Herbert R. (Hippy) Wagner, age 91
Herbert R. (Hippy) Wagner, Minnesota entrepreneur, businessman, and owner of Jim’s Apple Farm and Minnesota’s Largest Candy Store, died peacefully on Monday, November 21, 2016 at the age of 91, surrounded by his loving family, following a sudden illness. He continued to oversee the apple orchards, and pie-baking operations at the big yellow barn south of Jordan along highway 169 into his nineties.
Born to Herbert and Agnes Wagner on August 23, 1925, he graduated from Jordan H.S., where he was elected class president in consecutive… years, and attended the Dunwoody Institute in Minneapolis, majoring in Architectural Design.
With the outbreak of WWII, and following studies at the Academy in New London, Connecticut, he became a commissioned officer in the United States Merchant Marine, sailing primarily on the North Atlantic from 1943 – 1945. His ship was the second one to enter Antwerp, Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge. One of his most poignant memories, as he walked through the city, was of children starting to follow him. Realizing they were starving, he gave away all his rations. These children in hardship affected him more than the on-going German bombardment.
Following the war, he opened a family restaurant in Jordan, but on learning that the highway was expanding to go around Jordan, he made a pivotal decision to purchase acres of land to the north, in Scott County, an area which eventually became one of the fastest growing counties in the United States. With his brother and father, he designed and built Wagner’s Supper Club, a fine dining establishment, earning rave reviews in the Minneapolis Tribune, “After Last Night” by restaurant critic Will Jones.
Simultaneously, the fledgling beginnings of apple orchards commenced with clearing the wooded, hilly land, which rose above the Minnesota River Valley, a perfect place for growing apples. Along with generous guidance from horticultural experts at the University of Minnesota, thousands of trees were planted.
Partners in love, and for all his life was his wife, Dolores (Eischens), a registered nurse and graduate of St. Catherine’s School of Nursing. They were married on April 23, 1949. To accommodate their growing family, he designed a unique, spacious, open-floor-planned home in the 1950’s, complete with high ceilings, which housed speakers in every room, and from a central radio he also personally built, classical music was played throughout, and sometimes John Philip Souza marches in the morning to rouse (10) sleepy children. In the early 1970’s, he developed one of the first solar heating operations for the home, including 400 square feet of solar panels, which ran through Dolores’s lilac bushes. It was inspected and admired by engineers who came to examine.
Largely a self-taught man, he genuinely grasped the importance of life-long learning. Books from the A to Z of Beekeeping (he had honey bees for the apple trees), to the Life of the Cure of Ars, a Catholic mystic, lined the family library, and in the summer he arranged for the local bookmobile to stop directly at home every other week. Valuing work and education, he and Dolores offered to fund the college education of their children, provided they worked summers and weekends on the farm and in the restaurant while in school. Nine Bachelor’s degrees, three Master’s degrees, and a PhD resulted from this deal.
He served his church and community for many years, as elected School Board member during the building of the new High School in Jordan; and religious education instructor and trustee of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Jordan, MN.
He was a devout Catholic who mirrored the church’s teaching on social justice through his personal motto of “be good to people.” He was extraordinarily generous in large and small ways, from baking home-made bread and personally delivering it to the home-bound, to lending money to people who were “down on their luck” and could not get a bank loan for a business or home. He had a special place in his heart for the School Sisters of Notre Dame, as he explained, “they were very kind to me as a child, and so patient in teaching my son, Tom, (now deceased), who was mentally challenged from birth.”
He was preceded in death by four-year-old grandson Edward James Zbaracki in 1981; and sons Thomas Robert Wagner in 2010 and John Paul Wagner in 2012.
He is survived by his beloved wife of 67 years, Dolores, and their children: daughters Mary W. Zbaracki, of Duluth and Dr. Anne M. Sanquini (Richard) of Saratoga, California; sons Joseph Wagner (Lucy) of Jordan, James Wagner (Estelle) of Edina, Robert Wagner (Renee) of Belle Plaine, Anthony Wagner (Jackie) of Little Canada, William Wagner (Karen) of Chaska, and Gerald Wagner of Belle Plaine; grandchildren David Zbaracki (Dr. Anne), Joseph Zbaracki (Catherine), Clayton Wagner (Alissa), Christine Wagner, Sophia Wagner, Theodore Wagner, and Elizabeth Wagner; great-grandchildren Catherine and Adam Zbaracki. Also survived by a brother, Bernard Wagner of Jordan.
The family wishes to thank the physicians and staff of Hennepin County Medical Center for their expert and loving care.
Visitation will begin at 9 a.m. on Saturday, December 3, at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, 313 2nd St. E., Jordan, MN, and continue until the Mass of Christian Burial at noon. Presiding is Father Timothy Yanta. Pallbearers are Sophia Wagner, Theodore Wagner, Elizabeth Wagner, Clayton Wagner, Christine Wagner, and Joseph Zbaracki. Interment Calvary Cemetery, Jordan. Memorials may be directed to School Sisters of Notre Dame, 170 Good Counsel Drive, Mankato, MN 56001.
Funeral arrangements with Wagner Funeral Home, Jordan, and McNearney- Schmidt, Shakopee.
Condolences may be shared at www.mcnearneyfuneralhome. com
