Ken Tancock Celebration of Life

There is a shortcut to Martha and Jim’s back yard from mine. When Ken stayed with  Martha and Jim here in Peterborough, that path was very well used. We shared many meals and had lively and interesting discussions about politics and history – especially Cancon – around the dinner table and in the screened porch.  Ken was a man of both ideas and action, politically, philanthropically and in education.  He and some of his teaching colleagues determined that Canadian history was not sufficiently covered in high schools, so they  produced and published resource materials for teachers. As a Canadian studies graduate and enthusiast, I appreciate that. Copies of the teaching materials now reside in the library of the Frost Centre for Canadian Studies at Trent University.  Ken was also interested in flowers and canoeing, wilderness and books. We talked about all of that. When he returned a book to me, he would sometimes say “I read every word”. Ken was inter...

  Chris Travell wrote in an e-mail to Martha:   Your dad was very special to me and had an incredible influence on my life. In the obituary, I smiled to myself when it said: “He took up jogging before it became the rage.”  I'm not sure if your dad ever mentioned it but on three of the history trips I took with him and Mrs. MacDonald, your dad and I went jogging around the Circus Maximus in Rome, the Alhambra Palace  (pictured) in Granada, and up and down Lycabettus in Athens. Those are memories that I will always look back on with incredible fondness. 

Ken met with great success as a teacher partly due to his love of learning and his ability to instill that in his students. He was an educator who never stopped learning. It was always a delight to talk to him about the latest book he read. He was a lifelong advocate for social justice and an unabashed supporter of the Palestinian cause (Photo of Ken in Palestine). Ken was a wonderful conversationalist who enjoyed intelligent debate and was always well (sometimes too well!) prepared. Ken had a rich sense of humour and often had a twinkle in his eye. His infectious laugh was heard many times in the corridors of Laurier CI. He was not a "joke guy" but knew the importance of seeing and living the lighter side of life. Ken was a positive thinker who sought and encouraged the best in people. A prince among men.

Thanks, Dad, for your wonderful family. You picked your parents well. Those original six Tancocks along with their spouses, as well as Dunner and Helen, helped create an incredibly close nucleus that expanded its orbit year after year. That first Christmas gathering at Aunty Paul’s house ended up as a tradition that lasted for decades. Thanks for moving to the Beaches when we were very young. What a great place to grow up. You allowed us the freedom to roam the streets, hop on the Queen streetcars alone at the ages of 6 and 7 and trusted us enough that we could find our way home. Up in flames But that wasn’t the first time that Dad trusted us when maybe he shouldn’t have. Dad showed early on that he was willing to give Martha and me some rope. When Martha was 4 and a half and I was only 3, Mom was in the hospital in labour with Pamela. Dad was babysitting us and because it was my birthday, we were allowed to light a candle for the occasion. After we finished eating, Dad excus...

Before there was an Energizer bunny, there was Dad. One summer morning, we stopped in to visit Mom and Dad at 5 King Street. While we were chatting and having coffee at the kitchen table, Dad jumped up in the middle of the conversation and announced: “Time to cut the lawn.” Behind the mower, he didn’t walk, he sprinted. When it snowed, he buckled on his skis and bushwhacked around the backyard. Sometimes he got it in his head to do odd projects like paint the basement floor yellow, or sand and finish an old door and make it into a table. He lived full throttle.   He could sit still, too. Usually it was in a straight-back chair at the kitchen table, absent-mindedly tapping a cigarette on the rim of an ashtray, scanning the newspaper or absorbed in the pages of a book. If we drifted into his orbit, he’d pelt us with “you should read this!”   He kick started every day with a coffee and the Toronto Star , his daily dose of caffeine and moral outrage. As a devoted NDPer, he w...

