Warren’s golf heaven
Warren Wollert passed away this week after a long battle with life in general. Warren elevated excessive work and play to an art form. He married Connie Wilson while still in high school and worked his way up from pushing a cart at Lang’s Foundry to a line job at Chalmers, then on to becoming a pioneering computer programmer, and finally ascending to the rank of Systems Analyst at Whirlpool.
When Warren wasn’t working 80-hour weeks, he was busy playing too much golf, working in a garden that was two times too big, and rolling a bowling ball way too hard. To this day, he may be the youngest LaPorte resident to ever cause Bowl-A-Way’s late great legendary pin boy, Earl, to cry out in pain after one of Warren’s blistering, pin-cracking strikes.
Warren would never freely admit it, but he was a very sociable guy. He still has friends from Maple School through high school, he had great times with the LaPorte Jaycees, and he rose through the ranks at The Elks to eventually become The Grand Exalted Whatever.
Although he clearly hated every minute of being in the junior high and high school bands, Warren loved to sing and thoroughly enjoyed the friends he made performing in Barber Shop Quartet competitions throughout the state. He was also known to frequently join the sing-a-longs at one of his favorite watering holes, The Poplar Inn, which might be why the muskrats finally moved out of the joint.
Let’s face it, Warren was also known to relax to the max under the operating theory that they wouldn’t put Coca Cola and Budweiser in six packs, if you were only supposed to drink one can. When Warren finally stopped drinking Bud four years ago, his health improved considerably, and Anheuser-Busch stock dropped ten percent.
After Connie, his daughter, Gail, and his son, Doug, left the planet prematurely over the past two years, Warren just might have decided his job and his fun were done here. He is survived by three Wollert brothers, Gerry, Randy and Dave, and will no doubt get up to some sort of shenanigans when he re-unites with his brother Rog. Warren also leaves behind nieces Debbie, Julie, Shelley and Marlene, and two nephews, Mike and Ed.
Warren’s granddaughters, Jennifer Kugler of Indianapolis and Jackie Snyder of LaPorte, were unquestionably two of the major highlights of his life, which ranks them just after golf and way ahead of high school band.
Warren will also be missed by son-in-law Karl Kugler, brother-in-law Roy Wilson, Mark Clendaniel, Adam Snyder, Hugh Beaumont, Tony Dow, and Jerry Mathers, as The Beaver.
We will miss the love, the stories, and the laughter, Warren… along with all of the well-documented excessiveness that made you so much fun to be around.