Many of us were riveted by Friday’s tragic drama as a pilotless plane coasted on a ghostly journey down the East Coast. Everyone heard about how Larry and Jane Glazer died, but I’d like to give you a glimpse into how they lived.
I first met Jane when she was Mrs. Glazer, my 7th grade math teacher at Hillel School. Until last week, I always ended my e-mails to Larry with “please send my love to the best teacher I ever had.” Using her incredible creativity and humor, she actually made math clear, interesting and exciting. At the end of the year, she announced to our shocked class that she was retiring to start a business. I tried my best to convince her that it would be too great a loss for her to leave teaching, but she was adamant. She explained to me that she was going to be selling containers for microwaves. I insisted that I didn’t know anyone who owned a microwave and that it would be a venture doomed to failure. She laughed and said, “You’ll see. Everyone will have a microwave and they’ll all need containers.” Her company, now called QCI Direct, has over 100 employees and mails catalogs to 35 million people annually.
While she was my teacher, we found that we had many interests in common especially jogging (that’s what we called it in those days). For several years afterward, we ran in 10K races together – and laughed all the way to the finish line. We stayed in touch on and off over the years, then she called one day in 2005. She had heard that I had become a principal and was so excited. She invited herself for a tour of the new school, and we picked up where we had left off. It meant so much to me that such a fabulous educator was impressed with Derech HaTorah of Rochester, and she and Larry proudly became founders and benefactors of the new school.
Although outrageously busy with their successful businesses, both Larry and Jane found time to do a tremendous amount of volunteer work. Called “the father of Rochester’s downtown development,” Larry also served as board chair of Jewish Senior Life, mentored young professionals and impacted the community in so many ways. Jane lectured at the University of Rochester’s Simon Business School about entrepreneurship, served as a past president of Rochester’s JCC, sat on the board of a local college and, with Larry, co-chaired WXXI’s “Go Public” campaign.
Despite their schedules and commitments, they knew how to have a good time and enjoy their time off together. I just found an e-mail that Jane sent when she invited me to see her home. She wrote, “Come before 8:30 so I can show off my garden – which is incredible at this time of year. We are both crazy gardeners, so we live in our own park.” I remembered their gardening skills and Larry’s greenhouse last winter when our school’s esrog tree was dying. I refused to give up on it since it actually had borne beautiful esrogim for us several years before. I called Larry to ask if he’d try to save it and, of course, he said yes. Several months later, he e-mailed back with a response that can only be appreciated by anyone who has tried to grow esrogim: “Your unruly offspring is sort of a monster that tends to take up lots of space. It’s time for it to go back home. It is one of the toughest plants I have ever tried to grow. Tough like us Jews.” He returned it healthy and ready to bear fruit.