Flossmoor’s “Captain Jack” Day Celebrates 100th Birthday

Friends and family are gathering today to celebrate the 100th birthday of Captain John E. “Jack” Day of Flossmoor. The center of attention, Jack Day, has been a resident of Flossmoor for nearly 50 years, moving from the south side of Chicago in 1972, first to Collett Lane and later to Wallace Drive.

Born in Chicago on January 23rd 1919, Jack and his two brothers, Richard and Donald, and sister, Dorothy, were true “South Siders”. Jack was involved in scouting from an early age, recalling a visit to New York City in the mid-1930s for a scout con-fab. Highlights included marveling at skyscrapers and nickel meals at the Automat. (He also remembers thinking that perhaps his khaki scouting shorts weren’t quite ‘cool’ enough for the city and initiated a rapid change into trousers.) After graduating from Calumet High School, Jack headed to Purdue University, where he was a member of the Class of 1941, receiving his degree in engineering. (A proud and active Boilermaker, Jack was recently recognized with the school’s “Outstanding Mechanical Engineer" Award.)

Diploma in hand, Jack landed a job as a mechanical engineer with Commonwealth Edison in Chicago, where he would spend his entire career – but not without a few interruptions. The first came in the form of World War II. Jack elected to enlist in the US Navy in 1944, was sent to Officer Candidate School, and soon found himself aboard a Navy destroyer as part of the occupation force in Japan in 1945. Post-war, he joined the Naval Reserves and headed back to ComEd, only to be called back into service once again during the Korean War as an engineering officer aboard a war zone destroyer.

After a second safe return home, Jack remained active in the Naval Reserve, rising to the rank of Captain. The Navy was a life-long passion for Jack, and he gave many more decades of service to his country and his community through this connection. As a representative of the Navy interviewing area high school graduates for possible appointment to the US Naval Academy, one of the young Flossmoor men Jack recommended to state elected officials went on to become a Vice Admiral and Deputy Chief of Naval Operations.

Jack was also President of the Marine Navigation and Training Association, helming the Manatra, a former Coast Guard Cutter that Jack and a team of retired naval officers and crewmen crafted into a hands-on training vessel for young Explorer Scouts, Sea Scouts, and Sea Cadets. A highlight for all was the annual 10-day summer cruise from Chicago to Mackinaw Island. No one can forget the frenzied preparation for these trips – the dozens of meals to be made and frozen, the endless cleaning and painting on-board, and the inevitable last minute equipment malfunction on the aging ship. But Jack and team would always prevail and the group would set off for another amazing adventure.

Captain Jack is certainly the man to know when it comes to ships of all kinds. He was responsible in 1983 for bringing the 372-foot former ice-cutting Canadian ferry, the Q.S.M.V. Abegweit, down through the Great Lakes to her berth just off Lake Shore Drive, where she now serves as the clubship of the Columbia Yacht Club. Later, Jack would become the straight-from-central-casting Senior Master Captain of the Odyssey, the elegant Chicago tour ship.

Jack also took a special interest in the USS Chicago, the nuclear-powered fast attack submarine named for his home city. For years, Capt. Jack would organize holiday gift bags for the crew of the Chicago, canvasing businesses for the best goodies and cajoling local Santa’s helpers at Homewood Presbyterian Church, where he was a long-time member, to stuff over 100 bags in time to get the cheer-filled packages to the crew, who were so far from home and family.

Speaking of family, no man has ever been a greater son and brother than Jack Day. When he moved to Flossmoor, Jack brought his mother, Emma, and brother, Don, along with him. (There was also a wonderful not-quite-German Shepard in the mix). Together, the trio collected an extended family of friends that continue, now, to embrace Jack as a beloved member of their own families.

On a tremendous day like today – 100 years! — we all count ourselves blessed to share in some part of the incredible journey of one of the finest people there is, Captain Jack Day. Happy, Happy Birthday, Jack!