JACK (JOHN BRYANT) HAMPLE

Adjust Text Size: A+ A-

JACK (JOHN BRYANT) HAMPLE On Monday October 18, 2004 in Winnipeg, of a heart attack while recovering from pneumonia. Jack, 71, was predeceased by his father John, on June 28, 1964 and by his mother Selina Mae (nee Rousseau) Hample Hannah on May 10, 2000. He is survived by many friends including Jo-Anne and Gabrielle, and by his fellow residents of Forward House; by his daughter Janice Selina; by two sons, Dean Bryan and John Erwin, their spouses, and four grandchildren. Jack was born in Winnipeg on March 24, 1933, and was raised by mother Maesie, a seamstress. He was enrolled in public and residential schools, and became a valued member of the West End Orioles hockey team as well as a formidable snooker player during the 1940s. In his late teens, his father introduced him to the insurance industry. During much of his 27-year marriage to Erwina Katherine Thimsen of Winnipeg, Jack worked as a sales representative and manager at President Electric, and then as an insurance executive for Mutual of Omaha, which he served as western regional supervisor specializing in group life insurance. In middle age, Jack began a long struggle with chronic illness, compounded after age 60 by physical disability, disfigurement, and other health problems. Throughout his life, for better and sometimes for worse, Jack was fiercely proud of being a fighter, often on behalf of other people whose lives he touched with his insightfulness and care. He himself believed that early exposure to scarcity, racism, and violence had complex consequences for his adult outlook and experiences, and was active in the North Ends Project Open Door initiative during the mid-1970s. He valued awareness, courage, and resilience, and knew much about how these qualities are realized in relation to individual life-chances, and through relationships with other people. At his memorable best, Jack was an intense, profoundly intuitive man with a rare gift for reaching out with humour and hard-won wisdom to others in conditions of distress and disadvantage. At Jacks request, cremation has occurred and there is no formal funeral service. Jacks family gratefully declines flowers, and asks instead that friends who wish to do so might consider contributing in his memory to a social equity organization of their choice.

As published in Winnipeg Free Press on Oct 25, 2004