Jean Molnar (May 13, 1942 to Mar 18, 2016)

Reno NABC Daily Bulletin article

Reprinted from the Sunday March 20, 2016 Reno NABC Daily Bulletin.

Jean Molnar, a veteran tournament director beloved by co-workers and players, died of cancer Friday night at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego. She was 73.

Molnar, a bridge player from the age of 12, started directing in the early Nineties at the suggestion of the manager of Adventures in Bridge, the club in San Diego where she played. She was hired to work at tournaments by TD Tom Quinlan in 1995 and became a full-time ACBL employee in 2004. She lived in Chula Vista CA, near San Diego.

In 2010, she was selected for the Jane Johnson Award for “extraordinary customer service.” That award is the companion to the identically named award given to a member of the ACBL Headquarters staff. “I love directing,” she said on learning of the honor. “I get to work with so many fabulous people. It’s exciting and fun.”

As for the customer service aspect of her job, Molnar said, “One of the biggest parts of our job is making sure people have fun.”

ACBL President Ken Monzingo described Molnar as “a very personal friend. We shared everything together, and I admired her.” Monzingo said he once asked Molnar why she did the TD job that can at times be thankless. “She said it was because she loved the players and she really meant it.”

National TD Nancy Boyd, who often worked with Molnar, praised her friend. “Jean was quiet. As a director, she did what needed to be done and was cheerful when she did it. You never had to worry.”

“She loved going to the NABCs,” said National TD Tom Marsh. “She did such a good job for me, and I never ran into a player who didn’t love her. She made my job a lot easier.”

Arlene Harvey, a TD field supervisor who was close to Molnar, added, “She mentored me and showed me what it means to be an excellent director. I could not have had a better role model. It was a privilege to work with her.”

Molnar, said Harvey, turned down opportunities for promotion in the TD ranks. “She really liked being a floor director.”

Betty Bratcher, Molnar’s field supervisor for many years, said she discussed the idea of promotion with Molnar about 10 years ago. “Jean said she didn’t want to be a chief,” said Bratcher, “she wanted to be the best Indian she could be — and she was the best Indian there ever was. She always had a smile on her face.”

Molnar leaves Dan Molnar, her husband of 42 years; their son Derek, daughter Angela Chu and her two sons, 7-year-old Jayden and 2-year-old Rylan, all of San Diego. She also leaves her sister, Nancy Greene, of San Diego, and her brother, Stephen Walters, of Portland OR.

Tribute at the 2016 San Diego regional

This tribute in cards was created by Jo Boyer.

Memories

Budak Barkan

Jean was a good friend. I’ll miss our hugs.

Debbie Gailfus

Jean was a rare treasure—one of the few truly good people I've ever known. Kind, patient, smart, classy, cheerful and more. A lady in every way. I will miss her always.

Bill Bartley

Jean (I never knew her as anything else) once pulled me aside after I claimed on a double squeeze and she was forced to sort out the confusion at the table. She bopped me on the head and told me to never claim on a double squeeze while she was directing.

We’ve lost a real gem.

Matthew Kidd

Jean’s passing is a huge loss to the San Diego bridge community. She was director in charge (DIC) for many sectionals held by the five local units, including several for which I was the tournament manager. She was a professional and good with people but also an enforcer of slow play penalties* and zero tolerance, areas where our tournament philosophies were closely aligned. We certainly shared a few laughs at the behavior of bridge players.

She played up until the end, primarily at Adventures in Bridge, often with Phyllis Yates or Budak Barkan. It was only with great reluctance that Nancy Boyd, the western director Field Manager, replaced her as DIC for our upcoming May sectional shortly before the Reno NABC as I was finalizing the May sectional flyer.

Here is a card presented to Jean in 2013 shortly after she was diagnosed with cancer.

*Jean once even imposed a slow play penalty on my partnership at the San Diego regional. It was entirely fair. I'm a fast player… but my partner was not and we had gotten consistently behind.

Kathie Angione

Jean was a rock for the bridge playing and directing community. As a Director, she was always available for questions and when I last called her for help with a ruling in January, she so kindly said she didn't mind helping and that she felt education was a large part of ‘the job’.

