Although for many years there was another Springfieldian with a similar name who was frequently in the news, his family and friends say their Jerry Redfearn was one of a kind.
Jerry W. Redfearn, who died December 26 at age 81, had a solid career in the automotive parts business and later in commercial real estate sales.
The other Jerry — who spelled his last name Redfern — was a prominent attorney and philanthropist who was 84 when he died in 2020.
(And there was Paul Redfearn, longtime botany professor at Missouri State who served on City Council 1973-81, including a stint as mayor. No relation to either Jerry, he died in 2018 at age 92.)
“They knew one another and laughed about it,” Jerry’s daughter Lari Jump says of “our big confusion” with Jerry Redfern. “They’d get each other’s mail. And they both had sons named David. His kids went to Glendale; my brother and I went to Kickapoo. I’d get asked about it all the time.”
Lari’s dad was a Springfield native. His first job was washing dishes at his parents’ Oak Ridge Cafe on West Kearney Street when he was 13 years old. In high school (Central, Class of 1959), his interest in cars led him to hire on at local service stations.
He took business courses at what now are Missouri State University and Drury University, and in the 1960s worked in the parts department at the former Terrill-Phelps Chevrolet dealership. By the 1970s, he had signed on as a salesman for the B.F Goodrich tire company, and he finished out that decade as a manager at O’Reilly Automotive headquarters.
In 1980, Jerry became a partner in Cowden Auto Supply — but after two years, he stepped out on his own, to realize his longheld dream of having his own business by establishing Springfield Parts Warehouse at 500 W. Battlefield Road. In 1997, he sold out and in 1998 began a new career in commercial real estate with Carol Jones and AmerUs.
Along the way, Jerry gained an enviable reputation as an adroit salesman, a caring manager, a trusted colleague and mentor, and a fun friend and companion on the golf course, at other sports events and on travel adventures.
‘Somebody you just enjoyed being friends with'
“He was a really good, solid person,” says golfing buddy Steve Pope. “Jerry was somebody who was always courteous, always kind, never really criticizing other people, somebody you just enjoyed being friends with.”
Malcolm Huckreide agrees: “Jerry was a larger-than-life kind of guy. He liked everybody and everybody liked him. He treated everybody the same,” he says, offering a poignant example:
“Our son Steven, who died in 2010, was severely disabled, but whenever Jerry saw him, he would come over and pat him on the back and say, ‘Hey, Steven, how are you doing?’ That was just the kind of guy he was.”
Gary Elmer was a frequent member of Jerry’s golfing foursomes, and he and his wife, Voncille, enjoyed traveling with Jerry and his late wife, Mary, who died in 2007 after 45 years of marriage.
“Jerry was nice and kind to everybody,” says Voncille. “We always had a good time because he had a great sense of humor. He’d say things like ‘I have to drive fast so I can get to where I’m going before I have a wreck.’”
Sandra Lowther began dating Jerry a dozen years ago and they became an exclusive couple. “In that time I never heard one person say a bad thing about Jerry, nor him say a bad thing about anyone else,” she confirms. “He was thoughtful, helpful, very sensitive to people’s feelings, and concerned about people and their welfare.
“Jerry was very social. If we went to a party, as we would be leaving, I’d be out to the car and he’d still be inside asking people ‘How are you doing?’ and telling them ‘Good to see you!’ He was just that kind of guy.”
Jerry was an ardent fan of the MSU Bears basketball and football teams, and cheered them in-person at home and away for four decades. “Forty years — now that’s a fan!” says Lari.
‘Had to stop and talk to everyone'
According to Lari and others, anyone attending a game with her dad would have to arrive early but then sit alone for 15 or 20 minutes because Jerry “had to stop and talk to everyone on the way in. And then you had to be patient after the game because he’d do the same thing on the way out.”
Lari admits it sounds like a cliche but, in fact, it truly seemed like Jerry “never, ever met a stranger. He knew so, so, so many people. But it was more than just knowing their names. I’ve talked to countless people since he died who’ve told me that they had a deep, deep relationship with him.
“My brother and I were lucky to have a dad that so many people admired. I believe it was because he always tried to do the right thing. When we were growing up, that’s what he taught us: Always do the right thing.”
David saw that ethos in action when, as a budding IT technician, he worked with his father, operating and maintaining the Springfield Parts Warehouse computer system in the late 1980s and early ’90s.
“My dad cultivated very good relationships with all of his customers, all of his vendors. He was well-liked by both sides of that coin. A lot of people knew him and trusted him.”
David says the chief lessons he learned from observing his father included “keeping your word, showing up on time (or nowadays just showing up at all), and having a good demeanor, outlook, attitude or whatever you want to call it.”
Lari, who travels the region as a medical device saleswoman, says her dad looked for those same positive personal qualities in her friends when she was growing up. “He always wanted boyfriends to come inside so he could meet them. And it usually ended up that he knew their parents.”
On a vacation trip, she says, shaking her head, he bumped into someone he knew from back here when he got onto a hotel elevator — in Hawaii.
Wayne Hlavacek is another of Jerry’s pals who spent many hours on golf courses with him. They met 50 years ago at First and Calvary Presbyterian Church, where Jerry took an active role as a trustee and a member of the building and grounds committee.
