Funeral

Program

Homily

Eulogy

by Linda Lovas Hoeschler
August 22, 2022, St. Olaf Church, Minneapolis

Thank you for coming today to pay tribute to Jack Hoeschler.

Jack was so many, many things: scholar, athlete, husband, father, grandfather, traveler, adventurer, historian, attorney, crusader, music commissioner and ardent chorister. He was a dynamo, larger than life, a force of nature. And those of us fortunate enough to attach ourselves to him were in for a great ride. Hold onto your hats!

Jack Hoeschler was a true scholar, always and every day trying to learn from people, lectures, and books. At the same time, he was devoted to helping others and to making this a better world. I’ve never known anyone who needed less approval than Jack, or who tried to do the right thing without waiting for direction or help, sometimes to his own detriment.

When I would ask why he continued to undertake civic projects or aid the needy without expressions of gratitude, he’d reply: “If you never expect to be thanked, you’ll never be disappointed.”

I first remember hearing Jack say this when we were late-1960’s Vista volunteers in Chicago, living in the hood on the northside, working in the projects on the southside. Dangerous gang territory. Frightened mothers trying to hold it together, their jobs, their fragile families, their minds. Often Jack would go to a community meeting in a notorious project high-rise, returning at midnight or after. I asked him if the residents thanked him for coming, for risking his life, as I saw it. “Linda,” he stated, as if it were obvious, “if you never expect to be thanked, you’ll never be disappointed.”

Because he never waited around for the affirmations, the applause, he got a lot done. And when he did get great tributes, as when the 1978 Science Museum of Minnesota was nicknamed “The House that Jack Built”, he seemed pleasantly surprised. By the way, our 9-year- old daughter told people that Jack was a tour guide at the museum—he spent so much time there with contractors, scientists, omni-theater producers, potential donors, handing our kids staplers to staple gun the carpeted theater walls because he thought the builders were shortchanging them.

Whence came this lack of need for endorsement? Perhaps his baby buggy, where his mother would park him in the back yard with a bottle of milk and a cup of Cheerios—then, many a day, go off to work as a substitute teacher. (Eventually his afternoon cries provoked tongue-wagging neighbors to call Grandma Hoeschler to scoop him up and change his diaper at her home.) Jack says he can remember lying there in the buggy and deciding he’d have to survive on his own. (By the way, grandson William O’Brien, reading Jack’s essay “Home Alone, the Original Story”, asked his mother, “Did they report his mother to the authorities?” No William, things were different then.)

Jack didn’t become an angry, alienated, frightened youth, as today we might expect. Instead, he became a confident, self-propelled person who did what he thought was right and interesting. Because he was so intelligent, most of his ideas and ventures were exciting, daring, boundary breaking. “World-class mind,” one professional commented. And because Jack didn’t wait around for the applause, the thanks, or the endorsements, success piled upon success. Academic, leadership, scholarships, and scholarship awards. He expected to win and he did. He was a phenom, running too fast to hear any applause.

Although he was born with a big head, circumference speaking, he had a 2-year-younger brother, Jake, who was an all-American athlete from the start and of whom Jack was so proud. Jack loved to recount how the two brothers started tennis at the same time, and within a week folks were giving Jake their better rackets and asking Jack to pick up Jake’s balls. Others might have been driven to jealously, but Jack only bragged that Jake was so, so good.

And that is at the heart of Jack’s ability to accomplish so much: he reveled in other folks’ successes. I never heard him make a jealous remark. Moreover, he took the many people he met in life as they were. He NEVER set goals for others, including our children and grandchildren. He never compared people or wished someone were more gifted in any way.

And Jack was always, always thinking about, designing the next project or adventure: building a science museum, producing science movies, making Rice Park a treasure (Ordway financing, St Paul Hotel saving, Landmark restoration), buying the First Bank building, initiating our family’s 6-month trip around the world, some big real estate deals, protecting and enhancing St. Paul’s Riverfront. In the late 80’s he decided to engage others in supporting composers with commissions, our hobby, so he dreamed up an investment club model; Jack’s little commissioning club idea has now been replicated throughout the country.

Interlaced with these projects were the many interventions when he helped the less fortunate: Fred Hampton and other black civil rights leaders in Chicago, protesters at the Democratic Convention of ’68; the Hmong trying to start businesses; the African paper carrier who had immigration problems; the Karen who needed to find a new church; the undocumented Central American trying to get a leg up; the Catholic priest trying to save a school. And then, there were the ultimately successful law-making challenges to the City’s right-of-way assessment policies, that only a semi-retired lawyer with savings could afford to champion.

Close and distant friends had sickness, suicides, problems: barely asking if they wanted help, Jack told them they had problems, that he could help them, and he did. For free. As I helped Jack wrap up John G Hoeschler, PA, I realized he had way more unpaying, but very loyal clients, than paying ones. Luckily the paying ones were also loyal (a few here today) and generous in many ways.

Jack remained a scholar, a lover of learning his entire life, right up to the end. His family in La Crosse often joked about his boyhood escape into books, while they played tennis and rode horses. There wasn’t any scholarly book he didn’t crave. I somewhat sympathized with folks married to junkies, for I had to limit the number of tomes he would scarf from the Little Libraries we passed on our evening walks. One of his happiest times was his oversight of our garage conversion to a library—a place for most of his hundreds, thousands of books—and a chance to buy his lifelong dream, a library ladder hanging on its rails.

