Jack McMurphy closed his eyes and slipped away before breakfast on Sunday, November 12, 2017 at the Riverside Nursing Home in Turtleford, Saskatchewan, six weeks before his 98th birthday.
Jack decided to quit school at fourteen to seek his fortune. He helped his Dad farming and was in demand to work on threshing crews. Doug was also a funeral director and Jack helped with funerals
until Doug sold out to Ripley and Mccaw in 1948. In the fall of 1941, he joined the army, six months were spent training in Canada before shipping out for England. In England while on leave he met
Evelyn Curtis, a nurse, they married in April of 1944. Not long after the marriage Jack landed in Normandy. Jack drove trucks with petrol, rations, ammo and the mail as well as driving Bren gun
carriers. With the 7th Medium Regiment he made his way across France, Belgium, Holland and finally Germany. In May of 1945, he was granted leave, went to London and met his three-month old
daughter Evelyn for the first time. The German Army capitulated while he was on leave, he had a hard time believing it, not until the normally staid British people started singing and dancing in the
streets. They joined the crowd and were swept along to Buckingham Palace where the King, Queen and the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret were on the balcony waving to the crowds. Ever
irrepressible Jack yelled up to Princess Elizabeth, “How about a date?”
To supplement his farming income, he worked as a clerk for auctioneer Stan Scott and others, shipped livestock for the Pool, loading them onto rail cars, helped to deliver coal around Turtleford
by unloading rail cars, threshing, milking twelve cows by hand to sell to the Mervin Creamery, custom hauling cattle to the North Battleford Stockyards with a one-ton GMC and caretaking of the
skating and curling rinks with Ed Chambers. He bartended in the winter at the Turtleford Hotel and later the Blackthorn Inn. When he was semi retired he took on guard duty with the RCMP in Turtleford.
At the same time Jack was also on numerous boards and belonged to several organizations. The Co-op Board for over thirty years, Credit Union, Agricultural Society, TADRA, Councillor of the RM of
Mervin, Library Board, Rural Telephone Board, Wheat Pool, secretary/treasurer for the curling rink for fifteen years and The Royal Canadian Legion Mervin, Turtleford and Livelong Branches where he
served in many offices and was awarded a life membership. He delivered Meals-on-Wheels to as he liked to say, “the old people”. As the years went by he was older then some of the people he delivered to. He was retired against his will after his second heart attack. Jack led a busy and rewarding life. In 2001, at the age of 81, he took his first trip to Vancouver and Victoria to his niece’s wedding. It was the first time he saw Pacific Ocean. That trip kindled his travel bug. Next on the agenda was Churchill, Manitoba, the tour of the grain terminal was his second as he toured the Thunder Bay terminal with his cousin who worked there in 1942, when he was on leave. He went to England more than once to visit with his daughter Evelyn, the grandchildren and great grandchildren. Several family members went with him to Nova Scotia, to tour and to visit where his mother Olive was born and lived until she came west to marry his dad. In his eighties he took a sail on the Bluenose, was an extra in a mini series on Tommy Douglas whom
he met and admired in the 50’s. He and his team took first place in Legion Provincial Bowling. In his 90’s came the big tour of France, Belgium and the Netherlands. He saw Vimy Ridge, Beaumont Hamel, Passchendaele, Dieppe and went back to Juno Beach, Caen, Arnhem, Nijmegen. He visited the grave of Sgt Bacon, the best damn sergeant of the Canadian Army at Beny-Sur-Mer. Jack rode in the back of restored Canadian Army trucks waving to crowds of 100,000 in Wageningen and Apeldoorn. That was the end of the big journeys. There were trips to Water Valley outside Calgary, Medicine Hat, Stettler where the train he was on was robbed by masked bandits, followed by turkey supper and pie. He rode a horse in Jasper National Park, visited Manitou, went several times to Taste of Saskatchewan and of course every Fall Supper around.
He never lost his sense of humour, his kindness, his appreciation of life and his mischief making.