One-Armed Windshield Cleaner Popular at Major Pasadena Intersection Has Passed Away

Everyone in Pasadena who knew him just called him John.

For decades, John was a neighborhood fixture seen almost daily at the intersection of Pasadena Ave. and Del Mar Blvd., washing car windows, always with a happy smile on his face.

But John passed away recently, and it was the “end of an era in Pasadena,” as Pasadena resident Cindy Lam would write on Facebook.

“He was hardworking and always ready to wash your windshield at the red light – impressively with just his one arm. He was kind and tough. I always knew I was safe walking down the street if he was there, and always looked forward to chatting with him on my morning walks,” Lam wrote.

On a GoFundMe page set up by his firstborn son, another person who knew John said, “God bless John, who became part of our daily life here in Pasadena. He was a man of such dignity and strength and resilience, and his absence is piercing.”

John was actually Theodore Stacks Jr., and originally from Chicago where he drove a bread delivery truck for a bakery company in 1974.

Theodore Stacks III, who lives in Chicago, spoke to Pasadena Now about his father, his life and how he came to be in Pasadena.

Stacks said John worked during a time when delivery drivers who drove the bread trucks to deliver bread to the stores would also pick up the bakery receipts on the same trips and deliver the money back to the bakery company.

One day, several men attempted to rob John and during the robbery, shot him. His father sustained catastrophic injuries from the shotgun pellets, Stacks recounted.

“My dad was a good guy. I like to tell people that he just caught a bad deal in life.”

Despite multiple surgeries, doctors decided his left arm had to be amputated.

“Unfortunately that changed my dad’s life for the rest of his life. And, and if I’m not mistaken, he was in his twenties around the time that happened, maybe 25, 26.”

“In spite of this incident, he was a deeply spiritual man who kept believing in God and helped others believe in God and do what he could for people.”

Around 1992-93, John decided to move to California to start afresh and get “himself together.”

“The reason he came to Pasadena is because he had a sister living out there,” Stacks said. “So he came to set up with her to get himself together and try to get out and get his own place.”

His son said John lived in South Central Los Angeles, and took the train or bus to come to Pasadena every day and wash windshields.

Many people who saw John grew to appreciate him and some even introduced him to their family. So John would frequently get invited to family dinners, and his network of friends grew.

His own family in Chicago would only later learn that John was much loved in Pasadena.

Trying to pull together enough money to bring John to Chicago, Stacks started a GoFundMe page about a month ago. He said he is overwhelmed by the response.

“So I felt like, wow, my dad really was touching people’s hearts in California because I also was getting so many emails and text messages,” Stacks said.

“Since then, I’ve been meeting people, people have been emailing me, text messaging me with their condolences, and telling me how great a guy my dad was, how kind he was and how many kind words he had for them. And some people were telling me they were at the end of their rope and he was so spiritually inclined and helped guide them spiritually. It was just a joy for my heart to hear that he was there in California touching hearts and touching people’s souls.”

Stacks said his father had actually been ordained a minister in a church in Chicago before he left for California. It was there that the church started calling him John, for John the Baptist, his son said.

“He was out there ministering and making friends and meeting people,” Stacks said. “He really was touching hearts out there ministering to the point where a week after he passed, I actually did a little research myself in the Bible, on John, the revelation, because I felt like, wow, he was still ministering all those years after he had gotten shot and lost his arm and was on pain medicine for the next 40 plus years.”

His son said John was on pain medication ever since he was shot and his doctor had advised the family that the pain from his serious injuries would last a lifetime.

“My dad was literally washing windows at a red light in Pasadena for the last 25 years. The people that he met and the lives he touched was unbelievable.”

Stacks said a friend of his father’s had shouldered all the funeral expenses.

To help raise funds for John to be brought back to his hometown of Chicago, click on this GoFundMe page.