JOHN KENNETH "JACK" CHAMBERS

July 12, 1938-March 2, 2026 Jack left us on the eve of a lunar eclipse, 'round midnight March 2, 2026, fighting to the end after a short bout with cancer. He is survived by his wife of 65 years, Susan (née L'Heureux); and his children, Chris (Andrea), Alison (Rob Watt), and Jennifer (Dave Samuels), as well as 6 grandchildren who lit up his world, Luc, Ty, and Leo Chambers, Zoë and Levi Samuels, and Lily Chambers. He will be missed by his many nieces, nephews, cousins, and in-laws. Born in Grimsby, ON to Royce and Connie Chambers, Jack spent his early years on a family farm fighting with his brothers in Stoney Creek where he attended Saltfleet High School and worked for Dominion Glass. It was a surprise, even to him, that he attended Assumption University in Windsor. There, he met Sue and after graduating they married. Jack loved books and words and got his M.A. in English from Queens University. They moved to Aylmer, started their family and Jack taught high school. He took a Linguistics course that led him to move his young family to Edmonton where he earned a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Alberta. In 1970, Jack became a professor of Linguistics at University of Toronto. Over the next 52 years he taught Sociolinguistics and Dialectology adding to the fields and publishing about Canadian raising, uptalk, swearing, among many other topics. He mentored many students and was known for his exacting writing and editing skills as well as for inspiring groups of students and fellow faculty to walk to Spadina for Chinese food. In their neighbourhood, Jack and Sue made lifelong friends in the Perkins, the Russell's and the Netley's. Jack also had a standing weekly squash match with Bernard LeCerf, and together they frequented The Rex afterward. Jack spent many summers in his basement writing the formidable Miles Davis biography Milestones much to his children's chagrin as that was also the TV room. Later they renovated so he could continue writing in that basement. In the last nine months after getting a stage 4 pancreatic cancer diagnosis, Jack enjoyed a most productive time, writing two books on Duke Ellington (one forthcoming), giving talks as part of the Duke Ellington Society, writing an article for the LRC on Catcher in the Rye, and starting a memoir that he continued to reconceptualize in his final days. Jack's work was renowned and took him all over the world: three sabbaticals in Reading, England, with teaching and lecturing sessions in Germany, Japan, Hungary, Greece, and New Zealand, to name a few. He and Sue loved to travel and made lifelong friends wherever they were. In the early 2000s, Jack and Sue bought a cottage on Lake Kushog where the family would gather for many fun weekends. All his life, Jack was a diehard Toronto Maple Leafs fan, loved a deadline, a drink, a game of euchre, and that his kids and grandkids could play, talk and argue with him about sports and the arts. Jack was the curmudgeon with the good advice, the squabbling husband converted to caregiver for his wife, and a true social intellect. He will be remembered for his accomplishments, warmth, and wit. Thank you to Dr. Raphael, Dr. Ung, Dr. Nolen, and many nurses in the Palliative Care unit at Sunnybrook for their care. In lieu of flowers, for those who wish, donations can be made to the Jack Chambers Undergraduate Linguistics Award via the Dept of Linguistics at University of Toronto: https://engage.utoronto.ca/site/SPageServer?pagename=donate#/department/68. The funeral service will be held on Tuesday, March 10th at 2:00 p.m. onward with a reception to follow at Morley Bedford Funeral Home, 159 Eglinton Ave. W. All welcome for all or part of it.