“He’s gone.”
That was something we would hear from time to time over the years when Irvin Janke stopped by the Westlock News office after leaving his friend Bob Jones at the Westlock Funeral Home and making his rounds of visits to various places around town.
And now Irvin himself is gone. He passed away June 17 at the age of 74.
He wasn’t a town councillor, or mayor, or any kind of formal politician. He wasn’t a prominent businessman, doctor, lawyer, or anyone with special credentials. He was just an ordinary guy who was mentally challenged.
Did I say challenged? In reality, what Irvin may have lacked in one area, was made up for in so many others.
Irvin was, without doubt, an icon of Westlock, or as pastor Marjorie Steele, who officiated at his funeral noted, “Irvin was a true ambassador of Westlock.”
For more than four decades, residents got to know Irvin and he got to know them on a first-name basis. He would holler across the street a greeting, “Hi (first name), how you doing these days?”
My first meeting with Irvin was when I worked with the old Westlock Hub newspaper in the late 1970s. Irwin Tippel, publisher at the time, suggested I take Irvin along when I delivered the paper.
Irvin loved to spend a few extra minutes visiting and looking around the various shops, so it took much longer than if I had done the job by myself. But that was Irvin, a people person.
In the summer we would see Irvin walking along with his push broom, cleaning walks in front of businesses, and in the winter, with his snow shovel. Generous businesses would give him a dollar bill, or perhaps two. When the Loonie and Toonie came in he thought they were trying to cheat him with the coins because he had come to understand paper money.
In more recent years, we would see Irvin come into the Westlock News office every Tuesday morning, pulling his little red wagon behind in which he carried papers he would pick up for a few people, including the Legion and Jones.
Always a “Hi, how you doing these days?” and a check around the office to greet each one of us. If, for example, publisher George Blais wasn’t in, he would ask, “Where’s George?”
I would say, “He’s not in,” and his reply would be, “Give him the boot!” He had favourite names for others and no one was offended if he called you a rooster tail, or a fat sow.
But his special friend was Bob Jones. After they purchased the funeral home in 1980, Bob and Betty and their four girls lived next door.
He would often be over there and a weekly morning ritual was to stop by the funeral home for a coffee.
“We just connected,” Bob said.
Irvin just seemed to blossom after that — mailing letters, making deposits at the bank, moving to the head of a lineup there, with his “funeral home, funeral home,” because to him it was a priority.
Irvin often accompanied Bob, even in the hearse, when he travelled around and attended many of the funerals, always dressed neat and in a suit and tie. And he usually brought a sympathy card, even if he didn’t know the deceased. Bob says their girls learned a lot from Irvin too.
At Irvin’s funeral their daughter Kari Boissonnault talked of some of the times he spent with them.
“The two of them were pretty much inseparable,” she noted. “He (Bob) feels the loss in the little things of the many little duties he did there. Irvin took pride in all of his jobs at the funeral home.”
She mentioned many other things that Irvin did with his special friend, like helping out during fair days — safety vest on — and his directing stick, telling people where to park, for example.
Yes, and we remember him coming in to the News office, long before the fair to pick up fair posters to put up around town before anyone had even started thinking about them. Bob got a chuckle out of that.
“To us, Irvin was family,” Kari recalled. “Irvin, the way you lived your life with such consistency, determination and that sense of humour, made quite an impression on all of us. Thank you for sharing yourself with an entire community. You’re sadly missed, but certainly never forgotten. So we say in your words, ‘I go home now.’”
Irvin’s older brother Melivn, now a retired pastor, also spoke.
“My dad, mother, Irvin and myself, we’re common people, everyday people. And here, to see all of you, because you loved my brother, because you accepted him with your hearts, you made him feel welcome, you made him feel wanted. You made him feel part of your families, your homes, your businesses … whatever it was. You made him feel like he was somebody.
“And he blossomed. And you people here just show how much Irvin did blossom into the human being that he became.”
He talked of how his aunt and uncle, Thelma and Clarence Arndt, took Irvin in. And how much he also became a strong part of the Jones family. After he entered the ministry he felt guilty as he had promised his parents he would take care of Irvin himself. In hindsight, he said, it all worked out so well.
“Our Lord has kept his promise to me, and He has blessed you, He has blessed Irvin, beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and certainly my own. Amazing!”
He recalled visiting Westlock and walking the streets with Irvin, was like walking with a celebrity as people called out ‘Hi Irvin, Hi Irvin,’ as they walked along.
He finished, noting Irvin had a favourite saying when he knew it was time to tell Mel to ‘shut up’ and he had no qualms telling him, “Mel, shut up.” And the crowd joined in, “Mel, shut up!” in true Irvin Janke style.
Until the last couple of years, Irvin had his snow shovel, or broom along too, but finally quit that as his health deteriorated.
Then, in the past few weeks we didn’t see him come to the office at all to pick up the newspapers and pass along his greetings. Then, we, learned he was in the hospital.
On June 17 Irvin passed away, but his memory and legacy will not be forgotten.