Several years ago, at our Christmas party, we were new to using electronic scoring, so when the scorers indicated different boards and players, I foolishly took my cohort’s confidence that the scorers were wrong. Partway through we realized we were wrong and we later spent at least an hour on the phone with Jean while she patiently walked us through all the machinations of correcting the scores in ACBLscore.

People are often good at one thing or another, but Jean knew every facet of the game. She dealt with people in such a nice, friendly manner but didn’t lack any of the knowledge or convictions when making rulings, regardless of who the player was: big or small, she was knowledgeable, experienced, fair and just.

We will all miss Jean terribly.

Maxine Weseley

Jeannie—a woman whose smile, warmth, and bridge finesse will always be warmly remembered.

Eric Bell

Jean acquired her nickname of “Joan” from an episode where a player was trying to look in the know about everything and repeatedly identified her as Joan. Eventually the nickname stuck among the directors and a few others. Even after we acquired another TD named Joan (Paradeis), Jean was still forever Joan, even though she did admit that in subsequent years she also answered to “Joyce” or some other names that started with J.

Joan won the Fred Friendly Award in 2004, an award named after the late TD Paul Stehly. She was recognized by her fellow directors for her warmth, good cheer, friendliness, and courtesy towards bridge players. ACBL management recognized her with the Jane Johnson Award for Outstanding Customer Service in 2010.

Joan was a retired kindergarten teacher who often said that teaching kindergarten prepared her well for her career as an ACBL tournament director. She was everyone’s favorite coworker and those who worked with her frequently said they can’t remember her ever saying an unkind word about anyone. Her T-shirt for Southern California director T-shirt days said “I’m Gary [Zeiger]’s Mom,” but really she was everybody’s mom.

My favorite Joan story concerns a player who was trying to describe her to a director-in-charge (most players can’t tell directors apart anyway) and finally described her as “that short, sweet, frail old woman.” When the director told her the story, Joan’s indignant response was, “I am NOT frail!!!!!”

You will never be frail, Joan, and I will miss you more than I can ever say.

Joe Rubin

I first met Jean’s husband Dan around January of 1969. Dan got divorced not too long thereafter and sometime later I was introduced to his new wife Jean. The newlyweds had purchased a home and I was invited to play in their weekly small stakes bridge game. I have remained friends with the Molnars ever since.

Although Jean was a good cook, Dan was a gourmet chef and I have fond memories of delicious repasts at the Molnar abode. Jean was always the gracious host but much more than that, she was focal point of the Molnar household. Danny earned a living and Jeannie took care of everything else.

Jeannie was also a family person. She raised two beautiful children who are a credit to the community. I have great memories of birthday parties and other family events at the Molnar residence. And Jeannie was always the one who put it all together.

But most of all, what I remember about Jeannie was how kind and considerate she was to anyone and everyone. I never heard her say a negative thing about anybody. And if someone else did, she would be ready with a ameliorating reply. At bridge tournaments, Jean would resolve disputes so that the parties all felt that they had been listened to and that her rulings were fair and just. And they always were fair and just. Because, not only did she have a pleasant way about her, she also happened to be very, very knowledgeable about bridge and bridge rules and regulations.

And Jeannie’s knowledge extended to much more than bridge. She was one of the few people I know who could do the Sunday Times crossword puzzle in ink. Like her husband Dan, Jeannie was a polymath and could carry on a conversation on many diverse subjects. She was truly a Renaissance woman.

And probably most important of all—she was a very, very good person.

Charlotte Blum

Our loss of Jean Molnar to our community and our game makes me very sad. I met her ten years ago at a national when I still lived in Bakersfield and began to play in tournaments. I always liked seeing her willingness to serve the game in a friendly, intelligent manner. She was able to defuse situations and brought a cute sense of humor to bridge.

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Bridge Winners has more memories of Jean.

Memorial at Adventures in Bridge

The following memories are from the April 24, 2016 memorial held at Adventures in Bridge. Speakers are listed in the order they spoke.

