Jorgensen, Ib
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. Arrangements are under the direction of The Wallingford Funeral Home, 809 North Main St. Ext. 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. For online condolences or directions visit: www.wallingfordfh.com

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Published by The New Haven Register on Mar. 11, 2018.

Memories and Condolences
for Ib Jorgensen

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6 Entries

Roberta Friedman

March 17, 2018

Mrs. Jorgensen and family: We learn of the passing of Mr. Jorgensen with great saddness. There are few educators that remain in our hearts and minds, and both of you are among them. David ('87) and Marc ("90) appreciated all that you both brought to their years at Hopkins. Please accept our heartfelt condolences. Roberta Friedman

March 16, 2018

Birgit, my deepest condolences to you and your family. I have such fond memories of singing with Ib in the Wallingford Chorus; he had a beautiful voice. Ib was a gentle, kind, intelligent man and it was an honor to know him.

Mina Marak, Northford, Connecticut

Bob Klatskin

March 15, 2018

I remember Mr. Jorgensen so well from soccer practice; "Yump a little" he would call out to us. I had just returned from one year living in Denmark, so tried to speak a little Danish with him

Bob Klatskin '69

Mark Shiffrin

March 12, 2018

Ib was a gentleman and a teacher in every sense of the word. He was a mentor and friend to so many of us at Hopkins. He was also a tremendous role model, someone who showed us that the Greatest Generation didn't just grow up in the United States.
While he demonstrated courage facing adversity when it was required of him in Denmark far too young, we got to know him as the warm father of our classmates, a caring teacher and coach who lived with love, grace, kindness, joy, vigor, optimism, and the intellectual curiosity of a polymath. May Ib's memory be for a blessing.

Shelley Kreiger

March 12, 2018

Thank you for sharing Ib with the students at Hopkins, mine among them. They are better people for having known him.
Shelley Kreiger

Randy Harrison

March 12, 2018

The deepest condolences of the entire Harrison family go out to your family. "Mr J" was a true gentlemen and a the entire Hopkins community was, and is, very lucky to have had our lives impacted in such positive ways by all of the Jorgensens. He will be missed all.

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