MANKATO — For the past year, in newspaper and broadcast stories, Jeffrey A. Ward of Mankato was known only as the 66-year-old pedestrian struck and killed by a teenage driver racing along Madison Avenue at twice the speed limit.
But Ward was much more than the way he died, according to family members speaking Friday at the sentencing hearing of the driver, Kaylee Richmond of North Mankato.
“Jeff was a very strong, independent young man, had a great career until his retirement and had a heart of gold,” said Teresa Bohl, his sister.
His brother Edward Ward was even more succinct: “He was nothing but good.”
Attempts to adequately describe the impact of his death are impossible.
“Oh my gosh, I lost my brother, my best friend,” Ed Ward said. “… Twelve days from now, it will be a year, and it still hurts. I can’t put words to it, Your Honor.”
Ted Ward, another brother, shared his thoughts through a statement delivered by his cousin Mary Wojciechowski. She began by saying, “These are Ted’s words” and directed them toward Richmond, who would be sentenced later in the hearing to 41 months in state prison.
“My brother was a good person. You took him away from all his friends and family.”
That includes their elderly mother, Dorothy Ward, who lives in a high-rise apartment building overlooking the intersection of Hope and Madison Avenue where her son died on Aug. 14, Wojciechowski said. From her living room window, she saw the arrival of the police cars and other first-responders, learning only later that it was her son who had died.
“Every time she looks out that window, she can see that memory again. She misses him dearly.”
Bohl, describing herself as Jeff’s “loving and heartbroken sister,” said his absence is felt every day but never more so than at family gatherings.
“Jeff was very close to his family and enjoyed all the special occasions that brought our family together,” Bohl said. “Jeff was always the life of the party and made us all laugh from the time anyone entered the room until the time the last person left. And I swear, everyone left with the biggest bellyache from laughing so hard at Jeff’s humor.”
He’d retired from his job at the Minnesota Department of Transportation in 2019. Health issues in the year before his death had forced him to move from his own apartment to an assisted living facility, using a walker to get around. Bohl spoke of sending care packages aimed at cheering him up and encouraging him to keep working at his rehabilitation, that he would be able to someday leave the walker behind and return to his own apartment.
During a visit to Mankato with her family from their Wisconsin home in March of last year, Bohl was hopeful about her brother’s progress. Before his death, Jeff had begun taking walks with minimal use of his walker on good-weather days, often to visit the homes of his mother and brother who lived within a few blocks of his apartment.
“I truly believe Jeff was beginning to believe that his life could and would get back to normal and he was accepting his ‘temporary’ lifestyle and living each day to its fullest,” she said. “Jeff even had plans to visit us in Wisconsin in September 2023. But unfortunately that never happened.”
Neither did her planned trip to the post office to send her latest parcel on its way to Mankato.
“There is still a letter along with a care package sitting in my office that I look at every day,” Bohl said, “hoping I will wake up from this nightmare only to find out I will not.”