Unknown

She [Jean] made a call at his [Bill’s] table. The cards were all still where they were and everyone seemed to be satisfied, but the opposition, after everyone had messed up their cards, said they disagreed with what she had said. So they called her back over and Jean thought about it some more and changed her call and me and my partner Bill (I wasn’t playing with him, he was playing with Frank Ratford) but it made him very unhappy and he wasn’t very secretive about how he felt about it. [audience laughter]

So a couple of days went by and he and Frank were playing again and Jean came up to Bill and said, “you know Bill, you live in Point Loma don’t you?’ He said, “Yeah” and she continued, “Would you mind taking me home. I can’t get a ride to National City.” And it was because she wanted to tell him her reflection on this [ruling] and it showed to me a great sensitivity, I mean she didn’t have to do anything about it—a call is a call and you can make a formal complaint [appeal] to a director. But this was something she sensed he felt very hurt by the decision and so all the way to National City they talked about bridge and how this could probably happen to him again but she was really sorry. I felt it was a really wonderful thing for her to take time to do.

Gary Zeigler

This [story] is at least fifteen years ago maybe twenty by now. This is at the Mesa senior regional, which I wasn’t even running [yet]. And there was some woman—I honestly have no clue who it was, though I hope it is nobody in this room [audience laughter]—who wanted to cash a check and the director in charge who was from Texas didn’t know her from Adam. And I think she wanted to cash a check for more than the amount of the entry fee and he said basically, “no, I don’t know who you are” and she said, “don’t be ridiculous, everything knows who me—she knows me,” pointing at Jean, “Joan!” [audience laughter].

That name stuck like glue and over the year as various NABCs got on, newer director would be become very confused at this woman who wore a name tag that said Jean and all the other directors were referring to her as Joan [audience laughter]. And it’s just something the novice directors just have to get used to because when she signed e-mail back and forth she signed it Joan [audience laughter]. So when we call her Joan from now forward, you just have to get used to it because that is who she is to us [audience laughter].

Unknown audience member: “What’s your secret name, Gary?”

“It’s unprintable.” [audience laughter]

Gary Zeigler has been the director in charge (DIC) for the San Diego regional for many years.

Stephen Walters (brother)

[lost audio] … That makes everyone in the this room Jean’s descendant and there are hundreds, thousands, of people out there because she loved people so much.

When we were children in Kentucky, a long time ago, Jean taught me the joy of tying a thread over the leg of a June bug [audience laughter], and throw it around until the leg came off. She taught me that it was a really good idea to punch holes in the lid of the jar that had the lightning bugs in it or that game wouldn’t last very long. She taught me kindness. She taught me to stand very patiently behind a door with a string tied around me loose tooth [audience laughter] waiting for an adult to open the door and pull the tooth [audience laughter]. And if an adult nearly had a heart attack, that was [garbled]. She taught me patience. And one other event. I’m sure it was my idea to throw rocks at the skunk but Jean taught me to stand far enough back [audience laughter] so it wouldn’t be a problem if the skunk didn’t have a sense of humor. So she also taught me common sense.

She has taught us all so many other things. Kindness. She has taught us grace. How to point out—we are hearing examples of this today—that they are over the line or very close to it without making you feel bad about that. She taught us humility. She is the most unassuming person I’ve ever met. She was almost always the smartest and most common[?] person in the room but you wouldn’t know it from talking to her. So Jean taught me so much. She taught people here so much and there is a world for Jean’s descendents out there. We miss her and love her. Amen.

Joel Hoersch

I’ve known Jean and Danny for many decades and they have a distinction that most other bridge player don’t have. I used to run my acrostic puzzles [in the Contract Bridge Forum] through them. They’d get to do them first and make comments and suggestions. Now Danny probably claims to do most of the work but I know it was Jean who did [audience laughter]. So you’re not getting this past me [wagging his finger at Danny]. One of my last puzzles that I worked on I had to get an answer that I had the letters [which] would work out but it [the word / phrase] was very hard to define in a bridge sense so that everyone would understand it. I finally turned it over to Jean and said, “I wrote this clue about bridge from a director’s standpoint; give me some input on how a director would rule on it.” She is the only person that I can remember who ever fixed an answer to one of my puzzles. She came up with a great idea of how to clue it [which] had to do with the fact that you can’t claim—if you are taking advantage of a revoke ruling, you cannot claim tricks that you wouldn’t have gotten without the revoke. We made that work and it fixed the puzzle. So I’m very grateful to Jean for things like that and you helped too [patting Danny on the back]. [audience laughter and clapping]

Joel Hoersch was editor of the D22 Contract Bridge Forum from earlier than 2009 until 2015.

