By Morgan M. Hurley | Editor

Ingrid Croce has not only been a successful restaurateur for over 30 years, she’s also spent the better part of her life protecting and sharing the volume of work produced by her late husband Jim Croce, with his fans. It’s a lot of work and Croce will tell you, a part of her life that doesn’t pay the bills, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

In 2012, she and current husband Jimmy Rock published a biography of the late Jim Croce, a singer-songwriter who was skyrocketing to fame when he was suddenly killed in a plane crash in Natchitoches, Louisiana, in September of 1973.  The book is called “I Got a Name: The Jim Croce Story.”

In January of 2014, she and Rock opened Croce’s Park West in Bankers Hill, after a 30-year residence in the Gaslamp Quarter. Once comfortably settled in, she began blogging snippets from the book, basically sharing short stories of she and Jim Croce’s life together before his tragic death, by posting them on Facebook to the delight of her thousands of followers.

“I didn’t know that my blog would resonate so well but I am really happy that it does,” she said. Dozens of men and women comment on the posts that she files weekly on her Croce’s Park West website and posts on her various Facebook pages each Monday.

Recently she’s branched out into another type of blog, which was inspired by conversations she said she had years ago with close friend Connie Nelson, Willie’s ex-wife. They talked about maybe doing something on TV called “Wives, Widows and X’s” but it never came to fruition. Lately the name resurfaced and ingrid felt it was the right time to do something with it.

“I’ve been giving a lot of speeches and I seem to be able to reach people that is in a way, inspiring,” she said. “So I wanted to see how I could inspire people. That was one of the reasons. I also wanted to encourage people to live a happy life. I just felt that this series would do that.”

Not long after she decided to start doing the new blog, Ingrid was traveling on a plane and struck up a conversation with a woman — which she rarely does — and found that the woman had recently lost her own husband. By the end of the short plane ride the women had connected. On her way out of the plane, she Ingrid she had written something and wanted to share it with her via email.

The very next day it became the nexus for the new blog.

“I was blown away by her story and I decided, ‘gee, I could actually do this every Monday,’” she said.

“Today I am going to start my stories of ‘Wives, Widows and X’s’ that will morph into a blog and perhaps even into a TV and radio show,” Ingrid wrote on the first blog post.

“I’m counting on you to add your story to all of ours. I want ‘Wives, Widows and X’s’ to be a platform for women, so we can communicate the good, the bad, and the ugly.

“And this is for brothers and sisters too … in fact, when it comes down to it, it’s for the whole human race … each and every one of us, because we all have things in common.

“Yesterday, I met a lovely woman. Deborah Braxton was her name. I don’t usually speak to people when I sit on a plane. But I was feeling something between us that was familiar …”

In the seven weeks since that day, Ingrid has shared many of her own stories, inspirations and even those of others, including one of a fan that sent her an email that touched her deeply. She also recently wrote about Judy, the girlfriend of Maury Muehleisen, Croce’s guitarist and friend who died with him in the same plane crash. Judy was moved by the post and excited that so many people were connecting with her in such a different way after reading the post themselves.

“I’m shocked,” Rock said, adding he had no idea the reach of Ingrid’s blog since these people live in rural Pennsylvania.

Ingrid feels people are connecting to the new blog for myriad reasons, but many, especially men, need it to move forward.

“The connection is loss,” she said. “And it’s closure. That’s one of the things that people really look for. When we were writing the book [“I’ve Got a Name”] we traveled to a lot of different places and Jim [Rock] was really surprised how many people we met really needed closure.”

“There’s also the closure of having been fans of Jim [Croce] and that generation,” Rock said. “We also connected to the generation of people whose father was the fan and played Jim and then their father passes away and then they don’t have any closure.”

Many of Jim Croce’s fans think they knew him through his music, and people still come in every week to the restaurant to somehow connect with the legend of their old friend. What Ingrid hopes to do with her blog is continue connecting with people and even encourage them to reach out and connect back.

“I absolutely want to bring other people in into the blog and share their stories, she said. “My hope is that people will start to write in.”

For those interested in sharing their stories with Ingrid, email her at [email protected]. To read the blog, visit crocesparkwest.com.

—Morgan M. Hurley can be reached at [email protected].