Thousands mourn couple who died in plane crash

BRIGHTON, N.Y. — Forty-seven years after Larry and Jane Glazer were married in Temple B'rith Kodesh here, thousands of relatives and friends gathered at the Rochester-area temple to say goodbye to the couple.

The Glazers' private plane crashed and sank Sept. 5 off the coast of Jamaica, the result of an apparent mechanical failure that is still being investigated.

"You don't replace Larry and Jane Glazer. You can't," said New York Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy as he arrived Tuesday at the synagogue where about 2,000 were gathered. No one person or group will fill the shoes of Larry Glazer, a Rochester-area commercial real-estate developer, or his wife, owner and founder of catalog company QCI Direct.

"It takes more than a village," Duffy said. "It takes a community."

Larry and Jane Glazer were two people who never stopped giving: time, money, jobs, hope. They spent the last weeks of their lives with their family, connecting with their past and each other.

At the end of August, they joined their children and grandchildren for family camp at Camp Seneca Lake, a Jewish summer institution where they first met as counselors 50 years ago.

The Friday before Labor Day, they gathered at their house with Jane Glazer's cousins — a group more like siblings, who have raised their children together and made time for birthdays, weddings and annual trips.

A week later, the couple was to fly to their home in Naples, Fla. Jane Glazer told her cousin she was looking forward to the respite from a busy summer. The crash happened on their trip there.

Those final days, seemingly insignificant at the time, now stand rightfully as a measure of their family life.

"Those (moments) were some amazing gifts," their daughter, Mindy MacLaren, said. "In hindsight, you wonder if they'd be so great if it wasn't ..."

She trailed off.

"But in this situation, they're really gifts."

Both Glazers were entrepreneurs

In the fall, Jane Glazer was scheduled to meet with students at the University of Rochester's Simon Business School as she had for more than a decade.

"Jane's a natural teacher. It comes easy to her," said Dennis Kessler, Ackley executive professor of entrepreneurship, noting it was impossible for him to refer to her in the past tense. "She takes the lectern with ease, moves around the classroom and is best responding to questions ... with earnest and enthusiastic optimism, without sugarcoating."

A favorite bit of wisdom was to keep plugging despite obstacles in the business, he said. Another was a company motto along the lines of "sure, sure, no problem," that described how workers were to make customer's problems go away by fixing them.

"She spoke about equity and fairness. She did all the things that are the embodiment of not only a progressive business person, but of someone who cared," Kessler said.

Larry Glazer and his commercial real-estate company, Buckingham Properties, ventured where others might not go. He saw downtown and urban neighborhoods teetering, but much of the city formed an attractive mosaic of middle-class neighborhoods.

He saw a vibrant university life but also saw that graduates didn't stay.

"He was a visionary, but he was also careful," said Ken Glazer, one of the Glazers' sons and a partner in Buckingham Properties. "He wouldn't do anything unless it made sense for the business."

Today, Larry Glazer's holdings, through Buckingham Properties and other businesses, include at least 2 million square feet in all manner of real estate, from warehouses to Victorian houses and lofts in refurbished factories.

"Larry was a true gentleman," said Jim Froehler, who with his wife, Carla, owns People's Pottery in Pittsford, N.Y. Larry Glazer was his landlord. "He'd take time with you. He'd explain what he could do and what he couldn't.

"He didn't vanish when the faucets in the restrooms wouldn't work. He took care of it right away." Jim Froehler said.

'They met, and that was it'

Before they were titans of Rochester industry, benefactors of thousands, Larry Glazer and Jane Lovenheim were counselors in 1964 at Camp Seneca Lake, south of Geneva, N.Y.

Carol Fybush, Jane Glazer's cousin and lifelong confidant, remembered getting a phone call from Larry Glazer before camp began. They were both students at the University at Buffalo, and he had seen Fybush's name on a list of counselors.

"I don't know if he was trying to pick up girls or what," Fybush said. "I said, 'He might be good for my cousin Jane.' ... We went to camp that summer, and they met, and that was it."

Larry Glazer grew up poor in Buffalo, MacLaren said, the son of an inventor who never managed to cash in on anything. But his schoolmates noticed right away that he was smart. It would take him far.

Jane Glazer's childhood was more comfortable, living among a web of relatives in Rochester. Her father ran Great Lakes Press, a commercial printing firm, and she and her cousins were all sent for tours of Europe in their college years.

She and Fybush took their trip together in 1965 and at every stop was a letter from Glazer.

"She got letters from him and mooned over him and talked and talked about him," Fybush said. "I thought, 'This is it, I'm going to lose her.' "

The Glazers married Aug. 6, 1967, at Temple B'rith Kodesh, when they were 21 years old. Their three children — MacLaren and Richard and Ken Glazer — were born in the early 1970s.

From the beginning, they lived facing outward, sharing what they had and rejoicing in the community around them.

The refrigerator at home was rarely stocked since they spent so much time out of the house, but Jane Glazer was known for whipping up meals from nothing. When emergencies arose, Larry Glazer would fly friends or family across the country.

Even as their stature and wealth increased, they kept a strong tether to their family. The sort of busy schedules that can tear some marriages apart seemed to make theirs stronger.

"They were the glue that held everybody together," MacLaren said. "They knew they had each other. From that, they could springboard and do anything and be busy and whatever, but at the end of the day, they always had each other to come back to."

Vacations were punctuated with games of "Where's Larry?" He would slip away from a group to scour a knick-knack shop or hardware store for items that his wife could sell.

Jane Glazer was the optimist, her husband the pragmatist. In the family as in their businesses, they maintained a level of enthusiasm that inspired and grounded those around them.

The family has been overwhelmed in the past 10 days with stories of how their parents helped people, quietly but crucially; how they combined to affect so many people in so many ways.

But for those who knew them best, it was clear that their commitment to the community was outdone only by their commitment to each other.

"They relied on each other unbelievably," MacLaren said. "They were a team. They were always a united front. ... It would never have been just Jane; it would never have been just Larry. It was always Jane and Larry."

Contributing: Victoria E. Freile, Diana Louise Carter and Tom Tobin, Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat & Chronicle