Angela Chu (daughter)

There’s a couple of things I learned from my mom that a lot of people probably didn’t know. Anyone recognize this symbol? [gesturing “live long and prosper”] Mom was a Trekkie. [audience laughter] The original and we both like the Next Generation too. When I was growing up I was allowed to have a half hour of TV per day or if I would watch Star Trek with my mom, which was in syndication at the time, I could watch a whole hour. [audience laughter] Who would pass up that deal? So my mom turned me in to a Trekkie. So I’m a closet Trekkie myself.

And then there was another show that was called Columbo [audience laughter]. My mom turned me into a Columbo fan as well. And then I always get nostalgic whenever Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune comes on, especially Wheel of Fortune. My mom, there would be two letters up there and she be like, “oh that’s” and I’d be like, “what?! How did you get…” [audience laughter]. She must have [garbled]. And there was someone else—this is when she had to share a room temporarily—and the other person also decided to watch Jeopardy and my mom did that and the other [person] was like, “how did you get that?” [audience laughter].

And then my mom loved to read, loved to read all types of books, and she passed that gift on to me. It’s a gift I’m able to pass on to all my children too. Her favorite series of all time was the Lord of the Rings. She has an old battered copy and she gave me my—what is now an old battered copy—when I was fifteen, the whole series. She also loved Isaac Asimov, actually just the amazing things he was able to do with his writing. And then both of us fell in love with the Harry Potter series at the same time. She found that my son, he started to read it, so she popped them back out again and started to read them as well. She finished up the seventh book probably a couple of weeks before she died because she was in the hospital and we were giving her the books to entertain herself there.

Her favorite rose, which the best one I could find on my bush is kind of battered—it’s out there in the front [of AIB]—it’s a Stirling Silver rose. I had no idea until I saw this cool looking rose and I planted it in my front yard and my mom saw it and was ecstatic and then every time she came over I would cut a rose for her so that she could see it and smell it.

I think of holiday traditions too. My mom made the holidays in our house. A lot of you benefited from one of those traditions which is baking cake [audience laughter]. Fudge, Russian tea cakes, lemon squares, butter horns, you know the whole gamut. We’d bake all day. At first it was just my mom. When I was old enough I joined in and then my cousin Deb joined in, and my aunt Nancy joined in, so it was the four of us and we would literally bake all day every holiday season and share it was everyone. My mom passed that on.

I think the biggest thing though is that mom always took care of everyone else before herself. She always wanted to take care of everyone. When she got cancer and I said, “mom, you have to let us take care of you now. It’s our turn to take care of you,” and she look at me and just went, “well that’s backwards!” [audience laughter]. And sure enough she rarely complained about chemo, she was at my house every weekend she could be to play with the grandkids, even if she had just had chemo. She’d be driving herself up there. She was just powering through the whole time, even through the last week of her life. She took care of us.

The Tuesday before she passed away she knew it was going to happen. She knew it was going to happen fast. We didn’t quite. She knew. And she wrote us notes. On the Tuesday before she died, she wrote us notes saying goodbye and at the bottom of my note she wrote, “keep a part of me in your heart and I will never die.” And so I see all of the people here who are going to keep a part of my mom in their hearts and my mom is never going to die. So thank you very much. [clapping].

Michael Weber

I’ve known her for almost thirty years. You can blame me being a director on Jean. She and Danny made a small fortune running Adventures in Bridge. It’s turned into a rather a large fortune. When Jean and Danny owned the club they asked me to be a club director and I said yes and Betty [Bratcher] saw it fit to offer me a full time [directing] job at the ACBL. She [Jean] was one of the best partners I ever had, one of the best friends I ever had and I thank Danny and Jean for lending her part time to me for that period of time.

Michael Weber directed the La Jolla unit game from 2008 (or earlier) until August 2011 when he moved to Oregon. He continues to direct at many regionals and nationals.

