Sensational Seniors – October 2020

When I arrived at the home of Bruce Gieg, my October “Sensational Seniors” subject, I found him in his shop, sitting in a folding chair and repairing the power take-off mechanism of a Valley View Vineyard tractor. After walking to his nearby home and getting most of the grease off his hands, his life story began to unfold.

Bruce was born on May 24, 1933 in San Fernando, California. His father was the superintendent for the Porter Estates, a 10,000-acre cattle ranch. Tragically, his father died when Bruce was only seven, so he had a fast maturity curve. His elementary and high school years were all spent in the San Fernando school system, but his main vocational training came out of school. Bruce remembers, “I started mechanical work on cars when I was fourteen. Then I kept pestering a man who had a welding shop to let me learn how to weld. He finally grew tired of me asking, so I started working in his shop and ended up welding for him for some eight years.”

After graduation from high school in 1952, young Gieg enlisted in the Army. Since the Korean War was on, Bruce was sent to Korea, first as an infantryman, but later he became a mechanic in the motor pool. Once his two-year military obligation was complete, Bruce returned to San Fernando and the welding business, but, after two years of this, he started a long career as a commercial truck driver. His first job was at Christine Rock and Sand for one year and then to Southwest Paving Company which in 1960 was bought out by Gulf Oil. Bruce was to stay with Gulf Oil until 1980. While he was a truck driver, he also did tire and mechanical work on his trucks, utilizing his early mechanic experience and his Army training.

Not long after he graduated from high school, he met a lively waitress at a café that he frequented. This was Terri Wadovich who became his wife on July 12, 1953. The young couple were blessed with three children, Deon (1956), Bruce Jr. (1960) and Mandy (1966). Jumping ahead to the Geig’s connection to Jacksonville, Terri was to become a fixture in our village, serving as the President of the Chamber of Commerce, being active in the Jacksonville-Applegate Rotary Club and for 19 years chairing the annual Victorian Christmas and Chinese New Year’s celebrations. Sadly, this strong Jacksonville supporter died in 2019 after living for close to four years in a Medford memory care facility.

The Giegs found Jackson County while visiting friends at the end of a vacation. They were immediately taken by the beauty and quiet of the area, found a house they loved on Tumbleweed Road out of Ruch and within a week made the decision to leave California and move to Jackson County. Bruce remembers, “The California traffic was horrendous, and the restrictions were especially difficult for truck drivers. Lowboy trucks and trailers had to be run only at night, so I was away from my family during much of the time when they were home. It got old, and I would never go back.”

Once Bruce and Terri resettled in Ruch, Bruce went job shopping. After a stint driving log trucks, Bruce settled in driving a truck for Price Chopper grocery store and eventually took a job driving a tanker truck for Winkelman Oil of Medford. When Terri started working in the nearby Valley View Winery tasting room, she became a good friend of co-owner Ann Wisnosky, and this led to Bruce starting to do odd jobs for Ann, first at her home and then at the winery. This has resulted in a 36-year working relationship with Valley View, including part time and full-time employment. Remarking on Bruce’s strong work ethic, Valley View co-owner, Mark Wisnosky relates, “Early on when Bruce started working for us, he was still driving the oil tanker for Winkelman Oil. He would head to Eugene at 4:00am, get his tanker filled and deliver it to Medford. Back home he would take time to wash his truck even though he was not on the payroll to do that. He just thought it was the right thing to do. He would then grab a quick nap and then come over to Valley View to work in the field for several hours.” The work he has done for Valley View is varied as Bruce relates, “I do just about everything for the winery and this includes all the field work, the irrigation and keeping the equipment repaired and running. I enjoy being outside so this type of work suits me just fine.” He laughs when relating, “The funny thing is that I don’t even drink wine. Terri took care of that for the family.”

Besides assisting Terri with her Jacksonville volunteer obligations, Bruce is proud of the fact that he and Ed Hunt put up the Jacksonville Christmas tree every year for nineteen years, and he says, “It never once fell down in those nineteen years.” In addition to these volunteer activities, he spent many years helping maintain St. Joseph’s historic Jacksonville church and was instrumental in helping get Jacksonville’s Daisy Creek Winery up and running, happy to help out the owners, Russ and Margaret Lyon.

While Bruce lists work as one of his main hobbies, his main fun activity has been building race cars, something he started doing in 1955. While he built one Indy car in 1965, his focus was building sprint cars as the photos on his shop wall attest. Bruce had to take a four-month break from work, starting on December 20, 2019 when he underwent triple bi-pass surgery in Medford. His children insisted he needed to take a break, so he spent four months with his son in Louisiana and Alabama. But four months was enough. “I woke up one morning and thought, “I need to get home,” so I rented a car and drove home from Alabama. My daughter did meet me part way and we came back to Ruch together. I went back to work for Valley View but do not put in the 40-50 hour weeks anymore. I work at my own pace.”

Mark Wisnosky sums up Bruce Gieg the best. “I know that it is a cliché, but they just don’t make people like Bruce anymore. No matter who it is, even at 87, if someone needs help, Bruce is the person to go to. We had an employee who had only worked for us for a week and his car broke down. Bruce got it up and running for him and, typical of Bruce, at no charge. If he sees something that needs to be done, he does it and, as we say, he does it ‘the Bruce way’. Having him work for us so long and so well is a privilege and one we don’t take lightly.”