November 23, 1926 - October 18, 2026
A Life Well Lived
Beginnings
John Fletcher Gillard was born on November 23, 1926, into a family whose roots stretched back to Englee in Newfoundland.The family history identifies his great-great-grandfather, Henry Gillard, as Englee’s first resident in 1836. John’s father, William, known as Gill, was born there in 1880.
Gill worked as a cabinetmaker before joining the army on September 22, 1914, at the age of 34. On the same day, Gordon Rennie, a widowed bookkeeper from Toronto with a daughter named Grace, also enlisted. Gordon married Flossy Edna Brooks while on leave in Canada in the spring of 1917 and asked Gill to look in on his wife and daughter if anything happened to him.Gordon died in the war.
Flossy and Grace moved to Vancouver in 1922. Gill followed and married Flossy there in 1923. Ester was born in 1924, John in 1926 and Doris in 1928.
In 1929, the family moved to Beaverlodge, Alta., where a soldier’s grant offered an uncleared quarter-section of land. The railway reached Beaverlodge that same year, as the family began a new life during the Depression.
Growing Up on the Homestead
Marshall arrived in 1930, Bessy in 1931 and Earl in 1933, completing the group affectionately remembered as the “Original Six.”
Life on the homestead meant eight people sharing a log cabin without running water. There was an outdoor toilet, with a Sears catalogue serving a very practical purpose. There were pigs and cows, a piano, and a battery-powered radio that brought Hockey Night in Canada, BBC News and the World Series into the home. Family meals included moose meat, potatoes, turnips, beets and Saskatoon berries.
John was taught at home through Grades 1 to 3, then joined Ester at Hayfield School in 1936, when he began Grade 4. The school was 2.5 miles away. The family’s brief explanation of what happened to his index finger in 1943 was simply: “the meat grinder.”
All of the “Original Six” married and lived into their 80s and 90s in B.C. and Alberta, and their families grew to include many children and grandchildren. John outlived all five of his siblings.
A Working Life
John took whatever work he could find, including farm labour that paid a dollar a day, or two dollars during harvest. He bought two quarter-sections of land on credit for $700 and farmed until 1950.
In 1950, John went to work for a company called W. D. Glenn in Stoney Plain, beginning his years in drilling in the oilpatch. The company went broke in 1954. During a trip to Edmonton, John learned of an opportunity with Seaman Engineering and Drilling Company, known as Sedco, based in Calgary. From 1955 to 1960, his work with Sedco took him to southern Manitoba and Saskatchewan. He later worked with Hightower from 1960 to 1964, drilling on bigger rigs.
From 1964 to 1986, John worked with Sedco in Edmonton, advancing from field superintendent to operations manager. He began with responsibility for one rig and ended those years overseeing 26 rigs and more than 400 men. Rick Rota was his right-hand man at work and they remained lifelong friends.
Meeting Betty
Betty Anne Borg was born on November 20, 1925, near Abbotsford, B.C. While training as a nurse in Vancouver, she stayed with her uncle Bill Patterson and his wife, Grace Rennie Patterson, John’s stepsister. John first met Betty in 1951 while visiting Grace on his way to a wedding in Victoria.
After completing her nursing training at St. Paul’s hospital in Vancouver, Betty took a job in Pouce Coupe, near Dawson Creek in northern B.C. At Easter in 1954, she travelled by train to visit Flossy. John, who had a new car, was given the job of picking her up at the Beaverlodge station. Thus began their romance and decades of devotion to each other.
John and Betty married in Mission, B.C., on December 28, 1954. They began married life in a chicken coop in Fort St. John, followed by years of moving with the drilling rig. Doug was born in Virden, Man., in November 1955. Carol followed in Bienfait, Sask., in November 1956, and Bob was born there inMay, 1958.
In 1957, John bought a trailer, a truck and a car, taking on $10,000 in debt. Worrying about how he would repay it kept him awake at night. The trailer became home for a family of five as they travelled with the drilling rig around Western Canada.
Raising a Family
In the early years, summers often meant travelling to Vancouver to visit Betty’s parents, Henry and Anne—known as Nana and Grandpa—and other relatives. Henry came from a family of 15,and Anne from a family of 10. Together, they had six children:Betty, Jerry, Danny, Gordon, Hank and Marilyn.
