Services: A Memorial Mass will be held at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, 7148 Forsyth Blvd., 63105 on Saturday, November 30, at 2:30 pm. Celebration of Life Reception will follow at the Saint Louis Club, located at 7701 Forsyth Blvd., 63105. In lieu of flowers, donations preferred to The Backstoppers Inc. (www.backstoppers.org) or to Birthright Stl (www.birthrightstl.org).
Surrounded by his family, Louis J. Garr, Jr., of University City, MO, died October 23, 2019, from complications arising from his more than year-long battle with a rare and aggressive non-Hodgkin’s large B-cell triple hit lymphoma. He was 79.
Lou is survived by his beloved wife of 56 years, Carol (nee Berarducci) of Ann Arbor, MI, and the couple’s six children, Mary Beth (John Schwarz), Joe (Marianne), Susan (Mike Koptik), Robert, David (Megan) and Anne (Paul Kraemer) and thirteen grandchildren, Frank, Maxwell, Kate, Maggie, Rose, Benjamin, David, Gillian, Louis, Sara, Owen, Joe and Lauren. He was the dear brother of Barbara (Tim) Doherty, Cecil Garr, and the late Max Garr and a dear brother-in-law, uncle, cousin, and friend to many.
Louis Joseph Garr, Jr. was born December 16, 1939 to Louis and Ann (nee Ares) Garr of Calumet City, IL. He was a south side Cub’s fan (who happily lived to see them win the World Series and dared to raise the W flag at his house in University City, MO). He loved the outdoors, the Boy Scouts and worked his way to Eagle Scout at age 16. Sadly, due to his fight with cancer, in 2019, Lou missed his first Father-Son and Father-Daughter Float trips since being invited to attend in 1978. Some of his happiest moments were fishing with his friends and family, teaching his “St. Louis” grandkids to drive and bestowing the “Shovel of Inspiration” that was given to each grandchild prior to their sophomore year in high school (a tradition that will continue). Lou could often be found sitting on the back porch (year round) listening to a sports game, reading a book or just enjoying the sounds around him. Perhaps from his Eagle Scouts training, Lou was a list maker. He made a list for anything and everything that he was doing or planning on doing or thought someone else should do. He was known to carry a piece of paper with him that read: I know that God has given me a certain number of things to do. I am so far behind, I will never die.”
Garr graduated from St. Louis University in 1961 and St. Louis University Law School in 1964. While in law school, Garr married Carol Ann Berarducci of Ann Arbor, MI. He was a patron of SLU and a fan of its men’s and women’s basketball teams, and he has continuously held SLU men’s basketball season tickets since arriving at the school in 1957. While not his last gift to SLU, Lou donated his body to the St. Louis University Medical School to support medical education and research - "A True Billiken to the very end."
During his legal career, Garr was in private practice prior to joining the May Department Stores Company in 1973 as a real estate attorney. He was named vice president and senior assistant general counsel in 1978, senior vice president and chief counsel in 1984, senior vice president and general counsel in 1985 and executive vice president and general counsel in 1986. At the time of his retirement in 1998, the May Department Stores Company was the largest department store and specialty retailing company in the country, with annual sales exceeding $13 billion.
Retirement offered Lou the opportunity to attend daily mass and to gather with friends and those who would become new friends at breakfast eateries around town talking about the events of the day. However, those who knew him know that Lou never really retired. Lou loved to work his mind and to be challenged every day. During his “retirement”, in addition to working with colleagues at Moses CPA doing income tax returns (where he liked to handle the difficult ones), he was passionate about his work as a trustee for the Lay Family Foundation and enjoyed seeing young people benefit from scholarships for higher education. For the Lay Family Foundation, Lou handled real estate transactions and other corporate matters but also was able to exercise a creative muscle that had yet been tapped in his life working with artists and commissioning many works of art for the Lay Center for Education and the Arts in Louisiana, MO, a sculpture park donated to SLU by the late Henry Lay, Lou’s mentor, co-worker and friend. This past April, Lou was proud to participate in the blessing and dedication of a significant sculpture, Westward Journey, a 25-piece life size bronze sculpture by Reynaldo “Sonny” Rivera depicting a Missouri wagon, travelers and animals headed for the beginning of the Santa Fe trail. Lou and the team he assembled worked with the artist to assure every aspect of the installation of the piece was perfect and would last forever.
The family knows that if Lou were writing this obituary, the list he would have prepared in connection therewith would have included a special thank you to the doctors, staff and especially the nurses at Cancer Care Center at Missouri Baptist and Siteman Cancer Center at BJC for their care, kindness and compassion during his treatment. Lou faced his diagnosis and the many difficult treatments in the way that he did most things - with a positive attitude, and a list.
