James E. Wagner, age 87 of Wayne for over sixty years, passed peacefully with the comfort of his family by his side, on Saturday, July 28, 2018.

He was born at 330 Elm Street, the family home, in Kearny and graduated from Kearny High School with the Class of 1949. While at Kearny High, he played on the football and basketball teams.  He would often speak of how he played football with Alex Webster, a former NY Giants player. In 1948 he won the NJ High School State Championship with the Kearny High Football Team.

While attending high school in Kearny, there were two ice cream shops in town.  The Crystal Palace where a pretty girl named Edie Adams and her friends hung out, and across the street was Doc’s where Jim and his friends would hang out.  Their separation didn’t last long and Jim would often say “I took her hand and that was it.”  Kearny was a small town where you could walk to just about anything and it could be said most of their courtship was spent walking about town.  They fell in love and married on November 3, 1951 at the First Baptist Church in Kearny. When they married Edie was twenty-one years old and because Jim was twenty he had to have a special permit signed by his parents in order to get married.  Her sister Ruth and her husband dropped the newlyweds off at the New Yorker Hotel in New York City for their honeymoon.  When Edie and Jim were standing in the street in front of the hotel Ruth thought they looked too young to follow through with the honeymoon. Ruth would tell the story of how it took all of her resolve not to grab her sister and bring her home.  Edie and Jim enjoyed a beautiful marriage of sixty-seven years with traditional middle class, American suburb, husband and wife roles.  They made being married look simple and couldn’t remember a thing they ever argued about.

Just after Edie and Jim married he was drafted into the Korean War where he served for two years in the US Army. He was awarded the United Nations Service Medal and the Korean Service Medal with two Bronze Service Stars during his service.  Edie lived in Bloomfield with her sister Midge and her husband Ed for those two years. While he was away Jim’s mother who thought nothing should be in the driveway, sold his 1932 Chevrolet five window coupe. When he returned from the war he was devastated.

Before Jim was drafted into the service he worked as a draftsman for the Worthing Pump Company in Harrison.  After his service he worked as a draftsman for the Singer Kearfott Corporation first in Clifton and later in Wayne for over thirty years before retiring in 1987.

Jim will be lovingly remembered as a quiet, calm, easygoing, and devoted husband and father. He lived with the strong conviction of putting his family first. For years he visited his mother one night a week, planned his time off around making memories with his wife and children, and enjoyed restoring vintage trunks. Edie and the boys have many fond memories of vacations in New Hampshire at Lake Winnipesaukee where he taught the boys about boating and how to fish. Although he enjoyed fishing Jim never liked to eat fish and always threw back his catch; a tradition his sons follow to this day.

Jim was the loving husband of Edythe “Edie” Wagner; devoted father of Craig Wagner and his wife Jeanne Spinosi-Wagner of Haddonfield and William Wagner of Pompton Lakes; he was the cherished grandfather of Julie and Amy Wagner.

In lieu of flowers memorial donations to the Wayne Memorial First Aid Squad would be appreciated.