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View a eulogy for Ingrid Maria Jones (Wagner), USMA '87, who passed away on March 16, 1999.

Ingrid Maria Jones (Wagner)

West Point, 1987

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by Janet Taylor Brdar on March 31, 1999:

I have so many memories of Ingrid that it's hard to know where to begin. We entered H3 as yearlings and roomed together for 4 of the remaining 6 semesters. We did everything together from cheering at goat-engineer football games to double dating on Ring Weekend. She came home with me to Maine and I went with her to Colorado over Christmas. We camped together, white water rafted together, studied together, chased guys in our company, talked, laughed. We were bridesmaids together for Mike and Madelyn Johns' wedding after graduation.

Ingrid and I both went to Germany on our first assignments and I'd go see her and she'd fix me some awesome Juevos Rancheros for breakfast. When her battalion went on ski trips she'd invite me along. We'd play Pictionary all night and ski all day. She took me to visit her relatives in Heldenstein and they treated me like family. Unfortunately, her engineering job was very demanding, so she couldn't travel around Europe with me like I wished.

Ing was a real outdoorswoman. We'd drive around in her Nissan truck and camp in the back. During term end leave we'd get hamburgers, eggs, and bacon from the mess hall and camp out with the guys in our company. We convoyed down to Florida during spring break our Firstie year and rented one of those fold out campers. And laughed when the sides collapsed while we were taking a nap. She preferred Nordic skiing to downhill and wanted to start a womans' crew team at West Point but couldn't garnish enough interest in other women to get a team formed. For some reason other people didn't consider getting up at 4a.m. on a weekend to row on the cold Hudson river a fun idea.

Ingrid was always good for a joke and she didn't get angry if it was on her. She was thrown in the shower by the plebes for her birthday and mine as well. She freaked out in the study room late one night when Kevin Dunlop rigged a microphone up into her music headphones and spoke her name into it. She could laugh at herself when she got the van stuck in the mud on a rafting trip.

Ing had a wonderful laugh and she used it alot. I can't recall ever seeing her depressed or crying. She was like a ray of sunshine. She was smart but didn't act smug or condescending and her friendship knew no bounds. There wasn't a snobbish bone in her body. People felt comfortable telling her all their personal problems and she was loyal to never leak them out to others. She was independent, stubborn and self confident and unconventional. She didn't want a big fuss around her. She was married in the livingroom of her house and didn't invite anyone but her parents. When I found out she was getting married I told her I'd be there, invited or not. After years of sharing her romantic trials and errors, I wanted to see her finally settled down! And Robert was a good husband.

I last saw Ing in May of 1998. We'd lost touch because she doesn't write and I don't call, but her Mother wanted us to get together because her grandmother, whom I was also friendly with, was flying over from Germany. So we met in Arkansas because it was halfway between OK and TN. We caught up with our lives these past years and she talked about her plans to build a cabin on some land they had purchased. She never got to see that project started. Despite all her friends, Ing was a very private person and she was happiest being away from it all with her animals, which she loved because they never gave her any backtalk. Ing was a great friend and I still can't believe she's gone.

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