Shaffer
11-06-02, 09:56 AM
James R. Wagner, 57, whose annual commemoration of the founding of the Marine Corps has grown from a personal statement into a Philadelphia tradition, died Saturday of a brain tumor at his home in South Philadelphia.
Doctors diagnosed the tumor in Mr. Wagner in January.
A decorated Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War, Mr. Wagner for the better part of the last 30 years threw one of the biggest Marine Corps birthday bashes in the nation.
Mr. Wagner, who also maintained a residence in Clifton Heights, Delaware County, began the tradition not long after buying his uncle's bar, Cookie's Tavern, at 10th Street and Oregon Avenue, in the mid-1970s. Every Nov. 10, he would open Cookie's to current and former Marines to celebrate the anniversary of the founding of the Corps in 1775 at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/obituaries/4447626.htm
Doctors diagnosed the tumor in Mr. Wagner in January.
A decorated Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War, Mr. Wagner for the better part of the last 30 years threw one of the biggest Marine Corps birthday bashes in the nation.
Mr. Wagner, who also maintained a residence in Clifton Heights, Delaware County, began the tradition not long after buying his uncle's bar, Cookie's Tavern, at 10th Street and Oregon Avenue, in the mid-1970s. Every Nov. 10, he would open Cookie's to current and former Marines to celebrate the anniversary of the founding of the Corps in 1775 at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/obituaries/4447626.htm