Jennifer Wood: Trappers II Owner Perseveres Following Husband’s Death
Syracuse Woman Magazine/October 2024
The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic certainly brought pain and separation, but it also brought many communities together. Neighbors paraded down their streets for kids’ birthday parties, families gathered outside their grandparents’ nursing home windows, cities and towns celebrated essential workers with songs and honking horns. That same year Jennifer Wood, owner of Trappers 2 Pizza and Pub (T2) in Minoa, suffered a separate trauma: the tragic loss of her husband. Through her community she found the strength to not only survive, but thrive.
In early 2020, Jen and Aaron Wood had been married for almost 14 years and were the proud parents of daughters Madison (13) and Avery (11). They bought out their business partner in 2014, becoming the sole owners of T2. Between Aaron’s job as a financial advisor, their rental properties, their girls’ sports schedules, and T2, their lives were busy and happy. By spring, that world came crashing down, not just because of COVID, but because of Aaron’s diagnosis of neuroendocrine cancer, a condition his doctors insisted wasn’t terminal, but caused Aaron debilitating, worsening pain.
“At first Aaron and I were making decisions together of how we were going to operate. The sicker he got the less he was able to participate so it was me and our niece and General Manager, Bri [Sturick], navigating it, trying to interpret any new rules…implement all the new protocols,” Jen says.
Jen still calls herself Chief Problem Solver to this day, and it was during that hectic and devastating period that she began to tap into her inner visionary and leader, finding one solution at a time to every problem that arose while running T2 during a family crisis and a pandemic. A staunch believer in giving back by treating others how she would like to be treated, she saw the pandemic and even her family’s misfortune as opportunities for generosity.
“We would raise money for families affected by COVID, or who were struggling financially. Customers would call in and buy trays of ziti or pizza and we’d deliver them to local families.”
Under Jen’s and Bri’s direction, T2 weathered the COVID storm and survived, though Aaron did not, passing away at 50 years old, ten months after his diagnosis.
Neither COVID nor Aaron’s death pressured Jen to sell T2. She retained her employees, increasing their pay and constantly encouraging them to learn from their mistakes and manage stress by maintaining a healthy perspective on work. And, she hired lots of high school students.
“I’m a huge believer in high school kids working, managing extracurricular activity and excelling in school. This makes for a good adult. I just put my faith in them and they do well. I move them up. I’m going on my second dishwasher moving all the way up to General Manager. They are all awesome. I’m lucky,” she says.
Instead of doing less after their loss, Jen and her daughters did more. They got involved in travel lacrosse (Madison) and soccer (Avery), finding another community of parents, coaches, and young athletes. They traveled to games on weekends, made new friends.
Still, it wasn’t easy.
“I think the hardest internal thing I deal with is the fact that Aaron was my best friend. He had my back no matter what. He and I raised the kids together, each assuming a role. Losing the father of my children I’ve had to try to fulfill both roles and I think along with that comes the guilt of having to be away from my children, of working, dividing my attention between earning money for my family and tending to their other needs,” Jen says.
Four years have passed. Madison is driving, working at T2, and thinking about college. Avery plays every season of sports at school: soccer, volleyball, and lacrosse. Jen has met a new love, Steve, introduced by a friend of Aaron’s. She continues as Chief Problem Solver for both home, T2, and her other business ventures. At first skeptical about her abilities, she now owns twenty properties in total. She faced a steep learning curve when she built the side patio on T2 and her current project, an elegant cocktail and small plates bar she’s named, aptly, Good Wood, scheduled to open next year. Many of Jen’s efforts, including renting her first new property to childhood friend Jamie Weisberg who runs Northbound, a holistic mind and body shop across the street from T2, have been attempts at erasing the recurring “Where’s Minoa?” line from all outsider conversations, an interest she shares with her friends from nearby Spill the Tea Café and Infusion Yoga Studio and Mayor Bill Brazill.
T2 has flourished. It is a force in Jen’s life and the community. People come for the pizza and beer but linger to connect with family and friends, play volleyball or trivia, or even attend a private party. Jen adores her staff and fosters a family-like environment at T2. She revels in her high standard (one Aaron shared) of generosity. She donates pizzas to East Syracuse Minoa concessions, teams, and other organizations and funds three $1000 scholarships a year to kids that work (preferably at T2), have good grades, and do an extracurricular activity. Jen continues to think big for T2 and the community by expanding delivery and outside catering, renovating the whole building, hosting bigger parties, and dreaming of bands on the patio and even a future music festival on Main Street.
Jen wants people to know how she survived such a devastating loss.
“Appreciate whatever it is that you have for what it is, especially if it’s just your health. Focusing on what I did have and not what I didn’t was the key for me to maintain my strength and composure. When I was really missing Aaron or really stressing, being appreciative and grateful gave me the focus to carry on and thrive,” Jen says.
In her darkest moments of grief, Jen remembered her community of family, friends, and coworkers.
She had so much to live for.
