By: Dave Parkinson
When John Brunner Parkinson passed away on August 30, 2025, in Stratford, Ontario, at the age of 95, the news was met with sadness. Family, friends, and those who crossed his path described him with affection in simple, resonant terms as a gentle, peaceful, kind man who left no enemies and no grudges, only a trail of gratitude.
Parkinson lived a long life and had a positive effect on everyone he met. “I don’t think there is a single person who has ever said a bad thing about him,” his son David said.
Born on March 22, 1930, in Dublin, Ireland, to a British father and German mother. In 2023, his son was able to video him reminiscing about his life.
“As you know, I had three brothers,” he said with a smile. “One brother, Basil, I never knew because he passed away before I was born.”John grew up with his two remaining brothers, Leslie and Brian, in Dublin. “I had one brother that was one year older than me, Leslie, and he was built like a boxer as he grew up,” John remembered. “He was a tough-looking guy. He was nice looking, but he said he was as strong as a horse. I wasn’t. I was tall and skinny, and we used to go swimming in the Irish Sea, in the seawater. And I could only stay in the water for maybe 10 or 15 minutes. Then I would shiver. I had to get out. My older brother had a good bit of fat on him; he enjoyed it more, and he could stay in the water for about an hour. Me, no, 10 or 15 minutes, and I had to get out. But as I grew older, I got used to the cold winds. It was okay in the summer days; it wasn’t too bad. But in Ireland, you get mostly rain and more rain and more rain. That’s what some people call it, Morrain (Móráin). But anyway, later on in life, I came to live in a place called Canada. Where I still am today,” he had said in that 2023 video.
John also reminisced about hard times growing up in Dublin, his father, and how his early years were shaped by the Second World War. “My dad was a volunteer in the Air Force. He enjoyed going over to England.”
Speaking about his father, John said, “He was all over England and Scotland during the war, getting bombed here, there, everywhere. He was in the Air Force. He learned how to be a mechanic on planes. He used to go with the pilots and tell them what was wrong with the sound of the engines. He would come home every six months or so for a holiday. It was only for a week. By the time he got home, it was time to go back to the war again. He was never allowed to wear his uniform in the south of Ireland because he could have been shot by the IRA. We lived in the south of Ireland. Why we lived there, I have no idea. My mother was asked to leave several times to go to England, where it was safer. But it wasn’t safer. Over there, people were throwing bombs all over the place. At least, you were safe in the south of Ireland. So, I guess we had some kind of private life in the south of Ireland.”
Reminiscing further about the scarcities Dubliners like himself and his brothers faced growing up during war time, he went on to say: “One thing is you couldn’t get any bananas, the merchant ships weren’t coming in because they weren’t allowed to. So, some people, like my younger brother, Brian, never knew what bananas were until after the war. When the war was on, we got no ships, so no oranges and bananas …”
Despite those difficult times, John never lost his steady optimism and sense of moral clarity.
He emigrated to Canada in the 1950s, where he would spend the rest of his life building not only a career, but a family and a legacy. Speaking of his early years in his new country, John said: “I had several jobs here in Canada before I settled down to one good one. I was an assistant manager at a big shop; it didn’t pay very much, so I had to have a job and a half to stay alive. When you’re alone, you have to pay for your rent, everything else like this, all your bills come in, you have to pay for your living.”
John had worked as a draftsman at Dunlop Tire before settling down with a much better-paying career at the Toronto Transit Commission. “Finally, I got a good job at the TTC, the Toronto Transit Commission. I stayed there for over 30 years, believe it or not. Quite often, I would say, I’m leaving for another job, but nobody would take me, not because I was too old, but because they couldn’t match my salary. How much do you want for your job? Blah, blah, blah, blah. Nobody would pay me the money, so I just stayed there for just over 32 years, then when I retired, I got an excellent pension. Between that and my Canada pension and my old age pension, it was sufficient, believe it or not.”
As a young man in Toronto, Canada, John met his wife, Joyce Mary Jennings, a local radio broadcaster, stage actor, and musician. The happy couple were married at Kew Beach United Church in 1957, with a grand reception. The wedding was covered in a local Toronto newspaper. In 1969, after some years of marriage, the two welcomed their son, whom they named John David (John after his father, and David after Joyce’s father).
“In the beginning, I remember looking after my in-laws,” John said about his early married days. My first wife Joyce’s parents were elderly. I used to babysit them more or less. When the mother was busy going shopping, I would stay back in the house and babysit the father (Toronto Symphony cellist Herbert Jennings). He was about 10 or 15 years older than his wife. Ultimately, he had a stroke, and then he was bedridden until he passed away.”
