The ‘Little Things’

When Jerry Peltier ’62 was growing up in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the late 1930s, money was tight.

“None of us had allowances,” Peltier recalls. For the nine Peltier kids, work started at an early age collecting old newspapers, glass and tin cans to take to the junkyard to earn $1 or less. Later, a newspaper delivery route and window washing – jobs that were passed down from sibling to sibling – brought in a few dollars.

Peltier paid for his first two years at Iowa State University with the money he saved growing up. He continued working during school, serving as a substitute waiter at the dining halls in the women’s dormitories.

Peltier was 17 when he started at Iowa State in 1953. He’d asked his high school principal where he should go to study horticulture because he wanted to own a greenhouse. She suggested Ames and another location. He wrote a letter to both schools and heard back from Iowa State. Soon, he was in a car with his parents heading west, leaving Wisconsin for the first time.

He stayed for two years. With a new desire to become a pilot, Peltier left school, worked at a greenhouse and other jobs and eventually enlisted in the Air Force. He was stationed in England, where he worked in the weather service instead of becoming a pilot. When his tour of duty ended four years later, he decided to finish his degree.

Peltier credits his advisor Ervin Denison and Louis Thompson, who served as associate dean of academic programs for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, with helping him retain many of the credits he earned his first two years at Iowa State and keeping him in school the second time around.

Not only did Peltier graduate in 1962 with a bachelor’s degree in horticulture, but he went on to earn a master’s degree from Bemidji State University in vocational education, taught at Brainard Technical Institute in Brainard, Minnesota, and achieved his childhood dream of owning a greenhouse. After a successful career, he and his wife, Ruth, retired to Ames. Ruth passed away in 2013.

“They say we are a product of our heritage and training,” Peltier said when thinking about the guiding forces in his life. From his immigrant grandparents who farmed in Poland and his parents who started a furniture business at the height of the Great Depression, Peltier learned the value of hard work. He also learned the importance of giving to others.

“Mother had a tight budget with that many kids, and I had a lot of jeans with patches,” Peltier recalls. “As tight as things were, Mother always found money to give to charity.”

Guided by his mother’s example and the legacy of his hardworking family, Peltier gives to several organizations that are important to him, including Iowa State. He has designated funds through charitable remainder trusts to many areas, including the ISU Working Scholars award, which helps hard-working Cyclones who are holding down a job while earning their degrees.

Pointing to a prayer he reads every day titled “Little Things,” which talks about helping others in small but important ways, Peltier notes that he has learned throughout his life that giving even a little can have a lasting impact on the lives of others.

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