Jim Cleere: 'Good Man.' Good
Voice.
That
October night in 1977, Jean Rieger, a divorced mother
with a 10-year-old daughter, got down on her knees and
prayed to God to send her "a good man" to marry.
When she got up, the phone rang. On the other end was
Jim Cleere, a divorced father of two sons, ages 12 and
10.
They married one year later.
Mr. Cleere, vice president of Seabury & Smith, a
division of Marsh & McLennan, was in New York Sept.
11 for a meeting at the insurance brokerage firm on the
96th floor of 1 World Trade Center. Mr. Cleere, 55, was
across the street at the Marriott Hotel when the first
plane struck the north tower. He called his wife at their
home in Newton, Iowa. They were on the phone when the
second plane struck the south tower.
"He said he was O.K. and would be coming home," said
Jean Cleere. "That was our last conversation."
Mrs. Cleere says her husband was a man of faith. "He
had a deep, rich baritone and sang all the time," she
said, mostly the old- time hymns.
She loved that voice of his. That's why she hasn't
changed her answering machine tape. It has Mr. Cleere's
voice on it.
.
