John Bernard (Jack) Palmer: Family man. Educator. Curler. Quiet achiever. Born July 7, 1951, in Pembroke, Ont.; died Jan. 2, 2022, in London, Ont.; of a spinal injury after a fall; aged 70.
Jack Palmer.Courtesy of family
Jack was named after his father, John, and his maternal grandfather, John Bernard Shea. Jack tended to be diffident and quiet like his grandfather. He was not always thus. Au contraire.
Growing up in Kingston, Ont., at about six, Jack and his 4-year-old brother, Stephen, led their parents, John and Cauleen, on a merry chase: the Great Tricycle Heist. Cauleen took the boys into a department store and they immediately disappeared. The staff hastily retrieved a new tricycle purloined by the brothers for a test drive down Kingston’s main drag.
The boys were not evil, just mischievous. Lovable rascals. One day, a Bell telephone employee came to the Palmer home for a service call. Feeling peckish, the boys climbed into his truck and ate the worker’s lunch. He was not amused.
We often hear of someone being “known to the police.” That was true of the young boys. Never in serious trouble, they were, however, famous for taking off from their beleaguered parents. Several times they were driven home in a squad car. Great fun for small boys.
One might think that Jack’s minor clashes with authorities might segue into wild behaviour, that he would become a recalcitrant teenager. Not so.
After high school, Jack moved to Montreal to attend Concordia University (Loyola campus). He had not left home to join the wild party scene at university. In fact, he lived with his aunt and uncle where he helped care for his cousin Teddy, who lived with muscular dystrophy.
The most important event of Jack’s university life was meeting Dorothy Gillespie on a September evening in 1974. “It was love at first sight. Really!” Dorothy would note. They became an inseparable team that lasted over 45 years until Jack’s death. After their marriage in 1976, Jack and Dorothy welcomed two sons: J.J. and Jim. He was interested in his sons’ lives, advice and discipline were administered calmly and he liked to have important talks during long drives in the car.
Although quiet, Jack was not boring and he retained a vestige of his impish self. His grandsons William, John and Ben considered Jack the “best jumping-on-the-bed granddad.” An addiction to Star Trek was a further sign of his youthful spirit. Jack had a passion for two sports: golf and especially curling. Curling was his “happy place” – he coached the high-school team to many wins and volunteered regularly for the Brier, Scotties and Continental Cup tournaments.
In his professional life, Jack was the consummate, quiet achiever. After graduating with a BA in Philosophy, he completed his BEd at Western, an MSc in Education at Niagara University and numerous educational specializations and qualifications. Students called Jack “Sir,” rather than “Mr. Palmer.” Thus Dorothy, also a teacher, was “Mrs. Sir”; and then “Sir’s kid” for their first child.
Jack taught for the London Catholic School Board for 30 years, starting at the elementary level in 1976 and moving to secondary in 1984. He taught religion at Regina Mundi and later Catholic Central where he became Department Head. In 2010, he joined Western University as an instructor in the pedagogy of religious education.
People were drawn to Jack because of his gentle, caring ways – much like his grandfather. A comment in the virtual book of condolences: “The world needs more John Bernards.”
Edward Shea is Jack’s uncle and godfather.
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