Happy Jack

Keewatin’s Happy Jack remains an enigma

By Shirley Sandrel

For the Enterprise

Originally printed Feb. 2^nd, 1997

Reprinted with permission

They still call it Happy Jack’s – the area in Keewatin where Mink Bay meets Portage Bay and where John Whitmoore’s shack once stood.

Happy Jack was John Whitmoore’s nickname and for most people it was the only name they knew him by. He was a fixture in Keewatin in the first half of this (the 20^th) century and he fascinated people not because of what they knew about him but rather because of what they didn’t know.

Physically, Happy Jack was not a tall man. Elsie Schroder recalls that he had a round face and not very much hair. Bessie Flisness adds to this picture. Flisness says Happy had a long nose and that his chin appeared to be almost sunken in as though his teeth had never been taken care of properly. He always seemed to be wearing the same clothes – overalls or trousers with braces, a cap or hat and rubber boots – but it’s generally agreed that he kept himself fairly presentable and clean.

During the summer, Happy Jack worked at the heading factory, making tops and bottoms for flour barrels. In the winter, he retired to his shack which was rumoured to have only a dirt floor. No one really knew for sure as nobody was ever invited inside. He had a large number of cats, appeared to be well educated, and was popular with the local schoolchildren.

He was always well informed about community activities and events in spite of the fact that he never took part in them or showed any interest in them. He was also in Ed Holmes’s words, an enigma.

In a town where everyone knew their neighbours’ family histories almost as intimately as their own, no one seemed to know where Happy Jack had come from. And because of Happy Jack’s way of discouraging personal questions, no one ever dared ask.

Jock Forbes was in his early teens when he worked with Happy Jack at the heading factory. He remembers a very reticent man who kept to himself and never initiated conversations.

Ed Holmes agrees: “You felt that you’d be out of place to question him about anything. (He) had a way of meeting people. You realized that you weren’t gonna get too much in the way of information from him. You realized that right away. But he was affable and he’d listen.”

Bessie Flisness lived in West Bay and passed by Happy Jack’s often. She would see him out in the yard, or (since his shack had no electricity) see his lamp burning in the window. She never spoke to him other than to offer the occasional greeting and often wondered how he got his food since she never saw him in the grocery store. She knew that he ‘didn’t mix up with people’. She adds, “Some kids were actually afraid because he was different. But that never bothered me. That was just Happy Jack.”

Like many of the children at the time, Elsie Schroder and her school friends used to visit Happy Jack. They would sit and talk or listen as he talked to them about his cats, or, as Elsie puts it, about things that would interest children. Looking back she thinks these talks may have been Happy Jack’s way of distracting the children from the fast water near his shack and that he was, in his own way, looking after them.

Ed Holmes says that it was understood that Happy Jack was adept at mathematics and children who were having trouble with that subject were often encouraged by their chums to go and seek out his help.

Perhaps because of Happy Jack’s refusal to give out any information about himself, rumours circulated. Some said that he was actually related to one of the families who owned the flour mill. Others said that he was a Remittance Man.

A Remittance Man was someone, usually from England, who had been sent to Canada (the Colonies in those days) by their family because they were some sort of embarrassment. The family then paid a sum every month (a remittance) to support them in their new home and to keep them from coming back.

Happy Jack seemed to be a perfect candidate for a Remittance Man. He was gentlemanly and well-educated, suggesting a well-to-do background. He never spoke about himself or his family, leading people to believe that he had a mysterious past. Other than working summers making barrels, he had no visible means of support. But the facts of his origins don’t seem to support that speculation.

Happy Jack died of heart trouble on April 16, 1940. He was 80. The obituary that appeared in the Kenora Miner and News described him as a pioneer. It also contained what was probably more personal information about John “Happy Jack” Whitmoore than anyone had discovered in the 50 years he lived in Keewatin.

According to the write up, John Whitmoore had been born in Durham, Ontario and had moved west in 1891. He worked for Lake of the Woods Milling Company for 33 years and was a ‘familiar figure to generations of Keewatin students’. It also states that he was survived by one cousin in Fort Frances and two nephews in Saskatchewan. He was buried in Lake of the Woods Cemetery.

Whatever secret (if indeed there ever was one) there was in Happy Jack’s past died with him in 1940. Today, almost 60 years later, people still remember him and wonder about him.

As for his nickname, there’s no mystery to that for Ed Holmes. “Never saw him out of sorts or raise his voice to anybody,” says Holmes. “He was an even-tempered fellow.”

And for Elsie Schroder who spent summer afternoons in his company, it’s even simpler than that. “You always went away from there as happy as could be,” she says.