Glenn Kennedy never was much on taking things seriously.
“You’d ask him, ‘How do you feel?’ and he would grin and say, ‘With my hands,’” said his daughter, Laura Thomas. “The doctor asked him, ‘Are you OK?’ and my dad said, ‘Why, no; I’m Glenn.’ Such corny jokes!
“When he walked me down the aisle, he was giving me poker strategy advice.”
Mr. Kennedy died Dec. 6, just weeks after the August death of his wife, Margaret.
The two met as children, when Margaret moved to the same south St. Louis street where Glenn lived with his homemaker mother and Anheuser-Busch employee father.
“They ran around in the same friend group, they bowled together,” Laura said. “They knew each other 75 years.”
Mr. Kennedy graduated from Cleveland High School and went to work as a journeyman painter, working with his uncles.
“I know he did Army training at Ft. Leonard Wood, but he never did active service,” Laura said. “I don’t know why. He was in the reserves, though.”
The Kennedys were married in 1964. Shortly afterward, Mr. Kennedy started work at the Chrysler plant in Fenton, although he still did painting work on the side.
“They were told they couldn’t have kids,” Laura said. “So, they started the adoption process, and then almost immediately got pregnant.”
The couple would have five children in 10 years.
“They ran a tight ship,” their daughter said. “But we had a lot of fun. Any time he had time off we were doing something as a family – road trips, going to parks, volunteering with our church.
Laura said her father was highly energetic and had a wide range of interests.
“He did not sit down. Not ever,” she said with a laugh. “He was always on the go. As a family, we would go to the VP Fair, the zoo, the botanical gardens. He loved National Parks, and we went on lots of trips through those.”
Mr. Kennedy enjoyed gardening and loved taking his dad to local casinos.
“During holidays, there was a standard routine where the men played poker in the basement,” Laura said. “It was him, his brothers and brothers-in-law, his nephews.
“He liked checkers, and at some point was actually a ranked player. He also loved baseball cards, had a huge collection. He went to shows and stores and did trading.”
Mr. Kennedy was a jazz music aficionado, attending concerts and festivals all over the area.
“Every day of the Goldenrod Festival, he’d take a different kid,” Laura said. “One of our trips was to New Orleans, so we could go to hear jazz at Preservation Hall.”
Another hobby was carpentry.
“He built a lot of shelving,” Laura said. “When one of us would buy a house, he’d go in and build shelves in the garage, the basement. He built dressers, chests – so we have a lot of handmade furniture from him.”
In 1986, Mr. Kennedy was painting the gym at St. Boniface Church when his 20-foot extension ladder slipped.
“He shattered bones in both arms, had a concussion, a collapsed lung,” Laura said. “It was a close call. He had last rites. He was in the hospital a few months and out of work for a year.”
That made for tough economic times for the family, and Mr. Kennedy instituted a rule that would hold through all five children.
“His rule was, once you turned 16, you had to get a job and pay your own tuition,” Laura said. “We all did that.”
Once his grandchildren came along, Mr. Kennedy took them on many adventures.
“He took them everywhere,” Laura said. “To the park, hiking, to the creek to skip rocks. We were cleaning up his house and there were two long dowels with my girls’ names on them. They turned out to be walking sticks.”
After Mr. Kennedy retired in 2001, he and his wife did a lot of traveling.
“They made it to almost every state,” Laura said. “They did three Alaska cruises. They mostly did road trips, though, to Memphis or Springfield for baseball; to Chicago for museums; to Churchill Downs because he loved horse racing.”
Mr. Kennedy was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2016 and underwent a year of chemotherapy which left him with balance problems.
“He had a stroke in 2018, and in 2020, he fell and broke his shoulder and leg,” Laura said. “He spent quarantine in a rehab center, and we couldn’t see him for months.”
He returned home and his wife was his caretaker and constant companion.
“They played cards or dice every day, and he did crossword puzzles,” Laura said. “He watched ‘The Price is Right,’ ‘Wheel of Fortune’ and ‘Jeopardy!’ every day, and would get the answer before the players most of the time.”
The loss of his wife was a devastating blow to Mr. Kennedy.
“He didn’t want to go anywhere; he wanted to be home where he could feel her presence,” Laura said.
In mid-November, he took another fall, and came home from the hospital on hospice.
“Toward the end, the only thing he would say was my mother’s name,” Laura said. “The hospice worker said if there were a diagnosis of broken heart, this would be it.”
Laura said her dad will be remembered for making people smile, making them happy.
“He was a jokester, but he’d do anything for anybody.”
“Life Story,” posted Saturdays on Leader Publications’ website, focuses on one individual’s impact on his or her community.