MacKay Champion Genealogy - Person Sheet
MacKay Champion Genealogy - Person Sheet
NameJohn Lester Blades 
Birth Date23 Sep 1934
Birth PlaceShelburne, NS
Death Date3 Sep 1960
Death PlaceSaint John, NB
MemoWe have many stories that he died in Barrington Passage.
Burial Date1960
Burial PlaceForest Hill Cemetery, Barrington, NS
FatherJohn “Lester” Blades (1888-1973)
MotherOlive “Ollie” Genevieve Hitchens (1894-1973)
Notes for John Lester Blades
Died - suicide or possibly auto asphyxiation. Mike Blades went to Grandpa’s house the day he died.
Michael writes; That was Uncle John, Walters younger brother. I don’t know any of the details. He was found in the woods on a trail between Grandpas house and Bobby Knowles house (brother of Beth Knowles from Facebook). Mom, Gary and I were at Grandpas house when someone came and told Gram. I’ll never forget her shrieking and crying. I was pretty young and I didn't fully understand what had happened. Mom told me about the autoerotic asphyxiation. I don’t believe he meant to kill himself. He was taking engineering at UNB (I think). Gary was very close to him. It was Uncle John who gave Gary all of the ham radio equipment. I do remember is that he was a very nice person. I liked him. He was going to university in New Brunswick and seemed to be on top of life.
Gary writes: I spoke last year [2019] with a person who searched for him after he went missing. That person is 80 years old. His last name is Rapp. He said it was a shock to find him dead.
In my opinion his death was an accident. He had a very bright future. He was very "smart" (whatever that means). He was studying Electrical Engineering at UNB. He came home to visit his parents once in a while. They had a house across from Smith and Watts. Walter took the two of us there once in a while. John had a ham radio station set up at the house. The radio was an amazing contraption for me.
There were boxes plastered with dials and lights. And a big antenna out in the back yard.
It was awe inspiring for me (7-8 years old). To me John was a genius from another world. He was my first role model. I was in awe of him. I have a few memories of him.
Michael writes; That was Uncle John, Walters younger brother. I don’t know any of the details. He was found in the woods on a trail between Grandpas house and Bobby Knowles house (brother of Beth Knowles from Facebook). Mom, Gary and I were at Grandpas house when someone came and told Gram. I’ll never forget her shrieking and crying. I was pretty young and I didn't fully understand what had happened. Mom told me about the autoerotic asphyxiation. I don’t believe he meant to kill himself. He was taking engineering at UNB (I think). Gary was very close to him. It was Uncle John who gave Gary all of the ham radio equipment. I do remember is that he was a very nice person. I liked him. He was going to university in New Brunswick and seemed to be on top of life.
Gary writes: I spoke last year [2019] with a person who searched for him after he went missing. That person is 80 years old. His last name is Rapp. He said it was a shock to find him dead.
In my opinion his death was an accident. He had a very bright future. He was very "smart" (whatever that means). He was studying Electrical Engineering at UNB. He came home to visit his parents once in a while. They had a house across from Smith and Watts. Walter took the two of us there once in a while. John had a ham radio station set up at the house. The radio was an amazing contraption for me.
There were boxes plastered with dials and lights. And a big antenna out in the back yard.
It was awe inspiring for me (7-8 years old). To me John was a genius from another world. He was my first role model. I was in awe of him. I have a few memories of him.
Notes for John Lester Blades
By Dan MacKay 2020-05-02
I have a couple stories about queer family. I'll publish the other tomorrow. [about Mamie and Tessa]
When I came out of the closet to my parents, my Mom’s first reaction was overwhelming panic that the same thing would happen to me, as happened to her first husband's brother.
Over the last few days I’ve asked my brothers about their Uncle John and pieced together the story.
Everyone knew John was gay - I think from his effeminate behaviour. They also knew he was into “autoerotic asphyxiation” — that is, strangling himself while jerking off.
