Page Updated:
August 19, 2008

August 15, 2008 - Jack Dobson was born in England on August 22, 1914. Before the age of 10, he came to Canada with his parents, his brother and his sister. They moved into the neighbourhood of Mount Pleasant and Eglinton in Toronto. At that point, this was the edge of Toronto. Jack was a stutterer, which he attributes to the fact that when he came from England he had a very broad accent. He was teased because of his accent but over the years in Canada, he lost most of that early accent. As a youth, he joined the local Scout Troop and used to hike out to the Camp of the Crooked Creek with trek carts.

As a youth, one of his earliest jobs was delivering groceries. One of the places he delivered to was the Bayview and Sheppard Area. He described it as way out in the country at the time. He was later to move into that very area with his wife. As a young man, he and a friend drove up to the mines in Northern Ontario in a Model “A” Ford. He used to talk about all the rough roads that they had to travel on and this was the perfect car to get there in because it was so simple.

Jack married a woman named Elsie and they lived in the Bayview and Sheppard area of Willowdale. They had a cottage on Black Lake in the Moore Falls area of the Haliburton Highlands. Jack and Elsie were married for over 25 years until her death in 1963 from the complications of Scoliosis. He never remarried.

Before and during his marriage, Jack apprenticed and became a tool and die maker. Anyone who knew him knew that this was a perfect profession for him. He was very meticulous and very inventive. In the later years as a tool and die maker, he would be given rough plans in the form of a sketch, sometimes on a napkin or scrap of paper and he would create whatever he was asked to make. Sometimes it was the machine to make the machine. Jack was a man who had a calculating mind and could create something from nothing. He loved to tinker and was very precise about what he built. We joke that Jack would be unhappy with a building he built because it would be 4/1000th of an inch off plumb and to him that would be noticeable. As sometimes happens, the shop he was working at was closing and Jack was the last employee to leave. He was the one tasked with closing down the shop. Jack then became a Washing Machine installer and installed the washing machines in the new townhouse/apartment complex across from Fairview Mall in Toronto.

Jack was involved in Scouting again later in life with the 6th Willowdale Cub Pack. He did this from 1965 to 1972, when a job became available at HSR.

J.C. Moore (47-70) had passed away prior to the summer of 1971 and during the following winter, Jack was hired as Camp Ranger, A position he held until his retirement in 1979.

Jack had a wry sense of humour and was quick with a pun or a quip. Jack was also a man who was unassuming. He rarely spoke in public because he was a stutterer but had a beautiful baritone voice, with which he used to do Solos for the church choir to which he belonged. Jack played the accordion, ukulele and piano yet in his later years let that go. Jack had a great love of family and watched them go before him. Jack was always there when you needed a hand or advice on how to do a job, always there with a story or an ear if you wanted to talk

In the last few years that Jack was Ranger, Colin Sears (74,78-93) worked with him as Assistant Ranger in the Spring and Fall. After final Banquet in 1979, Colin and Jack switched positions. Colin became Ranger and Jack became the assistant that was there for 6 months of the year. Jack enjoyed his retirement and looked forward every year to going back to HSR. Starting in the fall of 1979 jack worked up at the camp until the last week of April 1989.

Jack went to HSR as usual on April 24th; on the night of April 26th, he collapsed in his cabin and was taken to hospital in Haliburton the next morning. He was transferred to North York General on April 28th and then to Wellesley hospital on June 5th. He died in hospital June 15 at the age of 74.

I spent the last 4 years of his life with him. We used to talk about many things from his past, his days as a tool and Dye Maker, his time at Haliburton, the various jobs he did, the time he spent at 6th Willowdale, which was my Group at the time. Jack would get a far away look in his eyes though whenever he talked about his wife. 25 years after her death, he still was deeply in love with her. It was great to see.

The first time I ever saw Jack as an old man was in hospital, to me he never really was an old man. I'm glad that most of you that knew Jack have the memory of Jack at work and not wasting away in a hospital room. I saw him to the end, to the point that he could no longer talk or move, but he gave me a smile that needed no words. In that smile was a thank you, for being his friend

Many people who worked with him at HSR will forever miss Jack. He was a patient teacher, a great mentor and a fantastic friend. Thank you Jack, for being a friend. You will never be forgotten by anyone that you touched in your life.

by Mark Purcell (80-84,90-92)

In 1989 the Dobson Trail (from west end parking lot to Hurst Lake Road Gates) was opened and dedicated in Jack's memory by the HSR Staff Alumni Association who had built the trail over the past year.

Thanks to a generous bequest from Jack's estate, the camp was able to construct a new building to house the Country Store and administration office at what had once been Beaver campsite. It was officially opened and dedicated as "The Dobson Centre" in the summer of 1991.

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