Lamya Agelidis

Personally as a player in the bridge community I would represent her by saying that the words that come to me when I think of her are fairness, kindness, wisdom. As a [unit] board member and current president of the unit (and I’m the current tournament chair as well), all I can remember is that whenever we were playing tournaments, two or three times per year, she would be my first up, I would go to her, I was like “okay Jean, we are going to do this. How can we fix this? How can we fix this strat? What can we change?” She was always there for us. I just need to tell you even this last time—our last tournament was in March—and she was supposed to direct it and she wasn’t there. She had to cancel out. She had to have surgery, she was in the hospital, and even up to the last minute she was feeling bad and guilty that she couldn’t be there to support us because this was the first time—we were going to move our venue… it was going to have its challenges—so she was really disappointed that she wouldn’t be there to support it. So ’til the end, she was there with us.

On behalf of the unit, I would like to present Danny with a donation from the unit which is in Jean’s memory and is to the Susan Komen Foundation. Thank you.

Shannon Penard

I’m Shannon Penard. She wasn’t really my aunt but she was closer than an aunt. She was more than an aunt. I don’t know her through bridge but she did teach me to play bridge and she also taught me to caddy [audience laughter]. But she was one of those people, very unassuming like her brother said, so all the stories I have from my childhood are mostly from uncle Danny, but I don’t remember not know them. It made a huge difference in my life as child. When you think back and you think of those people who made a difference in your life—the ones you could just put your finger right on that they helped you be a better person that you were supposed to be, that you came her to be—she was one of those people. And even all these years later, you know just remotely staying in touch as an adult, [Jean] always had a positive influence on my life and how I looked at myself.

I can’t thank her and Danny enough for the things they did for my father, in improving his quality of life, and even sacrificing their won family to provide for him when he couldn’t provide for himself. It wasn’t an easy thing. I’s sure it weighed on Angie and Derek as well. But that did mean a lot to me. One little story though that will kind of tell you how I felt about the two of them and how I continue to feel about them is when we met in an airport in Las Vegas—I don’t know if you remember this uncle Danny—but I had been like 28 or 29 years old, and I’m in an airport coming back from somewhere else and they’re coming back from a bridge tournament and I see them at the Southwest terminal and I'm all like, “uncle Danny! Aunt Jean!” and we are in the same loading area [boarding zone] and I’m like, “Can I sit between you two guy?” Do you remember that [pointing at Danny]? So that was like the highlight of my trip was getting to ride from Las Vegas to San Diego with uncle Danny and aunt Jean on either side.

I can’t say enough about the woman. And I’m glad I can’t remember my life without her. [clapping]

Betty Bratcher

Well, Jean was just one of a kind. We had several talks about her moving up and her pat answer was, “I don’t want to be a chief, I want to be the best Indian there ever was,” [audience laughter] and she was for sure. She was just wonderful. She wasn’t just a great bridge director or bridge person, she was a wonderful friend and I’ll miss her.

Betty Bratcher has been the head D22 director for many years and is responsible for approving all sectional sanctions in D22 among other things.

Joe Rubin

I met Jean when she and Dan first started their life together in the early seventies. Jean struck me as an intelligent, fun-loving, vivacious woman, full of life and another rather unusual trait, compassion.

From early on in our relationship, I was struck by her always being soft-spoken and always having a kind word to say about others. And this is the think I will remember most about Jean: her absolute goodness. I have never met another human being who truly liked everyone she met and always had something nice to say about them. For example, Jeanie was an excellent bridge player often filled in at our weekly money bridge games at their home. Husband Dan, a bridge player par excellence, was constantly coming up with improvements to the bridge system he was in the process of developing. At the time it was called the Evolving Club [mild laughter] and Jeanie of course would be the first person he would inveigle to try out his new innovations. So it would not be unusual for an occasional misunderstanding to arise in their bidding. When this happened, Danny would sometimes rant and rave until Jeanie pointed out to him, in a most loving and compassionate voice, that it was he who had forgotten the addendum to the system and not her. [audience laughter]

And on a more personal note, I can vividly remember an incident not too long ago when Jeanie was directing at Adventure’s [in Bridge] old building where Jeanie felt the need to admonish me for being too loud. It was not her way to chastise or berate or demean or even criticize but rather to admonish in an educational way regarding the proper etiquette so that everyone could enjoy the game. “Joe,” she said, “they can hear you clear across the room.”

Although Jeanie was not into religion—I believe she was an agnostic like myself—I’m going to hedge my bet and say that when Jeanie passed over to the other side, she did not have to stop at purgatory but went straight to heaven and when your time comes, you’ll be able to see her there. She will be directing that great bridge game in the sky. Jeanie, I love you. I miss you.

