Veteran obtained real estate license to become investor
1/22/2005HASKINS - Glen W. Grainger, Jr., 82, a real estate investor who owned a heating and ventilation business, died of heart failure Wednesday in his home in Wood County's Middleton Township.
His firm, Midwest Thermal Products Co., supplied factories and commercial buildings with heating and air conditioning systems from the mid-1960s until the early 1980s.
He obtained a real estate license so he could become an investor, his wife, Joyce, said.
He owned a grocery store in Clyde, Ohio, and a shopping plaza in Whitehouse. He had plans to do more building in Whitehouse.
"He was a visionary. He knew what was coming, and he wanted to be a part of it," his wife said. "His integrity was impeccable. His word was firm. His handshake was complete."
Mr. Grainger was a graduate of DeVilbiss High School. He learned to fly, without his parents' knowledge, at Metcalf Field, his wife said. He was an Army Air Corps flight instructor in Florida.
During World War II, Mr. Grainger was a second lieutenant and flew the hump in the China-Burma-India Theater, piloting planes that carried gasoline and other supplies from India, over the Himalayas, to China and its forces fighting the Japanese.
He was interviewed last year about his service for the Veterans History Project, a program under the auspices of the Library of Congress and, locally, the University of Toledo.
After the war, Mr. Grainger received an engineering degree from UT. For his father's business, Toledo Butchers' Supply, he designed refrigeration units for small grocery stores.
He was a dedicated member of the Lutheran Church, for many years at Hope Lutheran in West Toledo and, in recent years, at St. Paul Lutheran, Haskins.
Mr. Grainger's first marriage to Mary Lou Perkins ended in divorce.
Surviving are his wife, Joyce, whom he married April 2, 1982; daughters, Claudia Schroeder, Diane Hanslik, Amy Danforth, and Julie Achenbach, and six grandchildren.
Services will be at 10:30 a.m. today in the Foth-Dorfmeyer Mortuary, Toledo.
The family suggests tributes to the church.