Ib Jorgensen, 93, of Wallingford, loving husband of Birgit (Riis) Jorgensen, died peacefully, Saturday, March 3, 2018 at the Masonicare Health Center in Wallingford.
Ib was born in Silkeborg, Denmark, March 7, 1924, a son of the late Valdemar Jørgensen and Maria (Rasmussen) Jørgensen. He was a member of the Danish resistance during WWII participating in many operations against the German occupation of Denmark from 1941-1945.
He married Birgit Riis in 1951 after graduating from Copenhagen University with a teaching degree. He then taught in the Danish high school system for many years and continued to develop his life-long interest in music. Ib first came to the US on a grant from the Danish government to study Native American music in 1956. He traveled throughout the US spending time on Native American reservations recording their music. His extensive travels throughout the West cemented his desire to live in the US permanently.
In 1957, Ib began teaching at Hopkins School in New Haven, Connecticut where he remained for 39 years as a math and photography teacher and coached tennis and soccer. He touched many student lives as he organized numerous student trips to western US., Florida and Scandinavia as well as concert choir tours to Europe and ski trips to Austria and Stowe, Vermont throughout his career.
With a passion for exploring the world and experiencing different cultures, he spent much of his later life traveling extensively and photographing many sites, producing numerous slide shows that he shared with others.
Ib remained passionate about music and was a longstanding member of the Wallingford Congregational Church choir as well as a member of the University Glee Club of New Haven and the Wallingford Chorus.
In addition to his wife Birgit, he is survived by his three children Marianne Jorgensen and her husband David Foster of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mette Shultz and her husband Jeff of Chester, Virginia, Lars Jorgensen and his wife Lise of Trumbull, Connecticut; and 6 grandchildren.
Relatives and friends are invited to attend a memorial service at 11 a.m. on April, 7, 2018 at the First Congregational Church of Wallingford, 23 South Main St. In lieu of flowers, gifts in his memory may be sent to the Ib Jorgensen Scholarship Fund at the Hopkins School, 986 Forest Road, New Haven, CT 06515.