Sensational Seniors – April 2018

Jerry and Nell Mathern have lived in their 5th Street Jacksonville home for 46 years and, in those years, have endeared themselves to many of us who call Jacksonville home. Jerry’s life started in Sioux Falls, South Dakota on June 22, 1939. Jerry’s father tried his hand at a number of jobs, including being an ice cream and butter maker in a creamery, serving as a night watchman for an oil processing company, owning a small farm with sheep, chickens and pigs, purchasing a beer dealership and extensive experience as a farm mechanic. Young Jerry attended several South Dakota schools until 1952, when his family moved to Medford, Oregon where his grandparents had lived since 1936. His grandfather had a stroke, prompting Jerry’s father to visit him in Medford where, “the roses were blooming and the grass was green.” He returned to Sioux Falls to discover three feet of snow plus blizzard conditions and announced that the family was moving to Medford. Consequently, Jerry’s remaining public school years were in Medford, graduating from Medford High School in 1957.

Jerry’s wife, Nell (Pielaet), was born on December 29, 1942 in Billings, Montana where her family had a nursery business and raised fryer chickens for local restaurants. Like Jerry, her move to the west coast came about because of grandparents who had settled in California. Upon her grandfather’s death, Nell’s family made the move to California to assist her grandmother until her passing. The family moved to the Mojave Desert where her dad worked on a large ranch out of Victorville. In addition, the family kept their poultry farm going with a large number of turkeys. Nell remembers this part of her youth fondly, saying, “I rode horses, played in the irrigation ditches, appreciated the Mojave and loved my time there.” Her Mojave experience came to an end when her mother urged the family to move closer to two children she had had from a previous marriage in Eugene. Not wanting to be too close to them, they chose Medford as their new home. This move for tenth-grade Nell from her beloved Mojave was a difficult one. Her 10th and 11th grade school years were spent in Medford but, when her parents relocated to Central Point, Nell was to spend her senior year at Crater High School, graduating in 1961.

Upon graduation from high school, Jerry spent two years at then Southern Oregon College of Education, but as Jerry remembers, “I always said I would have got my degree if it had not been for Emigrant Lake which, when the weather was nice, was too strong of a call and to top it off I had a boat.” He does remember taking a speech class from Angus Bowmer, the founder of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and that “Mr. Bowmer was a wonderful teacher who could easily be led astray in the speech class if someone only mentioned Shakespeare.”

Jerry had started working part time for the Piggly Wiggly Market on Stewart Avenue in Medford while still in high school and continued during his two college years before working full time once he left college. When an opportunity came to enter a management-training program with Piggly Wiggly, Jerry jumped at the chance and moved with his first wife to Aloha, Oregon. He returned to southern Oregon to manage the White City Piggly Wiggly and later became a district supervisor of 17 stores. In addition, his daughter, Debbie, was born but, after 10 years of marriage and the birth of two more children, Dan and Denise, he and his wife divorced and Jerry entered a dark period of his life.

Nell’s first marriage occurred in 1962 and brought about three children, Ron, Sidonie and Jonathan. After some time in Merced, CA, the growing family moved back to Medford where Nell started working for the Medford Clinic where she became a licensed phlebotomist. During her long career with the Medford Clinic, Nell, like Jerry, went through a divorce but became friends with Jerry’s aunt who also worked at the Clinic. She kept telling Nell about her wonderful nephew and suggested they should go on a double date to which Nell replied, “The last thing I am interested in right now is a man, let alone a date.” She eventually did agree to the date and, after getting numerous good reports on Jerry, after a year of dating and after the urging of both her kids and Jerry’s to get married, they did so on September 2, 1972. The Jacksonville “Brady Bunch” was established.

Getting back to Jerry’s “dark period” after his divorce, his energy was not in his job, he was back living with his parents, he was attempting to be a single father and he lost his job. Then he finally realized, “There is only one I can turn to who can help me and that is God. Getting right with Him and then meeting Nell saved me.” After marrying Nell, losing his manager’s job at the then Big C Market on Christmas Eve and wondering how he was going to feed six kids, the clouds lifted when he was offered a job at American Linen to manage a start-up janitorial supply division of the company. He was to work for American Linen for 25 years, “a great job that provided the financial security we so needed for our large family.”

Nell continued to work as well, and eventually was offered a job with a wellness company, which did wellness profiles for Forest Service contracts. Her phlebotomist training led to travel throughout the United States and Canada. Early on in their marriage, Jerry and Nell had decided that it would be much easier to get their six children ready and to church if they started going to the church they could see from their living room window, the historic Jacksonville Presbyterian Church. One Sunday, Pastor Larry Jung announced that the church was looking for a new church secretary, prompting Nell to lean over to Jerry and say, “I’m going to apply for the job.” Jerry quickly replied, “Why would you want to do that. The pay will be poor and you will not get any benefits.” Nell won out, applied and was hired, a job she was to have for 10 years. “It was the best job I ever had. I no longer had to spend my working days traveling and just had to walk down the hill, cross the street and be at work.”

Even after raising their six children, the Matherns could not sit back and take it easy. For example, on February 1, Jerry retired after 30 years as the Jacksonville Presbyterian Church accountant, a demanding job he faithfully filled for those 30 years. When the new church was being built, Jerry acted as the liaison between the church and the contractor in addition to organizing and managing a crew of church volunteers to work on the project. In addition to his church duties, Jerry spent a four-year term on the Jacksonville City Council and eight years on the Jacksonville Planning Commission.

Nell has remained an integral part of many church programs and activities, and she and Jerry spent 17 years working with Marriage Encounter, traveling all over the United States, conducting weekend retreats. Jerry states that a residual benefit of all the trainings they did was that it provided “the cement of our marriage.” They remain proud parents of their children, grandchildren and now two great grandsons.

Both Jerry and Nell have long-time hobby passions. In Jerry’s case that is Model “A” Ford cars, and his greatest pride is a 1929 Leatherback Model A, that, with help from a friend he built with parts and pieces that he had acquired over time, much like Johnny Cash’s 1976 song “One Piece at a Time.” Nell proudly proclaims that this car has been from the east coast to the west coast on a memorable 2006 driving trip from Boston to Jacksonville. Jerry remembers that, “We covered about 200 miles a day, going along at about 45 MPH but, what was amazing, when word got out that we were coming through a small town, people would be out in their lawn chairs, waving American flags and sending us on our way in great fashion.” Nell remembers that this 23-day driving trip was during the summer and, “Our air conditioner was a squirt bottle.”

Nell’s long time passion has been quilting. She is a long-term member of the Jacksonville Museum Quilters and the Mountain Stars Quilters Guild. Every June, she conducts an historic “Bed Turning” at the Beekman House, an event that relates the importance of quilts and quilting to our American history. In addition, she does hand quilting for people and estimates that “It takes close to 170 hours to do a hand quilting, so I make about five cents an hour, but it is great therapy.” If you would like to see a “Bed Turning” done by Nell, use your search engine to type in “1930’s Quilts-Nell Mathern,” and you will see a YouTube presentation done for the Model A Ford Club of America.

Jerry and Nell Mathern are long-time members of the Jacksonville community whose love for their community and church is only equaled by their love for each other.