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Remembering Jon Hassler
"He was a very, very special gentleman. He always had that gleam in his eye and I always got a kick out of that. It was part of his charm."
- Evelyn Matthies, Brainerd artist who worked with Hassler at Brainerd Community College in the 1970s.
"(His paintings) had a softness about them, just like his personality. He was a caring man, a kind man, soft-spoken most of the time. That's the way his paintings were - very serene, very nice, never agitated."
- Matthies
"He was just a fantastic man, very modest about his accomplishments. He was a great man. He really was."
- Marilynn Stoxen, East Gull Lake, a former co-worker of Hassler's at BCC.
"He's an exceptional writer because he was such an exceptional human being. He's one of my heroes. I loved his wry sense of humor. I loved the characters he created. They're unforgettable characters because they're so real. It's sad to think there won't be another novel from Jon Hassler."
- Sally Ihne, former president of Central Lakes College.
"When he wrote about scenes in the halls, in the classrooms, in the faculty rooms, it was just as if he was peering over your shoulder. That was his own experience."
- Kathy Hauser, a former student of Hassler's at BCC in 1968 who went on to teach English at Pequot Lakes High School.
"He was a very good person, a very nice person, a very private person, but what he says is worth hearing, and it was worth listening to him. He was just a very nice individual."
- Al Houle, former Crosby-Ironton High School history teacher who attended St. John's University with Hassler in the 1950s.
"When I first met Jon, I was intimidated by his brilliance. I'd ask a question and then think to myself, Why did I ask such a stupid question?' We were all in it together at the college; it was small back then. I have such great respect for him. I always cherished his work. He had dry humor. His choice of words were so precise and meaningful."
- Former BCC theater director Bob Dryden.
"Jon had such a dry sense of humor. I always felt good in his company. His books are my favorite. To me he is far more than Garrison Keillor. He is one of Minnesota's best-known writers. I travel all the time and I see his books all over the country. He writes with such humor and has such great stories."
- Guy Doud, Baxter, a former student of Hassler's.
"Something may be biographical, and then he'd transform it. He kept many journals and he would get incidents and feelings from the journals for the characters. They were gold mines for his imagination."
- Joe Plut, Crosby, Hassler's friend and a scholar of his novels, on the realism in Hassler's work.
"People go through the healing process and they often are better - through circumstances and other people - at the end of the novel than at the beginning. And he writes about community in these small Minnesota towns and people relating to each other."
- Plut, on Hassler's favorite themes.
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