A Short Biography of Wayne Connaway

Wayne Russell Connaway was born on April 18, 1932 in East Gary, Indiana. He died on June 20, 2025 in Modesto, California. His birth certificate lists his father, James Lester Connaway, as a machinist in a tin mill, and his mother, Edna Blohm Connaway, as a housewife. Wayne had a brother, James, two years his senior, now deceased. His sister, Shirley (b. 1935) survived him.

         The limited information from Ancestry and online sources shows that Mr. Connaway, as we knew him, was of Scottish and German/Scandinavian stock. His father was born on October 17, 1899 and died in Indiana on February 21, 1985. James Lester was the son of a Missouri farmer, James Polk Connaway (1871-1946), whose family had settled in Delaware during the 18th century. His mother, Edna Esther Blohm (1910-1963) was the daughter of Ernest Blohm (1870-1940) and Matilda Martinsen (1880-1960) of LaPorte, Indiana.

         During the 1930s and 1940s Gary was a growing industrial city tied to Chicago and Detroit. It is likely that Wayne’s father was able to find steady, well-paying, employment there while raising his family in nearby Portage, an eastern suburb. Though born during the Great Depression, his children benefitted from wartime industries and, later, steel used by auto and truck manufacturers. The 1950s were a boom decade for U.S. Steel, which had a major plant in Gary.

         Wayne attended public schools, entered Portage High School in 1947 and graduated with his class in 1950. Yearbook photos show a cheerful, wide-eyed teenager who clearly impressed his classmates with his intelligence and talent. He joined the choir, dressed sharply, and eventually worked on the yearbook. A sophomore portrait shows him in a loud tie, and in another photo with his class he is in the front row, looking like a jitterbug dandy. In the choir group photograph he is front and center, clearly one of the leaders in the baritone section. His voice would be an asset in later years.

An article from the Vidette Messenger in Valparaiso, Indiana lists him in the cast of a May 1949 Portage High production of “Aunty’s Big Joke.” He played the son. The paper also notes that the following year he was the art editor of the yearbook. A third piece lists him as contributing to the High-League counseling committee at his church, the Garyton Convent Church on Central Avenue. His Christian faith would continue to be an anchor for much of his life.

         If he were jocular in high school, his attitude may have changed when he enlisted in the military in June, 1950, knowing that following a deferment he would join the Army. The 1950 Census shows him living at home with his parents and sister. He enrolled at Wheaton College (Illinois) in 1951, and yearbooks show him there as a sophomore the following year. He must have graduated in 1954, before entering active duty. A Vidette Messenger article from 1954 indicated that “Seven County Men Face Induction Next March,” and he was listed among them. He narrowly escaped from a brutal and divisive war that killed many of his compatriots.

         The Korean War, not Vietnam, was to influence his view of military service in the coming decades. He joined an Army vocal ensemble that performed on the Ed Sullivan Show, and found friends among his fellow soldiers. But his intention was to pursue a career in education. He received a degree in guidance and counseling (date and place not known) and got a job back in Indiana following that training. In 1959 he married Ina Dean (maiden name?) and got a job at Wirt High School in Gary, Indiana, where we find him in 1962. We do not know if he also taught at Army schools in Germany at that date.

         Indeed, Mr. Connaway found that having a foot in the United States as well as a job abroad suited him for most of his teaching career. He got a job sometime in the mid 1960s in the Bellevue, Washington, School District east of Seattle. Moving far from Indiana was an adventure, but he and his wife Dean had already seen life at the military community at Kaiserslautern, Germany, operating since before World War II and now the largest outside of the continental U.S. (If friends there can fill in this section we will have more information about his time there).

         According to one account (to be verified) Wayne was a successful teacher, so much so that when the new Sammamish High School opened in Lake Hills, he was offered the job of principal there. He turned down that position but accepted a job as a senior English teacher—a post in which he also made his mark. Many, many students found his teaching compelling, inspiring and even life changing. His rigorous curriculum and emphasis on clear, concise writing challenged everyone to do their best work. He also fostered creativity by encouraging student directed projects and productions. Joining a faculty that already had strong English teachers such as Myra Lupton, Margaret Bates and Roy Felstad increased their collective impact. More than a few of his students considered him best teacher they ever had, even including college level professors.

         Mr. Connaway spent about three to four years in Bellevue throughout the sixties and early seventies, alternating with a counselling position at the military high school in Kaiserslautern. After about 1975 (verify) he decided to live permanently abroad. In 1979 his marriage ended and he never remarried. He spent his summers leading popular tours to places like the Soviet Union, India, and Indochina after the end of the war there. He was employed by a German company that valued his language skills: he is said to have spoken eight languages, including English, German, and Russian. Quizzed on his acumen, he said he picked up things quickly by listening and being bold enough to converse with strangers.

         Strangers, it must be said, came to Mr. Connaway for help and he was always generous with them. Perhaps initially his strong and fundamental belief in God and Christian charity motivated him to give to the most unfortunate, but he went well beyond that calling throughout his life. In places like Russia, Laos, and Cambodia he found refugees that needed a helping hand. Many continued to be his friends in his later years.

         Wayne was a loyal and always loving correspondent. His letters from far flung places fill the drawers of many of his favorite students. His unique penmanship, always in ink and often from a fountain pen, was a hallmark of these missives. Another feature was short, poetic phrases or sentences, one above another, in a line resembling an e.e. cummings poem. Mr. Connaway loved cummings and often refused to capitalize sentences. Even after digital communication he wrote in the same format.       

         Though he returned to the U.S. to visit friends through the 1980s, he did not plan on living in his home country. He considered going into the travel business full time when he retired from his counselling post. But, when his brother James died in 1979 and his younger sister, Shirley, was diagnosed with cancer, he faced a stark choice. Should he go to California to nurse her or remain in Germany, his home for decades? It was not clear to many of us why he moved to be near her and, after her recovery, did not leave Modesto for Europe. (If you are aware of the reasons, give us the information in confidence).

         Though health affected his ability to travel in his later years, he was still making long trips in his early 90s. He maintained communication with virtually everyone who mattered to him, and with many who were just enthralled with his persona and curiosity about the world. He continued to meet new friends on every adventure, including a “girlfriend from Texas” in his late 80s. He was handsome and fit, a remarkable thing for any man his age. Those who visited him in Modesto found him surrounded by books by students, souvenirs from trips abroad, and a neat, well-decorated apartment. Continuity was important to him, and it impressed all of his admirers. His sense of humor and grace remained to the very last.

         Wayne R. Connaway was a unique teacher and inspiring friend for dozens and dozens of men and women throughout the world. His death at age 93 will not diminish his impact on us. He will live on in our memories.