The Edmonton years included a rented house in Avonmore and,starting in 1966, the family home in Fulton Place. It was a lively, happy house that included pet dogs Cindy and Lady.
John was a man of few words with a very strong work ethic—one he passed on to all of his children.
The family remembered that John seldom said a cross word at work or at home, although his ears could turn red when he became frustrated or annoyed.
John worked long hours and, in his downtime, enjoyed a Scotch or a glass of wine, often followed by a snooze. His naps became so familiar that the family had a name for them: “pulling a JF,” after John Fletcher.
The Lake
Jackfish Lake became a central part of family life after their neighbours, the Clarkes, introduced them to it. Betty insisted they buy a place so John would spend more time with the family. John remembered the days at the lake as some of the best, and the cabin purchase as the best investment they ever made.
John’s rule at the lake was to work in the morning and play in the afternoon. The trouble was that, for the children, afternoon began around 11 a.m.; for John, it did not begin until 3 p.m.
The family built a new place in 1980, and John and Betty moved to the lake in 1984. In 2006, he sold the place to Carol and Bob.
Celebrations and Pleasures
Family milestones included Carol and Ken’s wedding in 1976, John and Betty’s 25th wedding anniversary in 1979, Doug and Heather’s wedding in 1981, and Bob and Janet’s wedding in 2001.
Carol and Ken have three children: Tally, Dwayne and Pam. Pam and her husband, Andy, have Zach, Greg and Charlie.
Doug and Heather have three children: Caitlin, Jonathan and Lindsey. Jonathan and his wife, Paola, have Gabriella. Lindsey has Riley and Hanna.
Bob and Janet have four children: Mark, David, Thomas and Anne. Mark and his wife, Karen, have Emma and Brooke. Anne’s partner is Miranda.
John always took an interest in sport and, for years, held tickets for Edmonton’s football team, then known as the Eskimos, and the Oilers. He would watch almost any sport, although baseball, which he had played in his youth, was probably his greatest sporting love.
His old pair of skates prompted jokes about equipment old enough for a museum. He liked to golf but never professed to be much of a golfer. He thoroughly enjoyed trips to Kimberley, B.C., with Bob and his Bucks hockey buddies.
In 1999, John took the whole family to Florida. The trip was one of many reminders of his generosity and the care he took to provide for his family.
Caring for Betty
In 1996, Betty was diagnosed with brain cancer. John nursed her at home at the lake for months. Betty passed away there on June 2, 1997 – a strong and loving wife and mother who was gone from the family circle far too soon.
Their story had begun with a family connection and a railway-station pickup. Together, they shared more than 40 years—travelling through the oilpatch, raising a family, and building a happy life in Edmonton and at the lake.
Later Years
John moved in with Jean Stephens in 2001, beginning another chapter of companionship. The family gently teased him about his idea of a date: a trip to the dump, with rubbish visible in the back of the truck.
John lived independently at his retirement residence in St. Albert from 2018 until shortly before his death, when his health deteriorated. He enjoyed outings with family and friends, loved attending his great-grandsons’ sporting events, and was always there for a family meal. Dad liked his three square meals a day and never met a dessert he didn’t like.
Sadly, Doug predeceased his father, passing away from cancer on July 11, 2026.
Remembering Dad (Gramps)
Dad was shy about speaking in public, moved to tears by The Waltons, and intuitive enough to sense when something was not quite right. Alongside the stories of his work and generosity, these memories capture the quieter side of the father his children knew.
His 90th-birthday presentation honoured him as a father, grandfather and great-grandfather, as well as a husband, uncle, great-uncle, in-law, companion and friend.
The presentation’s closing tribute remembered a man who had lived the quintessential pioneer prairie life through the Depression and the Second World War. He homesteaded in remote northwestern Alberta, worked through the booms and busts of the oilpatch, and raised three children. In time, hisfamily tree grew to include grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
John passed away on October 18, 2026, just 35 days shy of his 100th birthday.
John Fletcher Gillard — A Life Well Lived
Care Entrusted to Pine Box Funerals Inc.
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