John "Jack" Henry Rawsthorne Slack was a multi-talented young man who chose to work as a professional violinist and vocalist instead of pursuing his ambitions to study medicine. He entertained on stages in Toronto and New York, and during the First World War throughout Europe as a member of Billet 13, a military entertainment group with the 83rd Queen’s Own Rifles, Reg. Pellet Co., Toronto. Written on his violin are the names of the places he played, including Courcelette, Toronto, Liverpool, Boulogne, Coupigny and Mt. St. Eloy.

He met and married Bertha Marsh in Toronto in 1912 and they had four daughters. Following his marriage he lived with his family in New Toronto where he worked as a bookkeeper at the city hall and wrote a children’s column for a weekly newspaper The Lakeshore Record.

He was born in Manchester, England in 1881 and came to Canada in 1901 at age 20. He died in 1925.

“Although I never knew my grandfather, he died when my mother Marjorie was only 11 years of age, I have felt his influence throughout the family in many ways,” said Slack's granddaughter, Joyce (Dadson) Beaton. “My mother inherited his musical genes, my siblings his artistic prowess, and I his love of writing. His life was short but it seems to me he made the most of what he was given and gave back in ways that would perhaps surprise himself.”

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