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Obituary : Glenn Wiley "Mac" McMaster |
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 Glenn Wiley (Mac) McMaster, born in Glendale California in 1922 of Floyd and
Gertrude McMaster, died Friday, May 1st, 2009 of complications from cancer; he
was 86 years of age.
After serving his country in the US Navy in the
Philippines during WWII and obtaining the rank of Lieutenant Commander, he
returned home to marry his surviving wife, Lucy who he met in Florida while on
leave as a cadet in the Navy midshipman school.
Later he and his wife moved
to Davis while he attended the University of California at Davis as an
Agricultural Education major graduating in 1949.
After a brief time as an
intern teacher in Modesto he and his wife settled in Lodi, California to become
part of the community teaching Farm Mechanics in the Agricultural Department of
the Lodi High School before retiring from education with a Masters Degree in
1979.
Teaching it seems, is a family tradition started by his father, Floyd,
who was a principal and teacher of a public school in Glendale and is carried on
by Glenn's surviving daughter Linda, a teacher with the Lodi Unified School
District.
Along with his regular teaching responsibilities Glenn also drove
the school bus, taught night classes in small engine repair and welding,
contracting with General Mills to teach welding to some of their employees.
He also sponsored the Young Farmer Chapter of the Young Farmers Association
of Northern California and served as an advisor to that and the Future Farmers
of America for many years. It was here in Lodi that he surrendered his formal
name Glenn to the more affectionate name of Mac.
Mac (Glenn) loved to work
with his hands, turning raw wood materials into finished furniture pieces or
welding many a helplessly broken item and restoring it back to functional order.
Many of the items of furniture in his home he made himself. His pride is a roll
top desk he made of oak salvaged from the wire spools that carried the
stabilization guy cables used to erect one of the large television antennas near
Walnut Grove.
He took a hopelessly wrecked VW bug and cut the standard 14"
out of the center of it and made a car for his son, Mike, for college, a street
legal, Evans-Runt dune buggy.
He started his own small engine repair
business after retiring from the school district.
Later, Glenn's good friend
Jim Beardsley (an also retired, Farm Mechanics teacher from San Joaquin Delta
College) enlisted him to serve in the San Joaquin Historical Society efforts to
restore tractors at the County Museum at Micke Grove. He worked there for many
years donating much of his time, tools and effort to preserving important
aspects of the agricultural history of this area.
Mac loved fishing, hunting
and backpacking and spent many a vacation imparting a love and respect of the
outdoors to his family.
His surviving son, Mike, has been working in
environmental sciences and engineering throughout his career. Mac's career
inspiration came from his mentor, Professor Harold Lewis, a close family friend
then teaching at the University of California at Davis, who led him away from
agricultural machine engineering into the teaching profession, to the benefit of
many in this area.
His granddaughter, Sarah McMaster, is considering a
career in teaching agriculture also.
Mac was also a good friend, spending a
lot of time looking after and taking care of his friends when they were in need.
Such was the case with his close friend, Dr. John Stucky, who in a time in his
life prior to his death in 1999 when he needed such a friend, Mac was there to
help. However, that was his general way of doing things, not looking for reward
or payment but to just be there to help his friends and family when he could and
when they needed it - especially with someone's home or farm project that either
got stuck in neutral or was in danger of going seriously wrong.
Many of us
who knew and loved him, believe that it was his greatest frustration in his
later life was that his age and arthritis kept him from carrying on more in that
capacity. One of Mac's close and departed friends, Bob and Susie Motts
(neighbors during their shared College days at Davis) put it best commenting,
when he was on their dairy farm repairing one of their tractors while visiting
some time ago, "Mac does not work for money, he works for love - the Massey
Ferguson will be just fine."
Mac (Glenn) is survived by his wife, Lucy; his
son, Mike; his daughter, Linda Camper and her husband, Bruce Camper; his
granddaughter, Sarah McMaster, and his grandson, Nick McMaster.
A graveside
service will be held at Lodi Memorial Cemetery, 5750 E. Pine St., Lodi, on
Friday, May 8, at 3:00 p.m.
Contributions (instead of flowers) can be made
to the
Arthritis Foundation , and the cancer foundation.
Special
thanks to Vienna Nursing home, Wine Country Convalescence Care and Hospice of
San Joaquin County.
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