In the early days, major infections were common and often required entire families to be quarantined; the Burke-Gaffneys had their share of measles, chickenpox and whooping cough. John managed to acquire scarlet fever when he was about three years of age, and spent the Christmas of 1924 in St. Roch's isolation hospital in St. Boniface. He remembers the Christmas tree that had been kept lighted for his return home in mid-January, the warm welcome and the beautiful rocking-horse awaiting him.
His progress at St. Ignatius didn't match that of his older brothers; he had to repeat Grade 4 but, like them, he won most of the spelling matches and elocution trials. Like them, he was an altar boy and sang in the children's choir. He took piano lessons from Miss Blythe, a spinster neighbor on Jessie Ave., but didn't have the staying-power needed.
John entered St. Paul's High School in 1936, played tackle on the football team, and generally grew under the Jesuits' hand. Years later, at Uncle Walter's funeral in Halifax, John's Grade 9 teacher Father Pianfetti said, "We used to pass your essays around the common room and admire them." Alas, John didn't have the same success with mathematics and physics. On a memorable day in Grade 11, Dean of Discipline Father MacDonald said, "You must make a choice between writing plays and writing exams." John chose plays and left the realm of scholarship.
He worked for the CBC during the war years, where he met Elizabeth Jane Sparling During these years one of his plays, "Night Train", was chosen to be broadcast on the CBC National Network, produced by the head of the CBC Drama Department, Montreal. The script for that play later appeared in a Department of Education textbook In his five years with the CBC he produced school broadcasts, musical programs and national events. He joined the Winnipeg Tribune in 1946 as a reporter.
Beth Sparling became a frequent visitor to the Burke-Gaffney home, and she was embraced by John's parents. Beth converted to Catholicism and the pair married at St. Ignatius in 1948. The next year John joined the Winnipeg branch of a major Canadian advertising agency. After having been evacuated from their basement apartment in St. Boniface during the great flood of May 1950 they later searched for a safer location and bought a comfortable old house at 285 Harrow Street, around the corner from St. Ignatius School, and spent their spare time for many months repairing and improving their home. Their sons Michael Desmond (1949), Brian Francis (1950) and Timothy John (1956) were born in Winnipeg.
In the 1950s John taught a pioneering course on the communication of ideas at the University of Manitoba and became a founding member of the Manitoba Public Relations Society. He also joined the St. Ignatius School Board, later elected chairman, and became a vice-president of the Winnipeg Boy Scouts Association. He was also invited to the boards of Misericordia Hospital and St. Joseph's Hospital – an experience that gave him a lifelong interest in hospital management. In 1956 he was appointed Winnipeg manager of the advertising agency.
When they learned he was to be transferred to Montreal, the little family took an extended train and ferry tour from Winnipeg to Seattle, Wash., stopping at choice locations for days at a time – and taking innumerable pictures as memoranda. With great regret, they sold the Harrow Street – to a good friend who had admired it – and flew to Montreal at the end of December 1959 to take up residence in an apartment building close to Loyola College, where the boys attended the adjunct St. Ignatius School.
They spent two years in Montreal, finding particular pleasure in their summer holidays at Lac Raymond in the Laurentian Hills. Then John Labatt Limited, London, Ont., invited him to become the company's first director of public relations. They moved into a new house they found beside the London golf course on Hunt Club Drive. The boys entered their respective schools and grades, and found new friends.
Sadly, Beth didn't have much opportunity to enjoy the new surroundings. Her doctor diagnosed cancer of the uterus in 1963. She devoted herself to the three boys but health cast a shadow over these years: she was treated for skin cancer in 1965, then, over time, for various other manifestations of the disease. When Mike was accepted to Loyola University in 1967, followed the next year by Brian to Saint Mary's University in Halifax, John, Beth and Tim moved to an apartment at Centennial Square downtown. Beth died in Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto July 30, 1981.
John's responsibilities included public affairs, television programs and history projects including development of a museum in Queenston, Ont., dedicated to Laura Secord, heroine of the War of 1812 as a centennial project. He was the first Canadian to conduct a seminar on public relations for the American Management Association in New York, and he served as Canadian president of the International Association of Business Communicators.
In 1970, he helped establish Meadowcrest Centre near London dedicated to bring developmentally handicapped adults into the community; for which he was honored by the Ontario Ministry of Community Affairs in 1984. He retired from John Labatt in 1984 to join London's Victoria Hospital to organize a major redevelopment project, including a successful campaign to raise $10 million toward a new Children's Hospital. During this time he was made an adjunct professor of the University of Western Ontario Graduate School of Journalism, lecturing on corporate communication.
He married Isobel Dix in January 1982. In 1988, he accepted an invitation from Nanaimo Regional General Hospital in British Columbia to establish a development program, and retired in Nanaimo in 1990. He helped found the Nanaimo Counsel on Addictions Society and served as a director of the Vancouver Island Symphony.