McKNIGHT o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-05-28 published
Rev.
John
Francis
MADDEN
By Joan Fidler
BURROW and Reverend Bob
MADDEN
Wednesday,
May 28,
2003 - Page A20
Son, brother, uncle, Basilian priest, teacher. Born October 30,
1921, in Detroit. Died January 5, in Toronto, of cancer, aged
Picture a long stretch of red dirt road in the tropical forest
of central Ghana, West Africa, in 1957. A minivan stops and disgorges
five young Canadian university students, their Ghanaian guide,
and their leader: a slight, youthful-looking priest from Toronto.
He discreetly hands out the toilet paper as his companions disappear
into the lush growth.
Father Jack
MADDEN, C.S.B., was well-suited to be accompanying
the students attending a seminar at the University of Accra in
Ghana.
Born of Irish heritage, he was the eldest of three children of
the late Patrick Henry
MADDEN and Mary Agnes
McKNIGHT.
After
graduating from high school, Jack came to Toronto to enter the
novitiate of the Basilian Fathers. He was ordained a priest in
1948, pursued graduate studies at Harvard, and spent the rest
of his life ministering and teaching in a variety of situations.
Father Jack was a much-beloved English professor at St. Michael's
College, University of Toronto, in the 1950s and 1960s. He loved
words and helped his students love them. He would recite by memory
the etymology, the cognates in sister languages and the story
of their development. Students learning Anglo-Saxon today still
use his "Frequency Word List of Anglo-Saxon Poetry." He was approachable
and never pedantic.
He used the storyteller method, and his enthusiasm for English
literature inspired many of his students. Former students often
refer to his vibrant presentation of the works of Chaucer; one
such student still cherishes the image of "Father
MADDEN sitting
cross-legged on his desk, chuckling as he read aloud from The
Canterbury Tales!" Many have said that he was one of the best
teachers they ever had; all benefited from his zeal, intelligence,
knowledge and compassion.
In 1969, he was assigned to Houston, Texas, where he combined
ministry with teaching at the University of Saint Thomas. He also
served successfully and effectively as chaplain to the parish
grade-school. At that time, one colleague noted, "Saint Anne's
must have the only grade-school in the world whose chaplain has
a PhD from Harvard!"
In 1980, he went to St. Joseph's College, University of Alberta
in Edmonton, where he was involved in campus ministry and taught
theology. Other parish assignments were in Owen Sound, Ontario,
and in Calgary.
Wherever he taught or worked in campus ministry, Father Jack
combined the sacramental and education roles of his priestly
calling as a Basilian. Along with his teaching and parochial
duties, he gave retreats to priests, religious and laity in the
United States and Canada. In almost every diocese and Basilian
Institution in which he served, he was consulted by bishops,
confrères, diocesan priests and religious on matters educational,
spiritual, theological and liturgical.
Father Jack began to experience physical health difficulties
early in 1980. In 1990, he fell victim to neuropathy, which increasingly
affected his walking. At his request, he was appointed to Anglin
House, the Basilian infirmary facility in Toronto on the St.
Michael's College campus, taking up residence there in 1998.
In 2002 he was diagnosed with cancer, which eventually confined
him to bed until his death.
He finished his life's journey on a road paved with loving concern
for others, a dynamic personality, a sense of humour, and a deep
and joyous faith in God. He leaves his brother, Reverend Bob
MADDEN,
C.S.B.; his sister Patricia
SYRING of Toledo, Ohio; six nieces
and nephews and seven grand-nieces and nephews.
Joan Fidler
BURROWS is a former student of John
MADDEN;
Father
Bob, his brother.
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McKNIGHT o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-10-30 published
Dorothy Jean
McKNIGHT
By Scott EDMONDS,
Thursday,
October 30, 2003 - Page A24
Social worker, academic, mother, grandmother, friend. Born October
12, 1930, in Burford Ontario Died September 8, in Kitchener,
Ontario, of pneumonia, aged 72.
Dorothy McKNIGHT lived two lives. Her first a simple one, as
a mother, a wife, a Girl Guide leader and a camp volunteer. The
second, more complex, and for her and the people she touched,
much more rewarding: as a social worker, an advocate for the
disadvantaged, a friend and community volunteer, but still at
heart, a mother, and later, even more to her liking, a grandmother.
In her late thirties, finding herself in an unhappy marriage,
and working as an hourly retail worker, Dorothy decided there
must be more, and she was determined to find out what it was.
She started with night school and weekend classes at what was
then Waterloo Lutheran University, commuting the 30 miles from
Woodstock, Ontario, to take classes and eventually earn her high-school
equivalency diploma. Armed with this, and a renewed self-confidence,
she left her husband and moved herself and her four children
to Waterloo, where, in her words, "My kids will get a better
education than I did." But Dorothy didn't stop there, earning
first a bachelor's degree in psychology, and later a master's
degree in social work, both from Waterloo Lutheran University.
All the while, she was raising her children virtually on her
own and, true to her plan, ensuring they each ended up graduating
not just from high-school but going on to finish college or university.
After completing her master's and working as a professional social
worker, she took on some of the toughest cases: she counselled
abused children and spouses, she worked with troubled teens,
and shut-ins, and she helped police officers and other emergency
workers suffering from exposure to trauma. Despite the demands
of work and family, she kept up her volunteer work with her church,
the John Howard Society and the Ontario Association of Social
Workers. She ran seminars on retirement and transition planning
for seniors, she wrote articles for publication, she attended
a creative writing course at University of British Columbia,
where she fell in love with the mountains and the ocean. She
completed pre-doctorate courses at Smith College in Boston, legally
changed her family name back to
McKNIGHT, and, never one to shirk
from a cause she believed in, once caused a furor that reached
the Ontario Legislature with her research on the over-medication
of the elderly.
No matter what else she had on the go, Dorothy remained dedicated
to her family, never missing or failing to make an occasion out
of a birthday, and travelling as far as Singapore to see each
one of her nine grandchildren when they arrived.
As spirited as she was determined, Dorothy went out of her way
to make the most of her life, and the freedom she had worked
so hard to earn. She travelled and partied; she loved to host
elaborate dinner parties where the wine flowed freely. She made
Friends everywhere she went, with people of all backgrounds.
She was as comfortable with the young as she was with her contemporaries,
in many cases befriending the Friends of her children. Through
her book club and dinner club, she made new Friends right up
until the end. She also remained independent, declining a gratuitously
offered hug with an emphatic "No" on one of her last clear and
lucid days.
In the end, it wasn't really pneumonia that killed Dorothy, it
was a conspiracy of the body against the spirit. Suffering complications
after determinedly making an initial recovery from a stroke she
suffered in 2002, Dorothy's body simply couldn't keep up with
the demands placed on it. She died peacefully, attended by her
children.
Scott EDMONDS is Dorothy's son.
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