'He loved parties.' Glenn Mears Jr. remembered with Irish wake

PLAIN TWP. ‒ Anyone stepping inside the Barrel Room on Sunday afternoon would conclude Glenn Mears Jr. certainly left an impression on several people.

An Irish wake filled the establishment as surviving relatives, former business associates and friends convened to make merry and remember the former automobile dealership entrepreneur who died two weeks earlier at age 83.

"He always told me when I was growing up, 'When I die, I don't want anyone to be sad,'" Orum Glenn Mears III said of his father. "The Irish wake is designed to remember people, taking what would ordinarily be a sad occasion and making it a celebration and a joyous occasion."

When the two members of 87th Cleveland Pipe Band began playing their bag pipes, it was a standing-room crowd in the wine, craft beer and restaurant tavern. The band members came dressed in green plaid kilts.

"They actually got married here," Keri Sullivan, owner of the Barrel Room, said of Mears and his widow, Peggy Mears. "They were here a lot. When they weren't in Florida, they were here three or four days a week."

The main bar area is named The Glenn "Smoke" and Peggy Mears Party Room.

Mears was born in New Philadelphia. He moved to Canton with his family in the 1940s and was a member of the last graduating class of Middlebranch High School in 1957, according to his obituary.

He and his brother, John Mears, expanded a chain of auto dealerships that included Park Honda, Park Acura and Park Mazda. He also served as president of the Ohio Motorcycle Dealers Association for several years in the 1970s and later owned two Harley Davidson dealerships with partners.

A video collage featuring several photographs of Mears with his family or at events was displayed in the banquet room at the Barrel Room. Photographs of him were posted throughout the establishment.

"I would do almost anything for this family," Sullivan said, explaining her willingness to set aside the Barrel Room for the wake. "He was constantly doing things for other people."

His obituary noted that he co-founded the Stark County Wrestling Scholarship Fund, which has helped hundreds of students with nearly $500,000 in scholarships. In 2019, he sold 10 vintage cars from his collection to raise money for the fund.

"I've been wanting make a large contribution to that," he told the Canton Repository at the time. "I believe education pays big dividends."

Mears, who lived in the Lake Cable area of Jackson Township, also had supported The Lawrence School in Broadview Heights in recent years.

"He loved parties," Peggy Mears said. "He was such a good man. And he gave so much to me from his heart."

Mears had two other sons, Mark Calvin Mears and Christopher John Mears.

"We have a fair amount of Irish in our family," Orum Glenn Mears III said. "It has always been a celebrated heritage with our family."

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Glenn Mears Jr. remembered with Irish wake