Photos of grampa 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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Ken met lifelong friend Ted Jamieson harvesting crops during war

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I met Ken during the summer of 1943 while I was working as a Burlington farm hand under the auspices of the Ontario Farm Service Force, an organization devoted to placing high school students on vegetable farms to replace workers who had enlisted. The reward to joyful students was an early departure from high school and a waiving of final exams. This enthusiasm was dampened a bit the first day we worked in the fields during a teeming all-day rain.   (Above, Ted Jamieson, third from right, is best man at Ken and Babs' wedding Aug. 18, 1951)  Ken and I became fast friends as our small Ottawa group became integrated with the Burlington high school students, initiating a friendship that lasted some 75 years. It included visits to Ottawa and Port Hope which continued until age made the highway much longer and the body much weaker. One such visit saw Ken and I participate in the creation of the NDP at the Ottawa auditorium. Ken, as you know, went on to become an active and ef...
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