Obituaries

Jack Green, Familiar Face in Keego Garden Club, Dies at 79

Green "could always be counted on," said a fellow Garden Club member.

Jack E. Green, a past member of the Keego Harbor Garden Club and a 1994 retiree of the Ford Motor Co. Wixom plant, died Monday. He was 79.

The family will gather with friends from 1-4 p.m. Sunday, followed by A Healing Farewell public visitation at 4 p.m. at Borek Jennings Funeral Home, 7425 East Michigan State Road 36, Hamburg.

Well-known for his devotion to hard work and a "real old-time kind of decency," Green was a close friend to Karen Meabrod, a fellow resident and a Garden Club member, who said Green had been a member of the club for six years.

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"We could always count on him to help on our major cleanups in the spring and fall," Meabrod said. "Jack also had side jobs after he retired — he mowed and cut grass, and you would always see him riding around town on his John Deere tractor. He was a workaholic when it came to labor-intensive work."

Ellie Girard, chairperson of the Keego Harbor Parks and Recreation Commission, said she will always remember Green for riding around on his green tractor but also as a part of the Keego Harbor community.

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"He liked to help businesses with their lawns, and he just liked to be a part of something," Girard said. "He got along with everyone. A very sweet person is being lost."

Green was a part of what helps make Keego Harbor unique — a man of character whose actions spoke louder than his words, according to Meabrod.

Green could always be found with his sleeves rolled up, whether it was pulling floats on his trailer in annual parades or helping put away Gino's Pizza, 1999 Cass Lake Rd., Keego Harbor, where Garden Club meetings were held.

Meabrod said she fondly recalls Green waiting for his wife, Valerie, co-chair of the Parks and Recreation Commission, to finish a commission meeting at City Hall while he sat in the club meeting at Gino's, eating slice after slice. "He could really put it down," Meabrod said with a laugh.

Girard said there are plans to set up a fund so that a tree may be planted at City Hall with a plaque in his memory.

Green is survived by his wife, whom he married June 21, 1986; children Myra Kay Lagrutta and Brenda Kay Roberts; nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren; and siblings Joseph Green, Betty Worsham, Susie Cunningham, Judy Lewis, Jay W. Green, Patricia Hall and Debra Thompson.

Memorial contributions are suggested to the Michigan Animal Rescue League, 790 Featherstone St., Pontiac, or the Michigan Heart Association.


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