Obituary of Jerry J. Weier

“After I graduated from high school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a career, so I returned home to work on the neighbor’s farm. After a year, my mother suggested that I go to college and try teaching…biggest mistake of my life.”- Jerry Weier, jokingly stated during an accounting class. Consider the seventy-three years of Jerry J. Weier (you may very well have known him as “JW,” “Mr. Weier,” “Dad,” or “Grandpa”) who peacefully passed away surrounded both near and far by loved ones on October 14, 2017. His legacy is carried on by his wife, 10 children, and 16 grandchildren, not to mention thousands of students spanning over three generations. Jerry was a business education teacher, transportation supervisor, and bus driver for Cedar Catholic High School for 39 years, never choosing to take a day off. He also worked many part-time jobs, including driving gravel, milk, and feed trucks, accounting during tax season, and painting houses. He loved his time in the classroom, contrary to what he may have said in jest, investing deeply in every student through his combination of humor and high standards. He learned both that sense of humor (a mix of facetiousness, quick wit, and mischievousness) and his work ethic from his parents Herbert and Genevieve, growing up with his six siblings on the family farm in rural South Dakota. He developed an early interest in both woodworking and in how things worked, learning to tinker and fix things. He learned to appreciate music, whistled on-key, and played piano by ear. He enjoyed driving cars and tractors, and was fascinated by aircraft, a passion that would bring him and his own family to many summer airshows. Jerry attended his first year of college in Minnesota, where he received a well-aimed snowball to the head on March 5, 1965, and thereby met his lifelong best friend, Adrienne Keller. He transferred to a South Dakota college to earn his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, becoming her love letter correspondent. He began teaching at Cedar Catholic in the fall of 1967, and married Adrienne the day before the first man walked on the moon, July 19, 1969, beginning a 48-year companionship that would produce and shape ten children. Jerry taught his own children, both in and out of Cedar classrooms. He shared important principles, such as “Sorry don’t feed the bulldog,” and “Presentation is everything.” He modeled how to look good, fashionably sporting his favorite, maroon L.L. Bean flannel shirt, a pocket protector, and his characteristic bald spot. Jerry showed, by example, how to cry at graduations, weddings, funerals, and Hallmark commercials, and that if you really need to concentrate, especially while building your own house, it will help to stick your tongue out of the corner of your mouth. Further, he demonstrated that if you used to be able to do a mean Jackknife dive, it doesn’t mean you still can do one forty years or so later. He introduced his children to a wide variety of music from many different artists, and while many took their first steps holding his hands, they also learned to waltz and two-step on his feet. He worked alongside his family in the garden, and was always willing to put the “weakling of the herd” butterhorn roll out of its misery in the kitchen. He taught everyone not to cry over spilled milk, and that if you break a fence, you should be the one out there with a fence-stretcher fixing it. Jerry was always a loyal friend, and was extremely generous with all that he had. After his health began declining, and he was diagnosed with Parkinson Disease in 2006 forcing him to give up his classroom role, he imparted some of his most important lessons: how to give and accept help gracefully, suffer patiently, and choose to keep laughing. When asked, at his 50-year high school class reunion what he’d learned in life, he replied, “Attitude makes the difference, and love makes things easier.” In the Weier family, Jerry was preceded in death by his parents Herbert and Genevieve, brother Bob (and Bob’s daughters Ann Marie and Teresa), and brother-in-law Roger, and on the Keller side, by his parents-in-law Gregory and Ethel, sister-in-law Kristine (and Kristine’s daughter Renee), and brother-in-law John. He and Adrienne also mourned the loss of seven babies, born too early to be held in their arms, but carried forever in their hearts. He leaves “his wealth” behind, including Adrienne, his wife of 48 years, 10 children, 10 children-in-law, and 16 grandchildren: Paul (wife Jen Schulz), Dave (wife Isabel, children Thalia, Anahi, Kaitlyn, and Junior), Joe (wife Shelley, children Max, Charlie, and Jack), Steve (wife Carissa, children Morgan and Madison), Jeff (wife Erica Weston), Kristie Fristad (husband Lance, children AJ and Jake), Kathy (husband Elliot Rauscher, child Juliette), Dan (wife Robin, child Hazel), Lori (husband Justin, children Jerrod and Amelia), Lisa Bearth (husband Matthew, child Eva), as well as his siblings Ray (wife Mary Beth), Judy, Diane, John (wife Ev), and Peg Waltner, sister-in-law Marnie, and many nephews, nieces, beloved Kellers, students, friends, and family too numerous to list, but not forgotten. Friends and family are welcome to Jerry’s open house, casual dress Celebration of Life Gathering, to be held at The Cremation Society of Minnesota First Memorial Funeral Chapel in St. Paul, MN (1979 Old Hudson Rd, St Paul, MN 55119), on Thursday, October 26, from 5 until 9 PM. His Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at St. Boniface Catholic Church in Freeman, SD (28703 444th Ave, Freeman, SD 57029), on Saturday, October 28, at 11 AM (visitation at 10 AM, burial and luncheon to follow the Mass). While the “JW Retirement Fund” is now only accepting donations of love and prayers, in lieu of flowers, please make a donation in Jerry’s memory to one of your local schools.