Edgar and Grisier Funeral Home

He was 79.He had kidney failure and congestive heart failure, son Marc said. -- MathenyEnlargeMr. Matheny served on Wauseon City Council for six years in the 1980s and then was mayor for 12 years, through 2003.“To be mayor, you have to be a dreamer and planner and you have to be dreaming and planning ahead,” Mr. Matheny told The Blade in December, 2003.He liked to perform weddings and officiated at 35 his first year in office alone. He solicited suggestions from citizens for an annual city slogan. He began his tenure with, “Let’s Start Anew in ’92.” He created a Wauseon city flag, said Kathy Huner, the current mayor.“He was really an advocate for Wauseon. He was pretty amazing. And you took that call. That was his way.”Some in town still called him “Mr. Mayor,” said Bill Drummer, who had owned a factory and sporting goods store and credits Mr. Matheny with helping him get a development loan and negotiating lower rates on his behalf with Toledo Edison.“He helped so many people get into business,” said Mr. Drummer, now executive director of the Wauseon Chamber of Commerce. “You could bring any problem you had to Jerry’s doorstep and, by golly, he’d get to work on it and get it solved.”In 2005, Mr. Matheny was the grand marshal of Wauseon’s annual homecoming parade. The chamber of commerce named him its 2013 citizen of the year. He taught Sunday school at Trinity Lutheran Church and was a Boy Scout leader and youth baseball coach as his sons were growing up.Mr. Matheny had worked primarily at the Campbell Soup Co. in Napoleon until he started his own floor covering, floor cleaning, and janitorial business in 1962. He later owned a tool rental business.He and his wife, Sandy, opened Books, Brass & Candles in 1989, a book shop they later moved to downtown Wauseon. A move to an apartment above the store followed. They retired in 2005.“Wauseon is the best community in the whole world,” he told The Blade in 1996. “Why wouldn’t I want to live in the downtown of this fantastic city?”He was born Aug. 24, 1937, in Detroit to Marga... (Toledo Blade)