Ligonier man was lifelong volunteer, advocate for disabled
Share this post:
Ligonier-area residents may recall seeing Glen Scott manning the local Kiwanis chicken sandwich concession trailer during the town’s annual Fort Ligonier Days festival. Or they may have seen him driving up to local homes to deliver food prepared by the Ligonier Valley Meals on Wheels program.
“When he turned 80, he said, ‘I don’t think I can do this very much longer,’” daughter Christie Scott said of his volunteer stint delivering meals to shut-in and elderly clients. “I didn’t want him to go up and down the stairs in his house, and he was making deliveries. I was amazed.”
But she wasn’t surprised by the drive her father had to continue volunteering well into his senior years.
“Through service and volunteerism, we make friends and we build strong communities,” she said. “Dad really believed in that.”
Glenwood Carl Scott of Ligonier died Friday, Aug. 16, 2019, in Ligonier Gardens. He was 94.
Born April 5, 1925, in New Brunswick, Canada, he was a son of the late Harold and Annie Waters Scott.
Mr. Scott moved with his family to the United States, as his father pursued work as a civil engineer. After graduating from high school in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, he joined the Army in 1943 and was awarded U.S. citizenship after serving with a World War II artillery unit in Italy and France.
A graduate of Purdue University, Mr. Scott pursued a career as a mechanical engineer. He worked on waste management issues for companies including American Standard, which transferred him from Chicago to Pittsburgh.
He later started a small business in East Liberty, “configuring filtration systems for all kinds of businesses in the tri-state area,” his daughter said.
Mr. Scott served as president of a community club in Pittsburgh’s Highland Park. He and his late wife, Dorothy, helped found the nonprofit Parent’s League for Emotional Adjustment, as they experienced raising an autistic daughter, Theresa Annie, “Tanny,” who died in 1962.
The organization began as a support group for families of those with developmental and behavioral disabilities and expanded to include camp and school programs and a recreation center.
“My father saw a lot of folks who were being institutionalized at the time, and he recognized they could live on their own with some help,” Christie Scott said. “He helped to buy an old mansion in our neighborhood so that several young people could live in it as a halfway house. I think that was something he was really proud of.”
“They could have let that overpower them,” his son, Andy, said of the challenges his parents faced caring for his autistic sister. “Instead, they mobilized other people in the same situation. I’ve always admired them for that.”
In the 1960s, Mr. Scott and his wife bought a second home in Laurel Mountain Borough that they dubbed “Frogmore” and later expanded to become their retirement home.
Mr. Scott was a member of the Laurel Mountain Borough Homeowners Association, of the Al-Anon family support group and of St. Michael’s of the Valley Episcopal Church in Rector.
In addition to his parents and daughter, Mr. Scott was preceded in death by his wife of 43 years, in 2002, and two sisters.
He is survived by two children, Christie (Mark O’Neil) Scott of Newport, N.H., and Karl Andrew “Andy” (Beth) Scott of Rector; three grandchildren; and a sister.
A service to celebrate his life is being planned. J. Paul McCracken Funeral Chapel of Ligonier is assisting the family.
Memorial donations may be made to St. Michael’s of the Valley Church, P.O. Box 366, Ligonier, PA, or to Ligonier Valley Meals on Wheels, P.O. Box 203, Ligonier, PA 15658.