One of a kind, born June 6, 1936, in Victoria, BC at St. Joseph’s Hospital. Died peacefully surrounded by family April 23, 2024. Predeceased by sister Sally Anne Howe, and parents John and Alice. Jack married the love of his life, Audrey 69 years ago today. They had 5 sons, 5 grandchildren and three great grandchildren. Jack proudly built, and lived 49 years, in his Metchosin dream home and loved working as a Longshoremen for 44 years. His favourite past time was walking the shoreline of greater Victoria with his dog Rambo looking for logs to mill into lumber and building fabulous fences across this city. Rest in Peace my love.
A celebration of Jack’s life was held at 1:00 pm on Friday, May 17, 2024 in the Sequoia Centre at McCall Gardens, 4665 Falaise Drive, next to Royal Oak Burial Park.
To view the service, please click the video below:
Condolences may be offered to the family below.
McCall Gardens
www.mccallgardens.com
14 Responses
In heartfelt memory of Jack. Please accept my deepest condolences to his wife (and my aunt) Audrey and the entire Howe family. One of my all-time favourite birthdays was when Uncle Jack surprised me with a kayak for my 7th birthday. He and my dad spent weeks building it together. It’s a memory that always brings a smile to my face. My sister and I often reflect back on our childhood and talk about how much the Howe family meant to us. Uncle Jack was not a man of many words but we always knew he was a good man who cared deeply for his family and that included me and my sister Muffy.
Robin McLay
Grandpa Jack was one of the strongest people I’ve ever met, and one of the kindest. He drew his great strength from his loving marriage to my Grandma Audrey, and his family that they built together. His legacy of hard work, self sacrifice, and unconditional love shall be our greatest strength, as we all have learned by his example.
Grandpa was a very generous man who took care of us all in so many ways, and his family meant everything to him.
I will always treasure the time spent with him, he had a great sense of humour, and always made hilarious observations. He had a real love of nature, especially the sea, and we often walked out on the beach near his house when I was young. He loved animals and children.
He taught me that anything is possible if you are willing to work for it.
Thankyou Grandpa for all your love and guidance, you will be forever in our hearts.
I always found Jack to be genuinely interested in how I was and in what I was doing. Right from day one he made me feel welcomed and accepted into the family. He will be greatly missed.
Everyone knows the hardworking, strong, silent Jack. But few were as lucky to know his softer side – Gentleman Jack.
Dad sacrificed regularly throughout his life for his parents, wife, children and our loved ones.
Our Nan had so many stories of young Jack watching workmen building homes around Fairfield when the workers went home Jack would go to work and the next day the men would find the site cleaned up and organized. Some of those men would give Dad a tip and he saved that money up for years and spent I on gifts for his sister, Mom and Dad. Serious gifts too, as a 14-year-old teenager he bought his Dad an Omega watch and his parents their first TV!
A few years later Dad grew big and strong and took on the tough persona he was most known for. He made a mistake and it meant his parents taking on more debt to defend him. He lost anyways and he paid a big price for a small mistake. But after that he met the lovely Audrey who captured his lifetime love and fascination. He had a new focus for his generosity and love. Audrey returned it showering him with love letters and devotion for the next seventy years.
Dad had one more bad break ahead, this time, choosing to sacrifice his time to save his parents the financial burden. It’s at this time that he grew to admire Johnny Cash, the man, and his songs. It’s why his music plays today.
With that out of the way, Mom and Dad got busy building a long life together, as a strong team that together raised five strong characters for sons, built their dream home in Metchosin where they lived together for 49 years and endless memories that included journeys to 20 countries.
Dad never stopped helping, He would deliver our newspapers without our requests. He picked buckets and buckets of blackberries with me to sell to Vitaway-Bakery but took none of the funds – not even for gas.
When a shipping company tried to recruit him to work for them in Vancouver, Dad turned down the offer – as tempting as the money was, he didn’t want his boys being raised in Vancouver around all the vices and temptations of a bigger city.
For many years Dad collected cardboard from ships and the docks and turned it into the IPI paper industries. They paid for the cardboard in those days, but Dad never took the funds, he had them build it up on account and at Christmas he’d have a check cut to the ILWU Pensioner’s Christmas party.
When I needed him top support my efforts campaigning, he never stopped. I need lumber for sign frames, he cut it, build them and erected them. I need fliers dropped; in 45 days he dropped every home from the top of Triangle Mountain to the homes bordering Victoria along the Gorge waterway. Tens of thousands of homes!
In 2005 he put those carpentry skills to work, teaming up with a few other volunteers, to build the pavilion on the Metchosin Municipal grounds.
The ultimate sacrifice was in March 2020, when the world was closing down fast to deal with an unknown virus Megumi and I were in Europe. They told us we couldn’t stay and couldn’t move on to the next country – we could only go home. Dad and Mom on Zoom said – get home. I was worried we could pick up the virus on route and bring it home to them, Dad said – who cares – get home.