Glenn Jaeger, in Memoriam

Family.

 

Glenn Jaeger passed away recently. Glenn’s father Nick married my grandmother Edna Wiebe after my grandfather died. Getting to know Glenn and Carol was one of the blessings of that union for me. We moved into the neighboring school district just before my senior year in high school, and Glenn and Carol took me in that last year to allow me to finish high school where I had started. They treated me so kindly, much more kindly than an obnoxious teenager might expect.

Glenn introduced to me his passion for rebuilding classic Studebaker cars; I especially remember his Studebaker Hawk, and the mid-50’s Packard station wagon with the compressor (Really! a compressor came stock on a station wagon.), which Carol would drive and occasionally race on the streets against unsuspecting teenager boys driving relatively underpowered Ford Mustangs.

Glenn took the time to get to know the children living in his neighborhood, including some of my high school classmates, to my surprise; I didn’t know many other adults who took that kind of interest. I remember him still as a patient and kind man, deeply in love with his Carol.