“We started playing a lot of golf together,” Hlavacek says. “Jerry was one of those even-keel guys who never got upset about his golf game, even when he was having an off day. Eventually we got tired of playing the local public courses, so we both decided to join Twin Oaks in about 1980 and continued to play together there.”
Jerry served as club president at Twin Oaks in 1997. At the end of his term, rather than scheduling the customary formal President’s Ball, he opted for an outdoor barbecue. “He didn’t want to have to put on a tuxedo,” explains Lari with a laugh.
It was at another country club, Highland Springs, that Hlavacek witnessed one of Jerry’s best shots. It was at a tournament for charity, and Hlavacek was playing in a foursome with Jerry, Steve Pope and Gary Elmer.
“Steve hit first,” recounts Hlavacek, “a 180-yard shot, and it was right there. (Three feet from the hole, as Pope tells it.) Then I hit — and I missed the green, of course. Then Jerry hit one, and he was a little short and to the right of the hole.
“But it started rolling at the hole — and all of a sudden we couldn’t see it anymore. And somebody said, ‘I think it went in!’ So we quick got into the cart and drove up there. The little lady who was observing at that green was jumping up and down. And sure enough, Jerry had gotten a hole-in-one.
‘He wanted to share everything'
“Then he found out that there was a $25,000 prize for a hole-in-one on that hole, plus $25,000 for the charity. Jerry was pretty pleased about that. He wanted to share his part of the money with us. But we said, ‘No, you keep it — you earned it.’
“He did give us each a gift certificate,” Hlavacek says. “That’s just the kind of guy he was — he wanted to share everything.”
Bill Helfrecht knew Jerry for 36 years. While he wasn’t at Highland Springs that day, he says he did witness two other holes-in-one scored by Jerry, at Twin Oaks and at Hidden Valley Golf Course in Stone County.
Helfrecht has fond memories of trips taken with Jerry. For instance: “We’d go to Hot Springs and Las Vegas — we liked to bet the horse races.”
Jerry was a walking storehouse of historical facts, especially about sports. Occasionally, he was called upon to settle bets about sports trivia, or to answer nagging questions.
“Just last night, something came up about sports,” says Voncille Elmer, “and Gary said, ‘Well, we can’t call Jerry…’ We used to call him and say, ‘Hey, Jerry, do you remember so-and so?’ And he could tell us the date he played, exactly who he played for and how long he played for them. It didn’t make any difference if it were football, basketball or baseball — Jerry was very knowledgeable.”
Jerry lavished care at home, Lari and David emphasize.
“After Mom died, he really stepped up and started playing both roles for us,” Lari says, “sending the birthday cards, making sure we were all together for family functions, et cetera.”
He’d always followed the kids’ athletic competitions and other performances at school. Lari played tennis at Kickapoo, and David competed in tennis and golf. He took them to Kansas City Chiefs games and to watch the St. Louis Cardinals play.
“If you were in the car with him in summertime, the radio was always tuned to the Cardinals game,” Lari recalls. She and David say their dad was a good player himself — usually shortstop or second baseman — in his younger days. He continued to play baseball after high school and well into his 30s, David says.
David also accompanied Jerry to some NASCAR races. He vividly recalls a couple of episodes that occurred while attending early events at Texas Motor Speedway, a former NASCAR venue in Fort Worth.
“The first year we went down there, they had just finished building the track, and they had a concrete ring road around the outside of the track for fans to use to get to parking areas. But the parking areas themselves weren’t paved. And it rained right before the race.
“So nobody could park around the track because of the mud. They had to bus in spectators from Fort Worth and Dallas. But when the race was over, there were no buses. So we ended up hitchhiking on I-35!
“A guy in a truck stopped, and four or five of us jumped onto the back. He took us five miles up the road to where our cars were.”
‘Anytime you were with Dad, you didn't know what was going to happen'
An opposite adventure occurred on another trip to that track a year or two later. David says that Jerry had a good friend who was a salesman for Snap-On, the premier tool manufacturer. The friend had sold an extensive set of mechanic tools to the maintenance chief at Love Field, the airport in Dallas. David and Jerry helped him make the delivery on their way to the race.
“The airport guy said, ‘Let me see your tickets,’ and he gave us better tickets to the race. Then he gave us a ride to the speedway — aboard a helicopter!
“Anytime you were with Dad, you didn’t know what was going to happen,” says David with a chuckle. “Not in a bad way, but in a good way.”
Both kids say Jerry’s love affair with cars continued throughout his life. They recall an early ’60s Chevy with a potent 409-cubic-inch V8 engine. “And Cadillacs — he loved his Cadillacs,” says Lari.
“But his favorite car was a scarlet 1978 Corvette that he had for a lot of years,” notes David. The car bore personalized license plates reading “LTL RED” in homage to Prince’s 1980s hit song “Little Red Corvette.”
Jerry continued his real estate sales activities until about one month before he died.
“I know he was successful at it,” says Pope, “because when I’d be playing golf with him, he’d always be getting calls on his cell phone from people wanting to know about certain properties or buildings.”
And, friends say, Jerry remained willing to volunteer to help worthy causes.
“He was very, very caring,” says Helfrecht. “He would give you all his attention, making you feel that he really was listening to you and that what you were saying meant something to him.
“Jerry would’ve been a good politician — but he would’ve been too honest for that.”
Lari agrees: “He could’ve been elected — but he was too nice to be a politician,” she says.
“He really was special,” adds Sandra. “And I really miss him.”
