Photos of family man Ken

 














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In us Dad trusted: anecdotes from Chris

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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...
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David Olive: Behind every great person is a great teacher

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  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...
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Christine Diaz and Ken bonded over Canadian history

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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...
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