Sloeville mourning

John Kennedy at the Wellington Library in 2007.

A farewell to John Kennedy

John Kennedy, writer, broadcaster and gentleman, has died. He was a loving husband to Patricia, who passed away a year ago. He was a devoted dad to Robert, Nicole and Jamie. He was a dear friend to many in this community and beyond.

John began his career as publicity man for Conn Smythe and the Toronto Marlboroughs at Maple Leaf Gardens. He had reporting jobs with the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Evening Telegram. But he figured television offered a brighter future.

He joined the CBC, working in children’s television and eventually rising to head the department for the national broadcaster. His first directing job came on the Canadian version of the Howdy Doody show.

John also produced a Sunday afternoon kids magazine show, and it was there he brought an up-andcoming young American puppeteer named Fred Rogers to Toronto as a guest on the show. It turned out to be a bit of audition and led to the very first Mister Rogers show.

Rogers was eventually lured back to the U.S. To fill his spot they recruited Ernie Coombs to play Mr. Dressup—a program that would endure 29 years and 4,000 shows.

Kennedy went on to produce and direct what he called big-people television mostly current affairs shows. In 1967 he produced a shortlived series called Modern Canadian Poetry. Despite its rather dreary title, the show gave critical exposure to writers including Al Purdy, Michael Ondaatje, Earle Birney, Margaret Atwood and Leonard Cohen.

Later John and his family moved to Connecticut, where he spent seven years teaching television and video studies at Yale.

When his son Jamie bought a farm in Hillier, John and Pat decided they would retire in the County—moving to a home in Wellington. But John wasn’t exactly the retiring type.

The Kennedy family in the County: John and Pat were seated in this 2012 photograph. Behind them are (L-R) Robert, Nicole and Jamie.

Like his alter ego Jake Hooker, John fancied himself a bit of an untamed and libidinous rogue in the otherwise temperate and proper village of Wellington. He had stories to tell and the time to put them down on paper.

These creative endeavours spurred off in many directions. None of them were terribly satisfying. That is until he went downtown for a haircut.

“Various people were coming and going and Rhonda (Karen Burris) was talking to all of them, all at once—and on the phone as well,” John told the Times in 2006. “Then people came through the door. She would start a conversation with me but I was constantly upstaged by those coming in and going out. She knew all kinds of things about the town and people I had never heard of.”

He could work with this.

He created the fictional village of Sloeville in a series of stories that ran in the Times from May 2006 until 2013.

It would be nearly two years and 54 episodes into these glimpses of Sloeville before he would reveal his identity as the writer to his readers. Why did it take so long?

“It was cowardice,” admitted John. “I was afraid to put my name on these stories at first— not that anybody knew me then, but my name was listed in the phone book. If they hated the stories I was afraid I might get awful phone calls in the middle of the night.”

In 2007, John published a collection of his stories calling it Tales of Sloeville.

He won praise from two-time Stephen Leacock award winner Morley Torgov, broadcaster and author Patrick Watson and former Canadian Human Rights and Languages Commissioner Max Yalden.

Said Torgov of Tales of Sloeville: “Mark Twain lives again! His new nom de plume is Jake Hooker and he resides in Prince Edward County, but he still has the same keen eye and ear and the same uncanny ability to illustrate human foibles that made him, in his earlier incarnation, a true humorist. If you loved Twain, you’ll love Hooker.”

In 2011, he was looking for fresh inspiration when his fire for Sloeville was relit by Elsie Pivot (Celine Papizewska). For two years, the torrid, but never consummated, affair between Jake and Elsie was told through a series of letters between the star-crossed lovers. But by early 2013 he had had enough. Patricia wasn’t well. The stories were becoming harder to conjure.

He put the fate of Rhonda, Clem, Mayor Plotkin, Marnie Softcrop, Alfie Ferreton the OPP guy into the capable hands of Papizewska—who continues write an advice column from Sloeville.

John wrote more than 170 stories and letters as Jake Hooker. Some came easy, while others were harder to bring to the page.

“The characters tell me what is coming next,” said John. “Sometimes when I sit down at my desk I don’t know what they are going to do. Sometimes I use the old Amos and Andy intro ‘As the scene opens we find…’ and then I have write about what we find. Usually it’s Clem looking glumly out the window.”

John’s Sloeville story, Jake’s Memoir, is reprinted this week on page 9.

A celebration of John’s life will take place in January. Arrangements have been entrusted to Ainsworth Funeral Home, ainsworthfuneralhome.com.