Jean Hagler
Jean (Emma Jean) Ziegler Hagler passed away from heart failure on January 2, 2019 at Park West Hospital in Knoxville, Tennessee at the age of 78.
Born Emma Jean Ziegler on Feb.16, 1940, she grew up in the Sewee community in Ten Mile, Tennessee, on a dairy farm owned by her parents, J. A. and Ruth Ziegler.
She attended elementary school at Ten Mile Elementary School and graduated from Meigs County High School in Decatur, Tennessee in 1957 with highest honors. A gifted singer and pianist, Jean spent a year as a music major specializing in piano major at Maryville College. She later graduated from Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, where she graduated with highest honors in English Education in 1960.
In 1960, she married her childhood sweetheart, James Edgar (Jim Ed) Hagler, who survives her. They were married for 58 happy years, living in many places across the country before returning to their family farms in East Tennessee. She taught high school English in Knoxville and Indiana, leaving the classroom when her eldest daughter Patti was born. For the rest of her life she was a mother, homemaker, community volunteer and business partner in Hagler Farms in Ten Mile, Tn.
Ms. Hagler will be remembered as a loving, generous and warm soul. Her home was always a welcoming and joyful place for all to gather across many years.
Ms. Hagler and her husband were great benefactors and supporters of the Tennessee Epsilon chapter of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity for over 30 years. She deeply treasured her relationship with the brothers of the chapter. Many of them fondly considered her a mentor and second mother.
When asked, Jean always said that her greatest accomplishment was raising her three daughters, all of whom survive her: Representative Patti (Hagler) Minter, husband, Michael Minter and grandson, Alex Minter, Bowling Green, Ky.; Julie (Hagler) Lumgair and husband, Douglas Lumgair, Windsor, Ca.; and Dr. Heidi (Hagler) Arnold, husband, Kyle Arnold, and grandchildren, Katie and Finn Arnold, Tampa, Fl. She is also survived by her special friend and caregiver, Virginia Shoemaker, Kingston; cousins, Sarah, Allen and Emily Bowman, Atlanta, Ga.; and cousins, David Snider (Susan) and Mary Howard, Knoxville, Tn. Her family is grateful to her friends at Parkway Cardiac Rehab for their friendship and support over the last fifteen years.
The family will receive friends Friday, Jan. 4, from 7-9 p.m. at Bowers Funeral Home, 163 Arrants Rd., Decatur, Tennessee. Burial will be in the family cemetery at Hagler Farms on Saturday, Jan. 5, at 2 p.m. An additional celebration of her life will be hosted at a later date to be announced.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations in memory of Jean be made to the Roane County Animal Shelter in celebration of her great love of animals and her years of loving care for countless cats and dogs. Memorial donations may also be made to the Ewing-McPherson Cemetery Trust Fund, c/o Tennessee Baptist Foundation.
Jean Hagler will be missed, but always remembered and loved by those whose lives she touched.