December 16, 1944 - November 14, 2022
The Celebration of Life for Jerry J Schulz is postponed due to family illness/COVID. Thank you for your continued support and love. The obituary will be updated when a new date and time has been scheduled.
Among the carrots, cucumbers, hot peppers, squash, beets, raspberries, tomatoes and potatoes, the onions flourished in the garden this summer. They grew fat and sweet, outlasting summer and growing well into fall, lasting into the early winter. Jerry James Schulz loved growing vegetables, but he especially liked onions. He’d hold one up in his hand, turning it this way and that, like a miraculous thing he had just discovered. “Eh! Look at that!” he’d say, smiling eyes wide with delight. Then he’d pick out a few of his best ones, put them in a bag and hand them to you to take home.
When Jerry left us, too soon, on the morning of Monday, November 14th, the green tomatoes were just ripening on the windowsill, the summer’s onions still speckled with garden soil. He would have loved to share them, and no doubt eat a few himself.
Some say box of chocolates, but life is more like an onion…sweet, biting, complex, earthy. The outer skin colors, ages and wrinkles with time but peel back a few layers and you get to the juicy sweetness at the heart of it all.
Jerry was born to James and Florence Schulz in Lodi, Ohio on December 16, 1944, the second child of three, along with his older brother Jack and his younger sister Jill. From his stories, it sounded like an ideal childhood among the wide lawns, big trees, creeks, and post-war culture of the Midwest. He rode his bike on multiple paper routes in the mornings, and saved enough to buy his own horse, played quarterback on the high school football team, and caused mischief along the Sandusky tourist shores of Lake Erie. There is much, much more of course, but how to sum up 18 years of one’s childhood, family and fun in such a short space?
“I just always loved his beautiful brown eyes,” remembers Margaret Elizabeth Schulz who met Jerry when they were both undergrads at Ohio State University. “He loved to dance. He was always on the dance floor.” The big brown eyes and fancy steps paid off, and Margaret and Jerry were soon married. Their marriage to each other lasted over half a century, and this New Year’s Eve will be 56 years. 56 years! What an incredible testament to their bond and their love.
Along with his love for Margaret, a staple of Jerry’s life was work. He was dedicated to working and working hard, no matter the difficulty of the job or the hour of the day. He worked in the meat industry throughout university, and after graduation from Ohio State, Jerry immediately put his undergraduate degree in animal sciences to full time use in Defiance, Ohio for Dinner Bell Meats. He was a meat man for life, working his way through the industry on a well-cooked path leading him (and Margaret) from Defiance to Troy to Livonia, Michigan outside of Detroit to Fort Wayne, Indiana.
As one might imagine, the 1970s world of Midwest stockyards, slaughter plants, packing warehouses, and trucking centers was a flinty reality of challenges and dangers, far from just Bee Gees and bell bottoms. If you pressed him, Jerry would give you a few nail-biter stories of the inner-workings of the meat world, but it was never in his nature to dwell on the drama. He’d much rather tell you about the time he worked as plant manager of Parrot Packing in Fort Wayne when the whole community got together and set a record in the Guiness Book of World Records for the World’s Longest Hot Dog. A faded photo of this momentous day hangs on the wall of his office today.
But much more important than long hot dogs, those years were the times when Jerry and Margaret had their three beautiful daughters - Amy, Andrea and Allyson. (Yes, all A names. A Midwest tradition). While Jerry worked in the plant during the week, Margaret raised their girls and like most families they regrouped over the dinner table at night and on weekends. One thing many admired about Jerry beyond his work ethic, was his ability to shut off the work and be present when he got home.
In 1984, Jerry, Margaret and the girls left the Midwest and took a job at OldTimer Meats in Loveland, Colorado. After they recovered from their culture shock, they flourished in the Rocky Mountain state. (the USA is indeed like many countries and cultures mashed together under one name), Margaret finished her Master’s Degree and embarked upon a long successful career as a speech language pathologist in early childhood. The girls sailed through high school, university and set out on their own. Jerry purchased his own business, Eddie’s Wholesale Meats, and realized his lifelong dream of being his own boss.
In America, we often talk only of a person’s work career. However, if we peel back the layers and dig deeper into the onion of life we get to the true juicy heart, the soul of it all. For Jerry,a true source of magic was his grandchildren. As his daughters created their own lives and families, he loved spending time with his grandchildren - Kyra, Jadyn, Elijah and Kian. He always had time to teach them about horses, fish for bass in the lake, drive the tractor, pull carrots up from the garden, waterski behind the old fishing boat, or sled down the big sled hill he made just for them. His eyes lit up, his heart expanded and he led them by the hand through the experiences he wanted to share with them.
It wasn’t just the grandkids though, Jerry was a man of many layers, he wore many plaid shirts and many hats. How to sum up nearly 78 years in a few paragraphs? Life is long, but in the end nearly always too short.
Jerry loved his family completely. He adored Margaret, his lovely wife and lifelong partner. He felt so proud of his daughters and their families. He cherished his friends and his time with them. He talked on and on about how fun it was to do things, like car races, with his brother Jack, and road rallies with friends. He treasured his dogs, cats and horses, even when he couldn’t ride a horse anymore. He fully immersed himself in practicing his Catholic faith, working on the property, growing gardens, making hay, feeding birds every day, catching fish and frying them up, raising beautiful cows before we ate them, studying the Bible early in the morning, buying candy-stuffed piñatas for the kids, leading hay rides in the fall, sitting around bonfires, fretting about the pelicans, listening to the blackbirds, watching the osprey chicks, growing roses, telling stories about anything that came to mind, hosting friends frequently with his speciality of smokehouse and barbeque cooking, and cruising slowly around the lake on the old pontoon boat while a beautiful sunset spread out over the Rocky Mountains to the west. He loved traditions and he wanted all these things to be his traditions. He shared them with everyone he knew.
You can’t peel back the layers of the onion forever. Eventually everything runs out and you’re left with memories and tears running from your eyes. Just remember that sweet taste and how good it was while it lasted. Jerry liked onions a lot, but there were many things that put a smile on his face.
Jerry James Schulz was preceded in death by his parents and sister Jill (Schulz) Westerhold, recently deceased October 12, 2022. He is undoubtedly enjoying catching up with them now.
Jerry is survived by his wife Margaret, his brother Jack Schulz, his daughters Amy LaCouture and her husband Billy; Andrea Schulz-Ward and her husband Nathan and their son Kian; and Allyson Hanson and her husband Jason and their children Kyra, Jadyn and Eli. He is also survived by many other extended family and friends who are all missing his smiling face and his laughter.
Much love and heartfelt thanks to all the family and friends who helped Jerry, Margaret and his family through the last difficult weeks of his life and on to the next stage of his journey.
In lieu of flowers, please honor Jerry's memory with a donation to Hearts & Horses, an organization that he volunteered with and was fond of, www.heartsandhorses.org. Additionally, at a later date, a celebration of life will be held in his hometown, Berlin Heights, Ohio.
