Grace Wagner

Grace (MacFarlane) Wagner, age 85, a resident of Wayne for sixty-two years passed Wednesday, February 26, 2020.

Grace was born to William and Ida Mae MacFarlane in Paterson.  She was raised at 92 and later 135 Ryerson Avenue in the City.  Grace graduated from Central High School in Paterson with the Class of 1953.

Grace remembers her dad selling ice, coal, and oil in Paterson.  He would deliver all by horse and wagon throughout the city.  She also remembers that because of his work his hands were always dark from the coal and oil.  During her high school years she got her first job was at Kresgee’s 5&10 in Paterson where she was paid 35 cents an hour. After high school she worked for Wright Aeronautical Corporation in Woodbridge where she and a couple others would car pool from the city to work in Woodbridge all chipping in for gas. Grace worked for Wright’s from 1953 through 1960 when she gave birth to her first son. From then on she was a stay at home mother who was blessed with three sons and one daughter.

Grace was dedicated to her Catholic faith and was a founding parishioner of Our Lady of Consolation Church in Wayne where for several years she sang in the choir. Grace had a great green-thumb and was always tending to her house and outdoor plants and flowers.

Grace met Henry Wagner as they were both working at Wright Aeronautical in Woodbridge and met while attending a company softball game. Their first date was to Atlantic City in Henry’s brand new white Ford Fairlane. They soon fell in love and married on October 4, 1958 at Saint Marys RC Church on Union Avenue in Paterson. They drove to Miami, Florida in Henry’s white Fairlane. They have enjoyed fifty-six years of a loving and devoted marriage.

Loving wife of the late Henry Wagner (d.2014); devoted mother of Henry W. Wagner, Jr. and his wife Nancy of Rockaway, Andrew Wagner and his wife Pauline of Ponte Vedra, FL, William Wagner and his wife Cheryl of Wayne, and Mary Beth Chaubard and her husband Pierre of Nyack, NY; cherished grandmother of Leigh, Theresa, Melissa, Sarah, Greg, Nicole, Jackie, Meghan, and Zoe; dear sister of Donald MacFarlane of Tuckerton, and the late William MacFarlane, and the late Kenneth MacFarlane.

In lieu of flowers memorial donations to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memorial Processing,501 St. Jude Place, Memphis, TN 38105-9959, www.stjude.org or Our Lady of Consolation RC Church, 1799 Hamburg Tpk., Wayne, NJ 07470 would be appreciated.