Of course, there were some downsides to Jack—raised pretty much as a solo operator, never seeking feedback, not thinking he needed others, as his high school advisor, Sr. Paula Marie, warned him he did and would. Mechanical man, one sibling joked—with some real truth attached.

He never cared for small talk, nor even tried to master that art. He’d tell newcomers he was an air-conditioner salesman, because that elicited few inquiries about himself. Then he could start grilling people he’d just met, trying to learn from them, sometimes cutting them off before they’d finished a sentence. I’d chide him for the latter, and he’d reply that he could tell where they were going and he didn’t need to hear the rest. Out of nowhere, he might break into dinner party chit-chat with a non sequitur explanation of the rivalry between Erasmus and Luther. When he became bored, he might pull out a book and withdraw to another room.

Our son-in-law, Terry O’Brien, said that on a sailing trip with Jack and a group of friends, on one of the first days at sea Jack disappeared below, missing beautiful scenery and camaraderie. Terry was admittedly annoyed by this, until he realized over dinner that Jack had been reading multiple books in preparation for his lecture on the geology, geography and history of the area— unsolicited, of course, but totally brilliant. And no escape hatches!

We often commented that Jack’s retirement career should be as a Greyline Bus Tour guide. If you never got his Twin Cities driving tour, of the geology, geography and history of the area, it’s a loss. On many a trip, domestic or foreign, Jack would assume the role of learned lecturer for me or our traveling friends. I cannot count the number of times people would wander into “our group,” commenting that we had a better tour guide than theirs!

Other flaws—most, fortunately—moderated. Jack, if he were here today, would tell you that I was the first person who ever loved him—the one who taught him how to love, to accept love. To realize how worthy he was of love. I married one of the most exciting people I had ever met—although I did hesitate when he gave me a veal heart on a bed of parsley one Valentine’s Day. Very exciting, but a bit, more than a bit too sure of himself at times. The carapace he had put on as an uncared-for-infant in that buggy inspired me to try to bang and chip away at it—to help this lion find his heart.

And, of course, there was a heart beating tenderly in that big tough body of his. So loyal and true, to me, our children, their families, and our special grandsons. With that newfound awakening of love and loyalty came a sense for Jack that we were it for him. And while he would protect us with his life, he was nowhere near being a controlling Mafioso, because, somewhat surprisingly, he was never ever jealous.

Proof. About 20 years ago I went to New York City on business. Jack had never questioned me about the men I traveled or ate with. This time I thought I would wait to see how long it took him to ask whether or not I’d made it to the Big Apple. Three days! By then he was actually worried…

When I told my mother in December 1965 that I, a 21-year-old senior at Barnard College, was going to marry Jack Hoeschler, a Root-Tilden Scholar at NYU Law School, she cried, “Oh Linda,” she said, “we really like Jack, but YOU have so much potential. Dad and I are happy to pay for Columbia Law School or some such.” 

“Mother,” I said, “Jack will let me be all the person I want to be. Don’t worry.”

What did I know at 21? But I was right.

Jack encouraged my research jobs at Columbia while I got my Master’s; he diapered the babies in the middle of the night so I could nurse them; he drove my music reviews to the Minneapolis Star and Pioneer Press at 2am; he went to the kids’ athletic events and teachers’ conferences when my corporate career permitted no parental leave; he bragged about my many successes and often had more confidence in me than I had in myself.

I look back and am not sure how we did it all—ah youth! On top of our work, we hosted near-monthly dinner parties, often following a home concert; we traveled widely--often with our kids; we housed artists and scientists in our home. Church on Sunday, many boards (50 between us), lots of friends, lots of dancing, lots of fun. We moved here to escape Chicago’s corruption and were warmly welcomed as worker bees and potential leaders.

We were a good team, often a great one. We looked like the best musical romance, dancing through life, trying to leave few stones unturned but also trying to bring others along, to make their lives better, easier. Accepting, but not expecting thanks.

I will miss my buddy, my soul mate. When we were early marrieds, I remember lying on our bed in Greenwich Village, both crying that one of us would die first, leaving the other alone.

Beware of what you wish for—because we almost died together in Sweden 17 years ago. In fact, Jack did die in Sweden and was brought back to life on an operating table. We returned to this country different people, physically and, in Jack’s case, psychologically. But with the love of family and friends, some gentle coaching, some prodding, more focus on our Japanese garden where Jack was the moss wrangler par excellence, we did okay.

Jack’s lack of self-absorption saved him and helped him adjust to the new person he had become—he learned to accept feedback better, because he knew it was given with total love and good intentions.

His lifelong lack of focus on himself compelled him to keep learning, working, to become the most devoted of grandfathers whose generous parents allowed us to take our two treasured boys, Jack and William O’Brien, on many a trip.

“Hey Linda,” Jack said. “This is another chance at life—let’s make the most of it.”  I think we succeeded. Our good fortune continued because that’s how Jack always saw life. We both continued to work in the community and absolutely loved helping our grandsons become the lovely young men they are. We danced and kicked up our proverbial heels, although I no longer allowed him to throw me over his head or between his legs, 10 inches of spinal titanium rods limiting my agility.

“Who can say that living to 80 isn’t a good long life?” said Jack this past May. True to his core, he retired from the law 8 days before he died. True to his core, in his last days he devised new ways to inspire other young people he knew with funds for books and education. And he never expected to be thanked, because that lack of need for approval and praise propelled him to keep doing good for others to the very end.

Ave atque vale, John Gregory Hoeschler.