When Karen Gieron was at her physical therapy appointment, she got a call from Stoneleigh Elementary School asking where her husband was. Brendan Gieron was never late, never called in sick and, if he was submitting sick leave, “he had to be on death row,” his wife said.

She ripped the muscle stimulator cords off her back, hopped in the car and drove from Fullerton to her home in Nottingham. It wasn’t a far drive, she said, but it felt like it took forever.

Brendan Gieron, 65, died at his home Sept. 18 from a heart attack. Karen Gieron could tell that he died peacefully watching the morning news while having a cup of coffee, his usual routine. He leaves behind his wife; his daughters Katie, 36, and Kelly, 32; his mom; and his third-grade students at Stoneleigh Elementary, where he spent his entire 28-year teaching career.

“This is not real. It just can’t be,” Karen Gieron thought at the time. “Who will be with me, by my side for the next 30-some years?”

They’d been planning for his retirement, talking about selling the house and vacationing in Europe, where he could tour battlefields and she could shop.

The two met around 40 years ago when 19-year-old Karen, now a retired principal, worked at a shoe store where Towson Town Center now stands. Brendan, 22 at the time, was a customer. He asked her out around Christmastime and the two had been together ever since.

After Brendan Gieron graduated from Towson University with a degree in business management, he became an insurance salesman at Allstate. His wife became a teacher at Baltimore County Public Schools.

He didn’t need a lot to be happy, his wife said, but after a decade at the same job, he wanted something new.

“I love how happy you are with your work,” Brendan Gieron said to her at the time.

That was a shock, considering how exhausted she was after school.

“But you love your job,” her husband, around 30 at the time, responded. “That’s what I’m missing from my job.”

After going back to school to get his teaching license, he figured out how to capture his students’ attention.

“I am going to use my abilities as a salesperson and charm them into learning math or reading,” Karen Gieron recalled him saying.

When Rob Paymer, executive director of Bridges Baltimore, was looking for someone to help with his summer enrichment program, a Stoneleigh teacher said he knew the perfect person — Brendan Gieron.

“When I watched him teach, it was amazing to have somebody who was so organized and so natural with kids who also knew all of their names,” said Paymer.

He not only admired Gieron as a teacher but as a person — someone who spent his life trying to do right by many people. The consistency was admirable, said Paymer, whose daughter now goes to Stoneleigh. Paymer was excited for the possibility that Gieron could be her teacher.

Kelly Gieron, Brendan’s youngest, felt like a celebrity when she’d visit him at school. He was “treated like a god,” and he’d joke with the kids like he was their classmate. He was never her teacher, but she still learned from his “pearls of wisdom.”

They were cheesy, said Katie Gieron, but made an impact. He’d often say “Excelsior” before she took a big test or had a job interview. The Latin word for “higher” was on his refrigerator when he was a kid, his daughter said, but she isn’t sure how it translated to a motivational rallying cry.

He was a history buff and an “airplane nerd,” Katie said. He was “a kid in a candy shop” when his daughters took him to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, part of the National Air and Space Museum, in Northern Virginia, for Father’s Day one year. He knew the history of every plane, Kelly Gieron said.

Storytelling was his other specialty. Some stories were real, some made up, but all had a lasting impact. The stories helped Kelly Gieron overcome her nervousness on the first day of school, and were a tool he used as a teacher. His wife said parents looked forward to retellings of Gieron’s stories from their kids.

The third grade teacher grew up an only child and loved being part of his wife’s family. She has five siblings. At family functions, she could find her husband with her sisters comparing meatloaf recipes.

He loved to cook, a hobby he shared with Katie. The two would text each other pictures of the meals they made.

He bonded with Kelly over Marvel movies while they’d share a plate of nachos.

Kelly remembers him as a supportive dad who loved to help. When she tried archery, he would chase after all the arrows that flew wildly around the field. Even when she was an adult, he’d drive her wherever she needed to go.

“I never once questioned whether I could pick up the phone and call him,” Kelly Gieron said. “I knew he would be there in a heartbeat. … I really just miss having my buddy.”

Although he spent only the first couple years of his life in Massachusetts, he was still a New England Patriots and Boston Red Sox fan — a point of contention with his wife, who’s loyal to the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles.

Every Christmas was a battle to see which of their favorite baseball team ornaments would be placed higher on the tree. And they had to watch football games in separate rooms if their teams played one another. It’d be worse if he was a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, his wife said.

When the phone rings, Karen Gieron still thinks it’s her husband, especially around 3:30 p.m. when school ends. What helps is knowing that she had a long marriage with the love of her life who loved his daughters and loved teaching. Those were “all of the things he needed to be a happy person.”

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.