Lehigh’s ‘Crepe Lady’ discusses student friendships

Jean Yaglowski — best known as the “Crepe Lady” of the Lower Cort dining hall in the University Center — has befriended a large portion of Lehigh students who frequent her station regularly.

“I wish all these kids success and happiness,” she said. “Wealth comes after, but success and happiness first.”

She makes over 10-and-a-half quarts of batter at the beginning of every work day, and she said she really enjoys her job and gets better at it each day.

Yaglowski says that she doesn’t use any particular technique, but that she’s definitely improved since her first days making crepes. While she only really makes crepes for the students at Lehigh, she once was enlisted to make crepes for a Paris-themed, end-of-the-year party for eighth graders at the Swain School in Allentown, after a Lehigh graduate’s wife read about her crepe making in a Brown and White article.

The typical Lehigh student’s favorite crepe is chocolate, bananas and peanut butter, Yaglowski said, but her favorite crepes are the ones her mother used to make.

“My mom would sometimes make crepes for supper and she would put in jelly and cottage cheese,” she said. “I liked it because it was so wholesome tasting.”

Yaglowski’s crepes aren’t the only reason she’s popular on campus. She’s developed friendships with students that have lasted years. She said that she developed these friendships through kindness. If students were kind to her, she was kind back to them. She’s known for reaching out to students and remembering their names.

“Today I had a special day,” she said. “There was a boy who graduated two years ago, Carmen, and he came in to see me. He asked me, ‘How did you remember my name?’ I told him ‘It’s unique. There aren’t too many Carmens in the world.'”

Yaglowski said that she remembers students’ names by making a game of it. For example, her nickname for the very tall basketball player, Tim Kempton, is Tiny Tim. Shaking with laughter, she said she gave him that nickname because he’s the opposite of tiny. She even has a nickname for herself.

“I always call myself Jeannie Lo, like J. Lo,” she said. “People say, ‘why do you say that?’ and I say, ‘I’m Jeannie Low-to-the-ground…cause I’m short!’”

Throughout the years, Yaglowski has collected many gifts from the students she has befriended. To name a few, Yaglowski has received salmon from Seattle, a homemade ring, sand from California, different kinds of crepe mix and DVDs of various movies. She has a scrapbook of all the postcards and different kinds of foreign currency she’s gotten from students abroad. Yaglowski even attended the Lehigh-Lafayette game at Yankee Stadium this year because some students paid for her ticket to New York.

“I don’t know why I deserve this, but it’s like I’m being showered with affection,” she said. “I’m truly blessed.”

Yaglowski said that when she goes home at night and walks past the statue of Asa Packer, she says, “Thank you Asa!” because without him, she and everyone else wouldn’t be at Lehigh.

Overall, Yaglowski said she is a very grateful and content person. She says she considers herself rich, not in terms of wealth, but because she has a full and rewarding life. She says she hears people complaining about what they don’t have, but she wishes people could see and appreciate all the good things in life.

“Look!” she said. “You have eyesight! You have hearing! You can smell! Sometimes we don’t smell the roses though. But it really is a blessing. Life’s a gift from God everyday. Just be glad you’re in the world.”