Robert Rosenblum

I received a note from Jean which moved me. She claimed that it was Mary-Anne [Rosenblum] who first encouraged her to become a director and she went from there.

Bob Rosenblum and his wife Mary-Anne started Adventures in Bridge 35 years ago on May 8, 1981. Danny and Jean Molnar owned the club for several years.

Roger Doughman

One thing I liked about Jean is that she was a great hugger. [audience laughter]

George Bessinger

When I first me Jeanie almost thirty years ago and I’ve had hundreds of hugs from her over the years and she was just the best hugger ever. I mean the sincerity, the warmth, the love that came across was incredible. One of the main reasons I moved to San Diego when I retired was Danny and Jean. I knew it was going to make it a warm and welcoming place. Jeanie is most responsible for me meeting my wife. She pushed me and encourage me to ask Kathie out. That was just matchmaking made in heaven. Thank you Jean, I’m going to miss you forever.

Scott Campbell

When I would walk into a tournament I would see a lot of people. I would see Gary [Zeigler], over here, like ten feet away, and then I would see Jean across the room. I guess I went for Jean first [audience laughter]. And yeah, I always got a great hug.

Anyway, I enjoyed telling Jean jokes because you know she liked to laugh at my jokes a lot. One day I walked into a tournament and she told me a joke and I would like to share it with you. There was an international conference and the delegate from each country was supposed to present something from their country that helped make the modern world what it is. And they started off with the United States and the delegate from the United States said, “well, we like to offer the Wright brothers and the airplane,” and they got a big round of applause for this. And the next delegate was from Italy and he said, “we’d like to present Marconi and the radio and that of course got a big round of applause and all the delegates around the room were very well received until we got to the delegate from Poland. The Polish delegate said, “I’d like to offer the thermos,” and there was silence. The moderator said, “why do you believe the thermos should be included in this gathering?” and the Polish delegate said, “well, it keeps hot things hot; it keeps cold things cold,” and the moderator said, “yes,” and the delegate said, “how does it know?” [audience laughter]

Patty Homes (director)

We were up in Portland, one of my favorite, I mean the Seaside tournament and John Ashton is running it and the last thing he wants is an appeal or anything so Sundays Jean would run the novice game and she would be done. She accidentally took a ruling inside the open Swiss and I guess later on a round or two later she goes off and this guy goes to John and asks him, “I have got to do something about this. Does she rule this way?” “So who was the table director?” “Oh you know that old frail woman!” So John Ashton goes up to Jean and asks, “did you take a ruling?” “Yes.” “Well he described you as little, old, and frail.” “I am not frail.” [audience laughter]

Neighborhood kid

You know that neighborhood kid that is always at your house? [audience laughter]. That’s me. I’ve probably known momma Jean and papa for like maybe 36 years. Angie and I met in Brownies girl scouts. We went to the same elementary school and I lived across the street. I was always at their house. I mean literally like every day. And sometimes you have friends and they [the friendships] stay in school but not me, I loved being there. I’d be at home, wake up, eat breakfast, maybe watch the Family Feud, The Price is Right at 10 am, and after I was done, I was like—“where are you going”—off to Angie and Derek’s house. And going back in retrospect, I never knocked on the door, did I? If I went to the front door, I’d just go right in. And no one ever said anything. It was like I was home. It was never like, “did you parents teach you anything?” That was my home.

If I went through the back way—there was a park in the back yard—and I would kind of go in the park and there was like a little ramp and a gate and I just kinda open the gate and the sliding glass door. I wouldn’t knock. I would just like open the sliding glass door and literally go in and no one—I guess they were all asleep. “Anyone here?” It was home. And one thing about momma Jean—she was very hospitable. I’m glad she loved everyone in the bridge community but she even loved the neighborhood kids. I wasn’t the only one there. I mean there was so many kids. We were always there. Angie’s house was always full of kids. Sometimes I would go home for snack or dinner but most times I would be there. She would make us sandwiches and we had powdered milk, right? She would pour us glasses of milk and we would all eat and gather and I might have been there for that half hour of TV. We would all sit on the couch and watch TV together. You know she was just always there, always loving them. I’d literally be there every day. I just felt like I lived there.

