Henri George Waegell

1926 - 2022

Henri George Waegell
August 26, 1926 - June 23, 2022
Sacramento, California - Henri George Waegell, a Sacramento area farmer, activist, world traveler and supporter of the arts, died June 23, 2022, at the age of 95.
Waegell Brothers Ranch, now Tiessen and Waegell Ranch, is a large farm located in eastern Sacramento County. George Waegell and his brothers, with support from their sister Margaret and spouses, farmed for decades and produced certified seed, hay, sheep, wheat, and other crops. George retired from farming in 1991, but managed the hunting and fishing operations until his death.
George was born, along with his identical twin brother, Jim, on August 26, 1926, in Sacramento to Henri Francois Waegell and Margaret Fredrika Tiessen. After he came home from the hospital, George spent the next 95 years living in the same house on the family farm. The five Waegell children: older sisters Grace and Margaret, twins George and Jim, and younger brother, Jack, worked on their parent's farm raising turkeys, hogs, lambs, figs, wheat, and other crops.
George and his siblings went to school together riding Dolly the horse, traveling in a '28 Dodge touring car or riding in a Kleiber school bus, or walking three miles across pastures to Rhodes School, the one-room Union School, Elk Grove Grammar School, and Elk Grove High School. George had a passion for learning that he carried with him throughout his lifetime.
The Waegell family was politically active, and responded to issues of injustice. George made many friends with the first-generation Japanese students at school. After Pearl Harbor when their friends and neighbors were sent to internment camps, the Waegells stored their household goods and farm equipment in their barns, wrote letters to them in the camps, and sent them things from the Montgomery Ward and Sears catalogs. The Waegell family received hate mail and threatening midnight phone calls. When the war ended, the family welcomed back their Japanese neighbors with groceries, shelter, and employment, helping them to reclaim their lives. In the 1990s, the Japanese American Civic League of Sacramento interviewed each of the Waegell siblings and presented the family with a written oral history of the family as a gesture of thanks for their wartime support.
George was involved in social justice issues throughout his life. He wrote letters to politicians and newspapers on the death penalty, overpopulation, economic imbalances, U.S. military intervention around the world, circumcision, women's rights, education, pollution, and more. He sent soil and water samples to labs in attempts to find out what the Kiefer Landfill was leaching into the groundwater, and he used a stepladder to take pictures over the oleander so he could document the destruction caused by gravel mining. The day before he died, George was encouraging people to write their congress members and legislators to make obtaining aid-in-dying medication less bureaucratic and more accessible.
In 1951, George received his draft notice, but he refused induction into the Army. The judge listened to George's reasoning, and sentenced him to three years at McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary in Washington State. In prison, George led a work crew farming vegetables and ran the prison library until he completed his time, for which he was given $20 and a bus ticket home.
In the spring of 1961, George decided to see what was happening in the world. In Havana, he was caught taking pictures of Chinese tractors and was hauled off to jail. The Cubans let him go the next day, and he took his camera on a bus ride to Varadero Beach, just across the island from where the CIA was invading Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. George was picked up on the assumption that he was a CIA paratrooper. After a week in jail, he was sent to Mexico City, only to land in a CIA holding tank where he was questioned about what he was doing in Cuba.
A month later, back in the U.S., George was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he was questioned regarding "Violations of State Department regulations and Pro-Castro propaganda activities in the United States." Represented by the ACLU, George pleaded the Fifth. George replied to the contempt charge with a lawsuit of his own, suing the HUAC for $100,000.
A Cuban friend introduced George to Judy Rowland, and they were married in 1964. Judy joined George and his brothers and sister in running the farm. George and Judy also traveled the world together, seeking out places uncommon for tourists to visit. They went to Guatemala during a coup, Chile during the Pinochet reign, the Soviet Union, Jordan, North Korea, China, Turkey, and, on September 11, 2001, Iran.
As a professional cellist in the Sacramento Symphony, Judy shared George's passion for the arts. In addition to being a long-term supporter of the symphony, George supported Sacramento's theater companies.
Judy passed away on December 7, 2012.
In addition to his wife Judy, George is preceded in death by his sisters Grace Tiessen and Margaret Waegell, and brothers Jim and Jack Waegell.
George is survived by his daughter, Becky Waegell (Ramona Robison); step-children, David Lawson (Sandy) and Dawn Lawson (John La Grange); and three granddaughters, Jennifer Lawson, Danielle Lawson, and Rachel Bayley Freidberg. He is also survived by numerous nieces and nephews.
In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to any Sacramento area arts organization, writing a letter to your representative or taking a friend to lunch.
A memorial service will be at 10 a.m. September 10, 2022, at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento, 2425 Sierra Blvd., Sacramento.