Michael Louis Jaegers (1952-2014)
Michael Louis Jaegers died the day before Thanksgiving, Nov. 26, 2014, following an illness.
Mike was born on May 28, 1952, in Mesa, Arizona, and, according to his parents—teachers Marvin Louis Jaegers and Mary Margaret “Micki” Jaegers née Olson—immediately started building things. The three of them and Mike's only sibling, Mary, who arrived two years later, were all off-the-chart smart. In addition, Mike was off-the-chart creative. He drew. He built models. He wrote for his school paper. He painted. When he took piano lessons, his teacher remarked on his ability to interpret music and infuse it with emotion.
Aside from his third-grade year when, as he said, he was “on sabbatical” in Massachusetts while his father was doing post-graduate studies at Harvard, Mike attended public schools in Eugene, Oregon. He managed to be included in an experimental kindergarten class years before Eugene School District 4J offered kindergarten, and in an after-school enrichment program in art history that was provided to elementary school students through the Roman Catholic Church. He soaked it all up.
The same can be said for his work experiences. As a pre-teen and teenager, while many of his peers picked beans, Mike spent his summers painting houses and doing yard work. After high school, he worked his way through school in restaurants and the Agri-Pac cannery and by creating commercial signs and other graphic designs and conducting research for the Lane County Rural Re-Address program.
He graduated from North Eugene High School in 1970 and attended Lane Community College for a year before being admitted to the University of Oregon's School of Architecture. In 1975 he designed the sets for the University's production of Leonard Bernstein's Mass on the floor of MacArthur Court and earned his Bachelors of Architecture.
Mike worked in building plans examination and land-use planning in Bellevue, Washington; Brawley and El Centro, California; Washington and Jefferson Counties in Oregon; and Henderson, Nevada. He served on the board of the Boys' and Girls' Clubs in Brawley and pursued his interests in history, books, theater, and travel.
He married Cindy Tyndall in 1979; they later divorced.
Mike's father died in 2006; his mother, in September 2014. He is survived by his sister Mary Kosterlitz (David), niece Sarah Kosterlitz, aunts, cousins, fiancée Linda Rimel, and many friends.
Cremation has taken place. No service is planned.
Anyone wishing to contribute is encouraged to do so to the American Cancer Society (http://www.cancer.org/), the American Diabetes Association (http://www.diabetes.org/donate/), and/or Lane Community College Foundation's Shining Star Scholarship in memory of Marvin Jaegers (LCC Foundation / 4000 E. 30th Ave. / Building 19 / Room 270 / Eugene OR 97405, or http://704.thankyou4caring.org).