Years have passed. She was probably the age I am now, almost 42, she was probably in her forties when I met her, but she still always sent me a Christmas card. Every year. Just a very considerate woman. When I found out what happened, I just broke down in tears. My whole family because they knew her. Because I remember one time I didn’t come home and my mom came over around eight o’clock at night looking for me and I guess I lost track of time because I was home, you know like my other home. Just a wonderful family. Again they took in everyone. She was an amazing woman and I’m just very blessed. She’ll always be in my heart and I’m glad I still have, you know, papa, and Angie, and Derek, and everyone else. It really truly is a blessing that she has been in our lives and we’ll always remember her. Thank you.

Ken Monzingo

It’s a very emotional game. Very high-strung individuals playing a very emotional game for the best stakes in the world—masterpoints. But Jean was always there and she would just float through the crowd with that cute little walk of hers. Just float through and when you’d run into her, everything was okay. She just brought with her, “everything is okay.” So one time I said to her—some people were acting like jerks, excuse me, bridge players—and she walked on by, and I said, “Jean, how is it that you do this seven or eight hours per day and then spend your time talking it over with your directors all day long and you never change and you actually seem to enjoy it. What is your secret?” And she said, “I just love the people.” That was Jean.

Ken Monzingo has served as the D22 district director from 2008–2017 and is the ACBL President for 2016.

Danny Molnar

The expression that best addresses my beloved wife is an old Basque expression: “When she was born everyone cried and she smiled; she lived her life so that when she died, she smiled and everyone cried.” Thank you for coming.

There is more entertainment coming after we are done with these things. Laura [Parker] was going to sing a couple of more arias and Angie was going to show a few slides. Please stay and please have dessert. Toward the end we might have a short piece of recorded music which is actually something everyone has heard the first movement of and it’s called the Moonlight Sonata, but the third movement was our favorite, the presto agitato, which most people have never heard. And the performance is by Arthur Rubinstein from 1962 and what was interesting about the great virtuoso Arthur Rubinstein was that he made a lot of mistakes when he played—so like you don’t hear off-key notes but it you looked at the score and followed along, you would discover there was a lot of errors. But it never mattered. The reason was he was at least ten times better at understanding Beethoven’s intent and his music than anyone else. So the power of his interpretation was overwhelming. And I hope you’ll see that in this piece.

Thank you all very much for coming.

Moonlight Sonata, 3rd movement

Laura Parker, Los Angeles Opera Company

Today is Jean Molnar Day!

Reprinted from the Wednesday March 23, 2016 San Diego regional Daily Bulletin.

Today is dedicated Jean Molnar Day in loving memory of our wonderful friend who passed away last week. District 22, the Western Conference and ACBL has lost one of its very best — Jean, our director from Chula Vista, who succumbed March 18 after a long battle with ovarian cancer. Jean was very special, a rare breed of talent, never ending patience, and total caring. When asked why she always had such a bright, cheerful look and attitude, she quickly replied. “I just love the people.”

In a bridge world of high-strung, intelligent and super competitive players to say you just love them is a lasting testimonial to her insatiable desire to do be with us, to direct the game, and to enjoy her work. She truly cared. Jean was also a fine player and on off days could often be seen playing a session with a director, and at local clubs with husband Dan or partner Michael Weber. Her best friends were her family of directors (Betty Bratcher, Eric Bell, Nancy, Arleen Harvey, Scott Campbell, Gary Zeigler, et al). But everyone who knew her loved her dearly, and she us.

Jean received the Fred Friendly award as a revered director many years ago. But the label barely scratched the surface of this wonderful lady. ACBL has already renamed the Jane Johnson Customer Service Award for Field Supervisors to the Jean Molnar Award in Jean’s memory. As Arleen says, “Yes!!”

All who worked with her, or had the pleasure of playing when she was directing, admired the woman and her unceasing desire to please. She was our rock of strength when things got tough. Her soft spoken, sincere voice let you know all was okay, and things would be better. Jean insisted on working right up until the end, her final regional was Riverside last month.

Jean is survived by her husband Danny, daughter, Angie, son, Derek and two grandsons. And by the many broken-hearted members of San Diego and the entire western bridge world.