Jesse A. “Jess” LaDow, 95

Jesse A. “Jess” LaDow died on Saturday, April 19, 2014, in Oro Valley, Ariz. He was 95 years old. 

A businessman, collector of American art and lifelong outdoorsman (but no golfer), his inventive sense of humor and kind and modest nature sustained a successful career, loving family and wide circle of friends.

Born in Fredonia, Kan., on Aug. 24, 1918, the youngest child of Byron E. and Mary I. LaDow, Jess entered business at age 19 following his father’s death, managing an array of industrial enterprises and properties extending from Texas to Montana. 

He graduated from Fredonia High School in 1936 and studied business at the University of Denver, where he was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. While only a junior in high school he came up with the idea to bring dance bands passing through southeast Kansas (including Lawrence Welk) to play in Fredonia. He contributed to the community while also clearing a profit — a combination that characterized his life. 

In 1939, he proposed to Bonnie Jean Burner in a Mercury convertible on the way home from a jazz dance at the Muehlbach Hotel in Kansas City.  She accepted, and they were happily married for nearly 75 years.

During World War II, he served as a U.S. Army corporal at Lowry Field in Denver, interpreting aerial photographs in support of war reconnaissance. After the war he bought Kennedy Printing Company in Fredonia, later re-named LaDow & Spohn, which printed forms for banks across the United States. He ran the company until his retirement. 

He was a lifelong summer resident of Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park, where his father bought a place from the original homesteader, Frank Geduhn, in 1912. An avid trout fisherman as well as ranconteur, Jess spent more than 90 summers at the lake.

His sister Virginia LaDow and brother Byron LaDow predeceased him.  

He leaves his wife, Jean LaDow, of Oro Valley and Lake McDonald; daughter, Janet LaDow Payne, and J. Thomas Payne, of North Oaks, Minn.; son, David E. LaDow, of Bellevue, Wash.; daughter, Mary Beth LaDow, of Winchester, Mass.; grandchildren, Michael Payne, Christopher Payne and Gulnara Payne, Eva LaDow and Michael Reese, Alice LaDow, Kate LaDow Alper and Samuel Alper; and great-granddaughter, Melinda Victoria Payne.

Words spoken about his father, B.E. LaDow, were equally true of Jess:  “He was a little bit of everything that is good, but above all he was an individual individual.”