Wiandt, John A. - Additional Notes
Wiandt, John A.
Additional Notes
BURBANK - John A. Wiandt, 68, of Burbank, passed away unexpectedly Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2005, at Medina General Hospital, from complications following a four-month recovery from an October automobile accident.
Services will be Monday, Feb. 21, at 11 a.m. at Matteson Funeral Home in West Salem, with Pastor Robert Holmes officiating. Burial will be at West Salem Cemetery.
Friends may call Sunday from 3-5 p.m. at the funeral home.
Memorial contributions may be given to the family for the Orrville High School Library to purchase science and poetry books.
He was born May 25, 1936, in Canton, to Charles and Lucille (Sell) Wiandt, and was a long-time teacher at Orrville High School, where he had taught science for 24 years. He missed just two days in his 30+ year career, retiring in 1989 from Orrville High School.
Deeply devoted to his family, Wiandt was a lover of nature and of poetry. If it were possible to sum up his life in just a few words, it would be said that he was a good man, full of life and of love for his wife, his children, his grandchildren and his extended family and friends. In our pain, he suffered, in our happiness, he rejoiced. He was more of what the world should be.
While he was not one to focus on himself, he led an interesting life that began with him as a champion watermelon grower with eight brothers and sisters in a coal-heated house on a hill in Stark County, wound its way through steel mills of Canton, and included a tour of duty serving in the U.S. Army in Germany as a medic after World War II.
When he returned from the war, Mr. Wiandt somehow managed to woo and marry a very beautiful woman, Catherine Stoycheff, whom he had met while teaching in Delaware County. After the birth of their two oldest children, Patricia and Carolyn, the couple decided to move to northeast Ohio, and settled down permanently near Wooster in the Northwestern School District, Wayne County. Subsequently, his two sons, James and Thomas, were born.
In addition to his career as a popular teacher of chemistry, biology and ecology at Orrville High School (during which he was known for impromptu poetry readings and a somewhat eccentric list of classroom norms), he focused much of his energy on his family and homestead in Wayne County. An avid gardener to the end, Mr. Wiandt maintained large garden plots on the family’s farm. In earlier years, he himself managed the small farm of corn, beef cattle and occasionally hogs (when it was to be a pork year for the family freezer). In a house that was overrun with his magazine subscriptions, poetry collection and crossword puzzles, he was fond of saying how very little effort it was for him to adjust to retirement.
In a typical example of his loyalty and dedication, he wrote a letter every week his children were away from home. In the case of his son, James, this prolific display of letter writing stretched over a period of nearly 20 years until the week before his accident. Mr. Wiandt also dabbled himself with writing poetry and even did a stint as a science writer for Compton’s Encyclopedia. His deep love of reading and of poetry also translated not only to classroom poetry readings, but also to regular readings at care facilities.
With his children and his grandchildren, he was attentive, playful, loving and proud. It was clear that for him there could be no greater joy than his family. And until his death, he portrayed this fact with every smile, every gentle pat on the arm and with his patience. He was always one to blame himself before others, to give before asking and to love unequivocally. He was a good man. And where he once stood, there is now an enormous empty space we’ll never fill.
He was a member of the Science and Environmental Societies, Retired Teachers Association and Wooster Chamber of Music.
Surviving are his wife, Catherine D. (Stoycheff) Wiandt, whom he married in 1961; four children, Patty Closson of Baltimore, Ohio, Carrie (Doug) McClure of Wooster, Jim Wiandt and Noemi Ezkurdia of San Sebastian, Spain, and Tom (Wendy) Wiandt of Burbank; eight grandchildren, Sofia and James Closson, Erin, Aubrey and Lea McClure, Guillermo Ezkurdia, Jessica and Jake Wiandt; five brothers, David (Rita) Wiandt of Magnolia, Roger (Linda) Wiandt of Canton, Richard (Lorie) Wiandt of Magnolia, Mark Wiandt of Brandenton, Fla., and Paul Wiandt of Canton; and three sisters, Kathleen (Mike) Bolus of Mogadore, Rosemary Weisent of Deming, New Mexico, and Jessie (Ed) Agle of Jeffersonville.
He was preceded in death by his parents and a brother-in-law, Ken Weisent.
Paid
[Source: The Daily Record (Wooster) Obituaries, February 19, 2005]