hall left King & Spalding in 1982 to form Ware Hodgson & Company, specialists in transactions for regulated financial institutions. He was a founding director of The Chattahoochee Bank, The Buckhead Bank and The Southeastern Savings Institution Fund, a publicly-traded closed-end investment company, later renamed John Hancock Financial Trends. In 1995, he left Atlanta and engaged in private law practice on St. Simons Island and in Darien, Georgia. Hall was a member of the State Bar of Georgia and the American Law Institute, an invitational group of lawyers, judges and law professors interested in legal scholarship and improving the law.

Hall enjoyed hunting and fishing, was an incredible cook (often not using a recipe), and loved to build things (including a two-story outdoor shed and a chicken coop). He organized countless activities with his grandchildren, including a road trip up the Eastern seaboard that culminated at Hershey Park.

Hall accomplished a lot during his life, but those who were lucky enough to know him will also remember his character. He was a true Southern gentleman with a keen intellect, a wonderful sense of humor and a genuinely warm demeanor. He was effortlessly kind, witty and curious about the world. He lived a life full of meaning and he provided his daughters with the desire to do the same.

Hall coached the girls’ soccer teams, planned father-daughter camping trips (prioritizing beer for the dads and candy bars for the girls), numerous hunting and fishing excursions (introducing his girls to the thrill of reeling in dinner), Scuba diving, skiing, hiking and biking and visits to foreign cities and places of beauty that his children and grandchildren will never forget. The family’s trips to England and France and the Caribbean, long weekends at Sewanee, and summers spent at Fripp Island, South Carolina and St. Simons Island, Georgia formed indelible memories, every single one filled with laughter and the unspoken understanding that time spent with family, experiencing a world that’s much bigger than us, is a gift.

Hall and Mary’s home in Atlanta, and, later, in Darien, was full of hundreds of Hall’s photographs of their wonderful family adventures, as well as delicious meals he cooked (his homemade biscuits just one of many favorites) and a stream of extended family and friends. Hall’s relaxed attitude was a humorous foil to his wife’s and daughters’ strong personalities, leading visitors to jokingly wonder how he survived the chaos, the only male surrounded by five outspoken women and two female Labrador Retrievers. The dogs had been trained to hunt but occasionally wore makeup and costumes and rarely, if ever, responded when called. At Mary’s annual Christmas luncheon, Hall gamely dressed up as Santa Claus, handing out gifts with a wry smile. He had a talent for creating nicknames and a clever vocabulary for the everyday, making even the dreaded morning wakeup actually feel fun. Tiiiime to geezelie!, he’d say, and his daughters and their friends would roll out of bed, giggling. Time to boryup! meant it was time to jump into the van Hall had bought for road trips, much to Mary’s chagrin, outfitted with brown shag carpet, swivel chairs and a sign on the front bumper that said, Eat More Possum. As his children got older, they and their friends greatly appreciated Hall’s kegerator, reliably filled with ice cold Rolling Rock beer.

Hall lived a life rooted in family, integrity and love. He often said, Everybody’s gotta be someplace, displaying his trademark kindness and optimism. Hall’s family and friends hold him someplace in their hearts where his immeasurable legacy will always be treasured.

Hall is survived by his four daughters, Georgia (Billy) Margeson, of Atlanta, Molly (Bill) Beery of Atlanta, Ginny, of St. Simons Island, and Henrietta (Brett) Pertuz of New York City; and ten grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his dearly beloved wife of 59 years, Mary Glasgow Chiles Ware.

A family remembrance will be held.