Tragedy struck the family again in 1972 when his wife Joyce was diagnosed with Leukemia and died unexpectedly, leaving John to raise their young son alone. Helping him was Joyce’s mother, Mary, the widow of Toronto Symphony cellist Herbert Jennings (who John had cared for in his later years). Mary ultimately moved into the family’s Scarborough home with John after her daughter’s passing to help care for David, ensuring the boy grew up surrounded by the influences of his mother, immersed in the family history of music and the performing arts.
Reflecting on his in-laws, Herbert and Mary Jennings, John said, “My mother-in-law (Mary) lived for many years later.. She lived to be 90-something years old. She finally got sick enough that she had to go into a nursing home at the age of 84. And stayed there for 10 years before she passed away.”
John reflected on his old age and his own long life. At that time, he was 93 years old, and he said, “Here I am. No relation to her. I don’t know why I’m still alive. My brothers both died before me; one of them (Leslie) passed away around 80 years old. And the other one, Brian, passed away as well. I never did hear how he died. Why I’m left, I have no idea. But I did have an uncle on my mother’s side, my uncle Henry. He lived to 92, though he was a very, very heavy smoker. Yeah, and he lived in Ireland until he was something like 80-something. He was on his own in Ireland, and his children brought their dad out to California, and I went to visit them there. I drove down there so many years ago when I was driving. I had cousins on my mother’s side, and they went over to England to live because there were teachers in Ireland, and most of the teachers in Ireland in my young days, the schools were getting closed down because people were leaving Ireland to go to England to work. There was no work in Ireland, or very little at that time, so all my cousins and relatives were going to Australia or someplace else; they weren’t staying in Ireland, there was no work there. Anyway, finally, those who stayed, I don’t know what kind of jobs they were at. Some of them were farmers, and of course, farming, they got a subsidy from the government. But anyway, cutting a long story short, Ireland is still there. People are still going there to immigrate and have a good time.”
John’s retirement and his second marriage: In the mid-1980s, when his step-mother, Mary Jennings, entered Kennedy Lodge nursing home, John met a nurse named Conchita Ladion, who was employed as a member of staff there. Their companionship blossomed into his second marriage after John retired from the Toronto Transit Commission, and together they settled in a retirement community in New Hamburg, Ontario. The two lived and travelled together for decades before she passed away in 2021, shortly after the two moved to a retirement home in Stratford.
Reflecting on that move, John said in the 2023 video, “I worked here in Canada for over, I guess, 40 years or 50 years.. Because I came here when I was only 21 or 22 years old. That was 70 years ago. And I’m still here. I don’t know what I’m doing here now. I’m in a retirement home—a rest home, for a change. People look after me. I used to be looking after people for all those years.”
Devoted To His Family
For John, family was never an afterthought. Even in his final years, with every visit and on every phone call, he would always mention each family member by name and was always wishing them well right up until the last call, where he spoke to David in the final week before his passing.
He is survived by his son, David, and daughter-in-law, Tracy Lamourie; grandson, Cassidy Lamourie-Parkinson; granddaughter, Haily Butler-Henderson; and great-grandson, Dewey Jordan Lazore. He outlived his two brothers: Leslie, who served as the Rector of Fontmell Magna and Ashmore Church from 1974 to 1981 in Dorset, England, and his younger brother Brian, who was a devout Jehovah’s Witness in Dublin
His father’s influence. – Today, John’s son, David Parkinson, is a public figure in his own right. As co-founder of Lamourie Media, he has been accredited by the Cannes Film Festival and worked internationally in media and production. He has also been a radio and television host, actor, voice-over artist, and musician, as well as being outspoken against injustice and an advocate on social issues. His justice work is particularly well-known. In the 1990s, David and his wife, Tracy Lamourie, co-founded the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty and were instrumental in the international campaign that freed Philadelphia R&B singer Jimmy Dennis after 25 years of wrongful incarceration, and were instrumental in precedent-setting human rights-related legal cases in both Canada and the US.
As his family and friends reflect on John Brunner Parkinson’s 95-year legacy, they remember not just a father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, but a man whose moral compass never wavered
In an era often where personalities are defined by noise, ego or eccentricity, he will be remembered for his calm demeanour, his kindness, one man’s gentle and enduring example.
It is said, “no one dies til the last one on earth ceases to speak his name.”
John Brunner Parkinson will never be forgotten.
