Opinion: An ode to Jammer Joe

Old McDonald had a farm and so did Joe Kendall. Joe and his wife, Geri, farmed the fertile soil of Illinois for nearly 50 years, successfully raising assorted grain and livestock in the process. However, this story and the name Jammer Joe isn’t about farming, but is rather a Glacier Park story that spans nearly 75 years and is currently ongoing. Joe Kendall first came to Glacier in the late 1940s and spent two wonderful and successful summers working at Lake McDonald lodge.

He was so well liked and so successful at his job at the Lodge that at the end of his second season he was told he could return to any job that he wanted. Was he elated! At summer’s end he returned home to Illinois and found another job offer…his draft notice. Joe had a sweetheart back in Illinois, named Geri Duval, whom he had met in high school and they had tentatively planned to marry upon his return from the Park. The draft notice put a damper on those plans. The Korean War was in full bloom and Joe did not want to leave a potential widow behind… the marriage was postponed.

Well, time passed and Joe survived the Army and the War. When Joe returned home on the train Geri met him at the station and promptly asked Joe if he still wanted to get married and he said, “I do” and they did…and the marriage was on! Over the years Joe and Jerry farmed around Galva, Illinois and raised five wonderful children, and one German exchange student. Geri, in addition to being a farm wife, also worked many years as a tour guide for Mayflower Tours. Early on Joe confessed to having another love besides Geri … Glacier National Park and she accepted said lover with grace. Joe said he could never be unsmitten about Glacier. The Kendall family managed to spend several summers in Glacier and some of the kids followed Joe’s lead and worked in the Park, but to Joe it wasn’t enough. He just had to go back for more than a visit.

Somehow he found out that the Park was hiring senior citizens as well as college students for summer employment.

Well, he wrangled a summer job at Glacier Park Lodge in the warehouse in 1997, retired from day-to-day farming, and the rest is history. After the warehouse stint, Joe got a job driving one of Glacier’s iconic red buses and he and Geri settled in to seasonal work retiring from such in the summer of 2013.

Geri worked as a tour guide for the Great Lodges tour and Joe became…Jammer Joe! For those unfamiliar with the term red bus drivers are called Jammers. Joe Kendall might not have the longest reign as a red bus driver, and he is certainly not the most infamous, but he is the only one called Jammer Joe! After a 30-year absence as a Glacier employee I too managed to return to Park employment. Upon my return I heard all about the famous (not infamous) Jammer Joe. I expected him to be a dashing young man, similar to the Red Baron in style and looks.

Was I ever surprised!

All dressed up in his official jammer uniform, wearing white hair, and a white waxed moustache he was the epitome of the man on the Monopoly box. I kid you not. And he was not just about looks: he was informative and charming as charming can be. He was so well known and so well liked after a few seasons that a pizza joint at Lake McDonald Lodge was even named after him ... Jammer Joe’s. As part of my job at Glacier Park Lodge I was recruited to work on the Great Lodges tour. I carried the luggage for the guests while Jammer Joe drove one of the red buses and Geri conducted the tour. I did this for three summers until the tours ceased after the 2013 season.

Working with Joe and Geri and getting to know them was one of the best of my Glacier experiences. I cannot begin to state how well they treated me and how as a result they brought out the very best in me. As they say…all good things come to an end. Glacier Park Inc. lost the concessionaire contract in the Park that summer of 2013 and ultimately the use of the red buses.

That ended the Great Lodges tour and Joe and Geri’s summer employment in Glacier. They felt it was time to truly retire and go back to the homestead. However, it was not the end of the Kendall reign in the Park. Son Eric also was a red bus driver for several seasons and even managed Many Glacier Hotel for a few seasons, and granddaughter Kayla (who was the spitting image of a young Geri) worked in Glacier two summers. But who knows? Maybe a Kendall yet to be born will work out here some day.

As stated earlier, all good things come to end and what comes to one will eventually come to us all. In 2021 son Eric passed away from cancer and Geri left this earth this past June. And Jammer Joe? Joe says he plans to live to be 100.

At 94 he drove out to Glacier Park Lodge, with Geri’s memory as his co-driver to attend the Lodge’s employee reunion fest a few weeks ago. He was as full of life as ever and while mourning the recent loss of Geri said to me, ”These mountains have always called me and will always call me back and I will return.”

In one form or another I am sure he most certainly will. Some things never end and neither will Jammer Joe’s presence in Glacier.

Chris Ashby

East Glacier Park