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Wilbur D. "Pete" Creger (1995)

CREES, CREGER, VAN VLEET

Posted By: Kent Transier
Date: 11/8/2023 at 18:04:34

The Des Moines Register
Des Moines, Iowa
[First Edition]
Monday, December 25, 1995
Page 20, Columns 5 & 6

‘HE HAD A HEART OF GOLD’

To last day, Pete Creger cared about the customer

Windsor Heights, Ia. –On Thursday, Pete Creger knew something was amiss.

“I don’t know whose going to take care of the customers,” he told a friend, “I have a feeling I’m going to go.”

Friday, the longtime gas station owner died of an aneurysm at Mercy Hospital Medical Center. Friends of the 75 year-old said it was just like Mr. Creger to be fretting about his customers the day before his death.

After all, they said, this was a man who let folks who were down on their luck pay for car repairs with monthly payments. He was a man who worked every day from open to close. And he was a man former workers described as both a mentor and a friend.

“If he thought it would take care of you, he’d give you the shirt off his back,” Ron Schiller said of his former boss, Wilbur “Pete” Creger. “He had a heart of gold.”

Mr. Creger had owned Pete’s Valley Conoco & Car Wash, at 211 Grand Ave. in West Des Moines since 1978. He also owned the West End Super Service gas station from 1938 to 1976.

Saturday, friends of Mr. Creger worked at the Grand Avenue station, tending to customers, as they knew he would have wanted.

“I’m just down her paying my dues,” said Schiller, who spent the afternoon breaking the news of Mr. Creger’s death to customers. “He’s got a tremendously long line of customers who know him, and all their children.”

Mr. Creger was a veteran of World War II. The native of Peru, Iowa, is survived by his wife, Edna; two daughters, Martha Crees of West Des Moines and Joan Van Vleet of Norwalk; and a son, Steve of Des Moines.

He was an old-fashioned man, friends said, who still provided full service at his gas station. He often sat in a chair near the counter, wearing a 1940s cap as he chatted or sipped coffee with the customers.

Co-workers said he was more than just a gas station owner. He was they said, a true friend.

“Everybody has their time, “Schiller said. “But when they told me on Friday, I just couldn’t believe it. He’s done a lot for me.”

Visitation will be from 3 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at McLaren’s Funeral Chapel in West Des Moines. Services are 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at McLaren’s. Burial will be in North McDonald Cemetery in Madison County. Memorial contributions may be made to Norwalk United Methodist Church.
________________________

The Des Moines Register
Des Moines, Iowa
[Second Edition]
Thursday, December 28, 1995
Page 1 A Column 4

HE WAS THERE EVERY DAY

It’s Pete’s turn now: He’ll be in good hands

For 57 years cars pulled into his gas station, but it was really the people he looked after.

Who’s gonna take care of these people when I’m gone?

He must have asked that question once a day. He’d ask whoever was there – Betty or Randy or Steve or the customer who pulled in for gas. Who knows? He probably asked the cats, Connie and Hoss (he took care of them, too) or tossed the question into midair early in the morning, when he was alone at his gas station.

Who’s gonna take care of these people? It wasn’t a deep, philosophical question. It wasn’t a premonition. Pete Creger was grumbling.

He had to work seven days a week, 363 days a year. Slow down? Never. When the station was open, he was there. He put in 12-hour days. When it snowed and parts of the rest of the world could shut down, Pete had to work harder. He had driveways to plow.

These people. He worked with them for 57 years. Some of them couldn’t pay their bills on time, so he gave the credit. Faith and patience went with it.

Finishing the Job

There’s a photocopy lying around the office that says, “To our past due credit customers, when you die, please let us be your pallbearers. We carried you so long that we would like to finish the job!”

“I told him he should put it up,” bookkeeper Betty Oaks said. But Pete wouldn’t do that. The sign sat under a clipboard, out of sight.

Who’s going to take care now?

Pete died before he got to work Friday. It was about 6:30 a.m. He had gone outside to warm up his car. He started the engine then went back in the house and sat in the dining room. His wife heard him say, “Oh, oh, my stomach,” and he was gone.

An aneurysm in his stomach had burst. He was 75.

He leaves his wife, Edna; daughters Martha Crees and Joan Van Vleet; son Steve; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

While friends huddled around the family at the funeral home Tuesday night, one man stood alone in front of Pete’s casket.

“I’ve known him since I was 10 years old,” he said to no one in particular. “He taught me to play pitch.” The man wore a Firestone Rescue jacket, blue jeans, white socks and black shoes. He’s 53 years old, and he was about to cry. He touched the old gas station attendant’s cap the Pete always wore.

“He loved kids,” the man said.

Peru, Truro, Des Moines

Pete Creger was born in Peru, Ia., grew up in Truro and moved to Des Moines after he graduated from Truro High School in 1938. He went to work for his half-brother Art, who owned a gas station on the northeast corner of 59th Street and Grand Avenue.

He left to drive a tank in Gen. George Patton’s 3rd Army during World War II – he and Edna spent their first two wedding anniversaries half a world apart – then returned to his wife and the station.

When Art retired in 1956, Pete took over.

He was the quintessential gas station owner. Hollywood casting directors looking for gas station operators should have found Pete Creger: tall, thin, always wearing his gas station hat and his blue shirt. His name was stitched over the right pocket. Pens and a tire gauge stuck out of the left.

He had old-fashioned values: Work hard. Earn honest money.

Register and Tribune columnists mourned the day in 1978 when he announced that he was closing so that an office building could go up on his spot. Some of his customers nearly cried, Walt Shotwell wrote.

“You’re supposed to be sad if your favorite bar burns down, if they close your high school, or if your Hollywood idol retires,” Shotwell wrote.

“But your gas station attendant?”

Taking Care of People

That’s how it was with Pete. By all appearances, he took care of cars. But when he filled a gas tank, replaced a radiator hose or looked under a hood and told a car owner he really didn’t need a new water pump, Pete was taking care of people.

In the summertime, he gave them the tomatoes he grew in a patch behind the station. In the winter, kids walking to school ducked into his station to get warm. They swiped candy, and he looked the other way.

Pete closed his station and went to work at another station down the street. He bought it later. Pete’s Valley Conoco is at 211 Grand Ave. in West Des Moines.

Stray cats Connie and Hoss live there. They sit on top of the coffee maker and on the cash register. When the place closes at night, the employees pull the two service trucks into the shop and roll down a window in each, so the cats can sleep inside if they want.

The TV in the corner above the shop door has cable so Pete, a former pitcher, could watch and coach every Chicago Cubs game.

Green Thumb

He grew flowers in the sawed-off barrels outside and tomatoes in the thin strip of dirt between his station and the bank next door. When people asked how his plants did so well, he told them he sprinkled a little used motor oil on the dirt.

He didn’t crack a smile when he said it, bookkeeper Oakes said. “I’m sure people have tried it.”

Two Holidays

He closed on two days each year: Thanksgiving and Christmas.

His staff closed the station again on Wednesday for his funeral. Pete, mechanic Randy White said, probably would not have approved.

Who’s gonna take care of the people?

His son Steve, grandson Brian, mechanic White, Roger Colvin, Troy Kilker, Eric Steward, Mark Shearman and Betty Oakes will look after the station – and the customers.

Pete can rest. It’s his turn to be taken care of.

The man who learned to play pitch in Pete’s station years ago stood in front of his casket Tuesday and talked to Pete.

“You’re in good hand,” he said.

Link to Gravestone Photo
 

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