I can’t figure out how people knew this. I was told that he had strangle marks on his neck which he concealed with a scarf. But it doesn’t make any sense that people in a tiny village in the 1950s could see that and know it was from that kind of paraphilia.
He was at studying to be an electrical engineer at UNB Saint John, my brothers think, and doing very well. My older brother adored him, he was an super geek. He gave my brothers this piece of ham radio equipment, a Hallicrafter SX-28:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/.../commons/b/bd/SX28front.jpg
My brothers shared what would have been the master bedroom in the house, and it had a nursery which they used as their radio shack; the Hallicrafter was there and I remember the edge of the wooden bench was scarred with hundreds of burn marks where they'd put their cigarettes down and let them burn into the wood. The radio was rigged up a loooong antenna that went to a distant tree in our back yard, and as a child I spent a GREAT deal of time in front of this big cozy warm tube-filled machine, listening to radio stations and ordinary people from all over the world. But that was long after Uncle John was gone.
In 1960 when he was 25, he was found dead, hung from a tree on a path through the woods not far from home. My 9 and 11-year-old brothers were visiting their grandparents and got to experience his mother’s wails of grief when the person who found him, came in with the news.
There's no way to tell if he had an accident or committed suicide. Both of my brothers are sure it was an accident.
John's older brother, my mom's first husband, had died of rheumatic fever two years previously; the middle brother died in a plane crash five years later:
https://bonmot.ca/~daniel/mackay/wp01/p01_311a.jpg
If mom’s first husband *hadn’t* died, she would never have married my amazing dad and had me, of course, but it was my gay Uncle John, who died three years before I was born, who got my brothers into ham radio, electronics and technology; they got me into it; we have all had amazing careers in chemistry, computer science, math and physics - and I’m now on the road to getting my ham radio license, really a direct legacy.
I have a couple stories about queer family. I'll publish the other tomorrow. [about Mamie and Tessa]
When I came out of the closet to my parents, my Mom’s first reaction was overwhelming panic that the same thing would happen to me, as happened to her first husband's brother.
Over the last few days I’ve asked my brothers about their Uncle John and pieced together the story.
Everyone knew John was gay - I think from his effeminate behaviour. They also knew he was into “autoerotic asphyxiation” — that is, strangling himself while jerking off.
I can’t figure out how people knew this. I was told that he had strangle marks on his neck which he concealed with a scarf. But it doesn’t make any sense that people in a tiny village in the 1950s could see that and know it was from that kind of paraphilia.
He was at studying to be an electrical engineer at UNB Saint John, my brothers think, and doing very well. My older brother adored him, he was an super geek. He gave my brothers this piece of ham radio equipment, a Hallicrafter SX-28:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/.../commons/b/bd/SX28front.jpg
My brothers shared what would have been the master bedroom in the house, and it had a nursery which they used as their radio shack; the Hallicrafter was there and I remember the edge of the wooden bench was scarred with hundreds of burn marks where they'd put their cigarettes down and let them burn into the wood. The radio was rigged up a loooong antenna that went to a distant tree in our back yard, and as a child I spent a GREAT deal of time in front of this big cozy warm tube-filled machine, listening to radio stations and ordinary people from all over the world. But that was long after Uncle John was gone.
In 1960 when he was 25, he was found dead, hung from a tree on a path through the woods not far from home. My 9 and 11-year-old brothers were visiting their grandparents and got to experience his mother’s wails of grief when the person who found him, came in with the news.
There's no way to tell if he had an accident or committed suicide. Both of my brothers are sure it was an accident.
John's older brother, my mom's first husband, had died of rheumatic fever two years previously; the middle brother died in a plane crash five years later:
https://bonmot.ca/~daniel/mackay/wp01/p01_311a.jpg
If mom’s first husband *hadn’t* died, she would never have married my amazing dad and had me, of course, but it was my gay Uncle John, who died three years before I was born, who got my brothers into ham radio, electronics and technology; they got me into it; we have all had amazing careers in chemistry, computer science, math and physics - and I’m now on the road to getting my ham radio license, really a direct legacy.