Don Packer, who owned a car dealership on Brand Boulevard for many years, was well known not just for his cars, but for his philanthropy.
“He was an icon around Glendale,” said Jarrett Anderson, who was associated with him professionally and personally for many years. Anderson has recently provided Special Collections with significant material regarding the Packer family’s history in Glendale.
Packer came here as a young boy in 1911, along with his parents and sister, seeking relief from the weather in their home town of Aberdeen, Wash.
“They wanted a change of scenery because we lived in the wettest city in the United States,” Packer told the Glendale News-Press in a story published on Nov. 16, 1984.
Glendale was very small at the time, he added. But the best thing about the place was the weather. “You could enjoy sports every day of the year.”