February 17, 2013 The whole MacDougall family is truly saddened by the passing of our wonderful friend John. Michele and I first met John and Judy in St. John’s in 1969. It was through John and all of his family and friends that we came to know and love Newfoundland. Stuart was born in Newfoundland and has remained a Newfoundlander at heart ever since. Stuart and I will never forget the fishing trip in Labrador where John taught Stu the real meaning of fishing, and Stuart still talks about the memorable visit he made to John and Judy’s home in Cambridge Bay. Michele and John hit it off right away after listening to John pontificate from the perch in his dentist chair in the middle of his living room in his suburban house in St. John’s, which, true to form, had a fishing boat among the weeds on the front lawn! One of the most exciting things Michele and I have ever done started when John banged on our door at about 2 a.m. at 39 Fox Ave. and said, “Get dressed. We are going to St. Pierre and Miquelon on the Oderin.” First we had ever heard of those mystic French Islands off the coast of Newfoundland! Of course the French Gendarmes were waiting for us when we landed, but that’s a story for another day. We had great times with John, good friend Miller, and many, many others; seems like we lived a whole lifetime in the two years we spent in Newfoundland. We cherish those memories to this day. Little did we know that was just the beginning of a lifelong friendship not just with John, but with Judy and all of John and Judy’s wonderful children and extended family. John went north, and looking back, it was inevitable that he would lure us to that magnificent part of Canada. John would turn up at our house in Montreal at unexpected times, wearing stunning Arctic outfits and with a large bag full of items from the North. On one occasion he showed up with a friend, the famous Inuit artist Karoo Ashevak – meeting Karoo in our living room in Montreal is something that Michele and I will never forget. The stories that could be told are endless. It was in the north that John developed an interest in all things Deaf and he became a lifelong supporter of my work in every region of Canada - especially the North. If a door needed to be opened - he opened it without fail. He became a founding member of the Canadian Deafness Research and Training Institute and showed up at our most recent Board meeting in Montreal in November, where he made an impassioned plea for support of Margie Conroy’s work with the Deaf in Uganda. Whenever I would call a Board meeting, most members would ask, “Is John coming?” John also had a special relationship with our daughter Jennifer Paige. He was always an avid supporter of her work with the Deaf Maya in Yucatan. Only a couple of weeks ago, he spent an hour on the phone with her in deep conversation, sharing insights on issues of language, culture and identity. She cherishes that call to this day. There will be other times when the story of the MacDougall’s life with John and family will be written. I imagine everyone that knows John has a similar book to write. I am sure everyone is trying to figure out just how John had such an impact on so many people. He can’t be cast into any particular mold. The only thing I can think of is that he was like a distinguished professor with many colleagues and students, all of whom feel they owed something to his hard won wisdom. But, he was not a professor - that would have been too constricting for John’s life lived large. John, as his obituary rightly states, was a man who wandered many paths, took many trails, most uncharted. He used to say to me that his knowledge was a mile wide and an inch deep. I now think that was a bit of a trick to get someone pontificating about some obscure subject that John had thoroughly researched the night before. I got caught on that one a couple of times! It seems certain that John was a mile wide and a mile deep after all. The best I can come up with is that John was the kingpin of a very large group of extremely interesting and thoughtful people. We all felt proud to be in the group, as we all knew there were a lot of very solid human beings in the group – real people from every station of life. He was the Chair of the Board. We will all miss John. Jamie and Michele, and Stuart and Jennifer Paige MacDougall