Jack W. Fetner

Jack, a veteran of WWII, was under VA Home care when a fall in March necessitated a move to John and Beverly’s home in Atlanta. He spent the last 6 months of his life surrounded by his son, son’s wife, and grandchildren. This past August, the entire family enjoyed a week in the North Georgia mountains in Helen, Georgia.

Jack was born in 1920, in a time when children stayed up to watch the lamplighter walk up their street as evening began. He played with friends and cousins along Duncan Avenue in Macon. His father, Leo Augustus Fetner, was a machinist and later head of the Central of Georgia Railroad’s union shop.

He was a child in the 20’s and 30’s. Boy Scouts standing on the running boards of their Scout Master’s car as he carried them to Ft Hawkins for summer camp. The boys hunted alongside the banks of the Ocmulgee River, built kayaks from kits ordered from the back pages of Boy’s Life, and got into the Mercer Bears home football games by carrying a helmet of a lettered player.

Jack told stories of borrowing quarters from a neighbor when the gas suddenly went off in the midst of preparing the family meal and there was no change to put into the gas meter. He spoke of his Dad having the only car on Duncan Avenue; of candy, fruit, and a new pair of roller skates at Christmas; but there were other stories too: stories of Depression and War.

Jack was a member of the National Guard when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The President called the Guard up, and they spent endless hours in Macon’s Central City Park drilling as the country prepared to go to war. Jack was the young warehouse manager at Happ Brothers where they made pants for the Army. He didn’t have to go... the company had deferments for key workers, but Jack volunteered to serve.

He married Ethel Roberson in 1941. She worked in a sandwich shop across the street from Culver Kidd’s Drug Store in Milledgeville. Georgia. It was love at first sight. They married shortly thereafter. Dad rented an apartment and furnished it with $500 from savings. Mom packed all her belongings in a suitcase and 2 Piggly Wiggly grocery bags and rode with her husband in a car he borrowed to take her to their new home in the city.

Jack served in the Pacific during WW11 and was stationed first at Pearl Harbor. Each morning the sailors would push the airplanes out of the hanger, line them up 6-7-8 deep, and one by one take turns reaching up to grab the propeller, turning the engine, readying it to fly out into the Pacific for another day’s recon flight. In the evening, the planes were cleaned and rolled back into the hangers where the sailors slept under the wings. After Pearl Harbor he served at Midway, and later at Guam before being discharged at the end of the war in Charlestown, SC, where he was finally reunited with his young wife.

A son was born in 1948 and the first of six grandchildren 35 years later. Retired from Anderson Chemical Company, he and Ethel delighted in their time with the grandchildren. They drove to Disney World, St Simons and Myrtle Beach, boarded the Macon Travel Club’s bus to Branson, or just played in the backyard pool in Macon. Later in life Jack would gather the entire family for many Carnival Cruises to the Bahamas and this summer for a wonderful week in Helen in the North Georgia mountains with John and Beverly, Lydia and Mike, John and Jocelyn, Ruth, James, Timothy, Sarah,

A fall in March prompted the VA to contact his family in Atlanta. Jack lived with them in their turn of the century home in Atlanta’s Grant Park. He loved the big dining room windows, the back deck, and the beautiful trees, and he looked forward to grocery shopping with John’s wife Beverly. Two weeks ago Jack lost energy. John, Beverly and the grandchildren: John and his wife Jocelyn, James, Timothy, and Ruth cared for him. This past Sunday, he collapsed in the arms of his son as they walked down the hall. He died at Atlanta’s Grady Hospital the next day.

He is survived by son John and his wife Beverly, grandchildren: Lydia Fetner Woodin, John Wald Fetner III, Ruth Louise Fetner, James Christopher Fetner, Timothy David Fetner, and Sarah Lynn Fetner.

Snow’s Memorial Chapel in Macon is providing funeral arrangements with a graveside service planned for Saturday October 12th at 2PM. The Reverend Joseph J. Shippen, his former pastor at St. James in Macon will officiate at the Riverside Cemetery in Macon.

Late in life Jack began to attend the church of his childhood: St James Epistle Church in Macon, He told his son that he had prayed “the prayer”. He was surrounded at the hospital by those who loved him. I thank God for the privilege of caring for my father and in making these last months of his life on God’s earth a happy time with his family.