  Ken was one of the greatest  teachers who ever lived. That is not an exaggeration. I am a student of history and  as a journalist  I have studied thousands of lives.  Most of us come up short in certain important ways. We are human. So was Ken, who could be impatient with stupidity – that of Napoleon and of a high school principal who had reached his level of incompetence. As we all do if we fail to recognize our limitations. Ken recognized a limitation he had, which is that he vastly preferred teaching to administration. He repeatedly turned down invitations to accept the higher pay and prestige of management. He chose instead to remain in the classroom, spending his entire days with the students who were the future of the country. That was no sacrifice. Ken immediately earned his students’ respect, and drew from many of us our love. We always had the feeling that Ken was having the time of his life in our company. I signed up for Ken’s his...

Hmm, how do I begin to describe Ken Tancock and the impact he had on my life? For starters, I must confess it is still difficult for me to call him Ken. At Laurier, we always called him Mr. Tancock or just Tancock, not out of disrespect but because it had a powerful, decisive ring to it, both of which he was. High school was not an easy time for me. I was self-conscious, an outsider to the Guildwood community and, overall, it was a lonely time for me. I did love to learn, however, so I clung to those who were serious about teaching and cared about their students. Thus I cannot overstate the importance Ken Tancock played in my life. I remember him striding into the classroom, fairly bursting with energy, often sporting a dark turtleneck and desert boots, if I'm not mistaken, both of which I consequently still have a fondness for, whether in style or not. Though not a tall man, his forward momentum made him seem like a giant to me. Tancock would drop his large stack of materials with...

Mr. Tancock was my Grade 9 and 10 history teacher. He retired when I was in Grade 11 – an early retirement age I am starting to envy – and I wrote a goodbye for his assembly. A lot of students used to think Mr. Tancock looked a bit like the Laurier statue in the  foyer (or Laurier looked a bit like Mr. Tancock).   We kept in touch over the years. His was always the first Christmas card I received, and it was always so interesting and with a beautiful photo he had taken. There were many visits to his home in Port Hope. I think one of my favourites was an impromptu one when I was returning to Kingston from Toronto and saw the turn off and thought, maybe he’s not busy. I called from a pay phone (as I write this now, I realize it must be a good 10 plus years ago) and said, “I’m sort of nearby.” I was around the corner at a grocery store. Another time we drove around Port Hope and looked at historic houses and he shared some local history with me. I love local hist...

Lucie Ben Johanna Maxine

This year, our book club is celebrating its 50th anniversary. It started in 1971 when we all attended a conference of Toronto and Montreal history teachers in the Laurentians. We decided to form a book club to widen our reading choices and to maintain social contacts. Babs and Ken were joined by Lil and Fred McFadden, Stan Pearl and Anne Christie, Muriel and Mike Roberts, Valerie and Alex Hewlitt, and later Rivi and George Ullman, Pat and Frank Plue, Lorna Earl, Sandra Steele, and Barb and Peter Lipman.  Eight times a year we met for dinner, drinks and a book discussion.   Our gathering in Port Hope was an annual highlight. We were refreshed by libations, a swim (for some) and the discussion of our chosen book. The evening was topped by Babs’s baked ham and scalloped potatoes dinner. We enjoyed many years of gracious hospitality at the historic home at 5 King Street.   Ken loved books and reading. Port Hope booksellers are in grief.   He was politically...

 

During the many years I knew Ken and so enjoyed working with him on our NDP campaigns, attending social gatherings and meetings, my most memorable times were spent one to one. He didn’t spend much time on perfunctory, cordial chats. His keen mind, with a natural intuitiveness and genuine inquisitiveness, elicited conversation on many topics. Our favorites were often sharing stories of mutual interest. As a young man, Ken worked in the logging camps and was delighted to hear that my mother was once an organizer in the camps. This knowledge led to many other conversations about social justice and activism. He was a man full of curiosity and introspection. Always pragmatically optimistic, one could not feel disillusioned by life when in his presence. He was loyal to his beliefs and principles, a seeker of knowledge which he freely shared. Always an educator, he captivated his listeners, challenged critical thinking and respected differences of opinions. I loved Ken’s sense of humo...