Jack Swan Bloom was born in High Prairie at the Paulson Hospital to Swen and Nellie Bloom Oct. 22, 1932 and passed away May 15, 2011, at the age of 78 years.

Jack attended the Big Meadow School to Grade 6, then went to school in High Prairie to Grade 9; from there he went to Agriculture School in Vermilion, AB. While attending ag school, a Mr. Pattagrew taught Jack carpentry. The next year Jack helped Pattagrew make pews for the Catholic Church in Vermilion.

In 1953, Jack moved back to High Prairie to help his father, Swen, on the farm. Upon moving back home Jack met Janis Evans at the local 4-H Club. They were married in High Prairie Jan. 11, 1957, and made their home on the farm in Big Meadow. On Oct. 28, 1957, they had daughter, Lorene Terry, and then on June 20, 1959, son Alan John was born.

Jack and Janis remained on the original homestead that Swen located and filed on July 10, 1911. This July, the Bloom family, along with neighbours Harvey and Susan Nielsen, will celebrate 100 years since the original homesteads were founded by Jack’s father and Harvey’s grandfather. Both men traveled the Edson Trail to the Land Titles Office at Grouard to file on their homesteads that remain today. Jack was very proud of his father’s accomplishments and was looking forward to celebrating that piece of history with family and friends.

Jack spent many of his early years working at Richards Lumber in High Prairie. Here, he met many close friends and was always willing to lend a helping hand to those who came into the store. Jack was the “go to guy” back then based on his knowledge and skill of carpentry. That, of which, he passed along to his son, Alan.

After spending many years at Richards, Jack left to become semi-retired. However, Jack being the “doer” that he is had to always keep himself busy with some type of work. He kept busy working jobs for Alberta Housing, Northern Lakes College and recently the High Prairie School Division. Jack would work steady throughout the summers and then take his much-deserved breaks during the winters in Arizona.

If we could describe Jack it would be that he was a proud man; proud of his family and proud of his accomplishments throughout the years.

His family was very fortunate to have Jack and Janis just down the road from them. The family that was a little farther away spent numerous holidays and family get-togethers at the farm. Growing up, the grandchildren were either getting off the bus at grandma and grandpa’s after school or riding their bikes over to go and play cards with grandma and to see what grandpa was doing in the shop.

It was always a silly question to ask where grandpa was, because he was always out in the shop working on something. On a regular basis family members would keep Jack company watching him work on a stain glass creation, drawing all over scrap wood pieces that he had lying around the shop from a project he was working on, or chasing stray cats around the yard that he fed on a regular basis.

One memory all of the grandchildren recall from the shop, is that the radio never got turned off. Every shop, shed and work space that grandpa had, always had a radio playing country music. That radio continues to play today.

In their later years, going to the house to visit, Jack would come out of the shop, greet them with a big hug and then say, “Come here, I want to show you something.”

Most recently, Jack’s project was restoring an old truck that his dad once had on the farm. He prided himself on the fact he was going to do as much of the work himself. One day Jack hoped that he would drive his old truck in the Elk’s Rodeo Parade.

Jack was not a big fan of our Northern Alberta winters and for the last 28 years, he and Jan have been snowbirds, traveling to Arizona for the winter months. While they were away the grandchildren would make regular phone calls back and forth. Jack would get on the phone and he would say, “Hello!”

We would reply back, “Hi, grandpa, how are you?”

He would answer back, “Good. . .it’s 80 degrees here and I’m sitting out on the porch drinking a whiskey watching my oranges grow. How’s it there?”

“Well, grandpa, it just snowed about five feet and it’s about -20C.”

He would laugh and then ask when we were coming to visit.

Jack loved his yearly getaways to Apache Junction, AZ, visiting with old friends he and Jan had made over the years and instructing his stain glass classes. Jack always came back after every winter with new pictures of friends, scenery and stain glass projects he had completed.

Jack loved camping so much he built his own truck campers and motorhome. He would go camping at Hilliard’s Bay Provincial Park with friends Gay and Top Jones and Jim and Lorraine Jaeger. His grandchildren also have fond memories of camping with grandma and grandpa. Lindsay tells a story of playing with her Barbie dolls in the front seat and kicking the motorhome into gear. Thankfully, she was able to apply the brake just before it hit a tree. Grandpa never got mad at her, but she never got to play with her Barbies in the front seat anymore.

I don’t think you will ever meet anyone who loved going out to Shaw’s Point more than Jack. He would typically be the first one out there at the start of the season opening up the trailers and getting the lot ready for another summer.

Again, if you didn’t know where Jack was, just check the lake because he was more than likely sitting on his lawn chair watching the lake and enjoying the serenity it brought him. He would often doze off in his chair and then wake up for happy hour, announcing, “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere!”

Jack is survived by: wife Janis; daughter Lorene, her husband Jack Thorburn, and their children Kyle, girlfriend Katie, and Keshia; son Alan, wife Wanda, and their children Andrea, boyfriend Rob, and Lindsay; his sister, Helen, husband John Kabat and their children and grandchildren.

Jack was predeceased by: his father, Swen Bloom, in 1977; mother Nellie Bloom in 1994; and sister, Laura Ofner, in 1992.