With heavy hearts we announce the passing of Thomas Richard Jackson, called home from earthly toil into eternal glory. Tom had been struggling with chronic heart and lung problems, and passed away on August 10th, 2024.
Tom is survived by his wife, Lucy; his children Naomi Dechaine (Adrien), Daniel (Emily), Joshua, Ruth, and Zeke; his siblings Joyce Kelly, Peter, Charles, and Colin; and his grandchildren Celes, Annetta, Eva, Dominic, Benoit, Benjamin, Samuel, and Elizabeth.
Tom was born in 1958 to Dick and Reta Jackson in Sherwood Park, Alberta. Farming (especially farm equipment) fired his imagination from the start. Working with his dad and his uncle Don on the family grain farm, Tom learned from a young age to care devotedly for the animals, the crops, the fields, and especially the equipment.
In the mid-1970s, Tom joined the Teen Time of Edmonton Christian youth group and summer camp program. While helping out deworming the horses at the new ranch facility near Dapp, AB, he met the love of his life, a vibrant red-head named Lucy Wall.
Tom and Lucy married in 1979 and spent their honeymoon years hauling cargo all over the continent, from Tuktoyaktuk to Texas, with a Mack Super-Liner truck. Their trucking adventures were punctuated by work back on the farm, along with summer weeks volunteering at Teen Time Ranch or helping with trail ride camps in the rockies.
Tom eventually settled back into more regular work on the farm, due in no small part to Naomi, Daniel, and Joshua, born in ‘82-’84, who filled his life with a new set of joys and cares.
Farm life changed in the ‘90s as rented fields around Sherwood Park turned into housing developments, and Ruth and Zeke arrived in ‘93 and ‘95. Tom’s dad was forced into retirement after a serious accident in 1993, and youngest brother Colin stepped up to manage the homestead. Tom immersed himself in work with crop commissions and policy groups, and worked tirelessly to advocate for marketing freedom during the heated CWB plebiscite years.
In 2001, Tom and Lucy took a leap of faith and established a new seed farm just west of Killam, Alberta. The move away from the big city did not slow the pace of Tom’s farm activity, as he experimented with exotic crops like einkorn and sunroot.
Tom ran for office, continued in crop commissions and policy groups, served on provincial and federal riding associations, and rebuilt farm trucks in his “spare” time.
Tom was also heavily involved with Alberta Lyric Theater’s Easter musical Love: According to John through its entire run at the Edmonton Jubilee Auditorium, continuing to drive up to the city with his family for Sunday rehearsals even after the move.
Tom slowed down his involvement with boards and organizations and cut back his hours in the field when his health began declining in the last few years, but he was still wheeling and dealing. In his final days he was bargain-hunting from his bed, trying to talk the boys into picking up a John Deere 4020 just like the one he grew up with. (“It would be perfect to run the belt conveyor.”)
A public funeral will be held at Trinity Lutheran Church north of Lougheed on Friday, August 16. Viewing at 12:30, service at 1:30, interment and light refreshment to follow. In lieu of flowers, please donate in Tom’s memory to Teen Time of Edmonton: www.teentime.ab.ca/donations
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