John "Jack" Merchant
Marriages
Dorothy Lobben
Obituaries
Eagle Valley Enterpirse - June 17, 2004
Vail Daily - June 17, 2004
He was a taciturn person who did things outside the spotlight. He was intensely private, yet he contributed more to Eagle than most people know.John “Jack” Merchant, 77, an Eagle resident since 1966, died in Glenwood Springs Sunday from pancreatic cancer.Services will be held Saturday at 11 a.m. at the Eagle Firehouse.”This guy is going to really be missed in this community,” said Jon Asper, fire chief for the Greater Eagle Fire Protection District, for whom Merchant was a dedicated volunteer and ambulance driver. “Most people can’t even fathom what this man has done for this town, county and community. “He’s truly like (Tom) Brokaw’s greatest generation,” Asper added. “He never got credit for what he did, he just kept on trooping.”Merchant moved to Eagle County in 1954 to work as head geologist for the New Jersey Zinc Company at Gilman. He eventually became mine superintendent, a position he held until the mine closed in 1985. He also served a couple of terms on the Eagle Town Board in the 1970s.Friend, neighbor and volunteer fireman Bill Jones of Eagle said he remembers Merchant as a meticulous record-keeper who was tight with a dollar – one of the reasons he was the secretary and treasurer for the volunteer fire district.”We selected him because you weren’t going to spend any money unless you explained it to Jack,” Jones said. “He was important to us in the fire department.”
To the penny
Asper said he remembers after one fire department fund-raiser Merchant helped organize, Merchant, who typically went to bed early, stayed up until 4:30 in the morning making sure all the money was properly accounted for.”He was always precise. Right on the money and never made a mistake, and broke it down into each category,” Asper said.More than that, he remembers that Merchant, a slight man who weighed in at 125 pounds, didn’t make an immediate impression.”If there was a crowd of people you could look right past him, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a significant person,” Jones said. “He was extremely smart and generally competent and was always his own person. If he made up his mind, that was the way it was going to be.”He was dedicated to the fire department. In 1973 Merchant and volunteer firefighter Budd Burr were featured in the Eagle Valley Enterprise for loading up a rail car with scrap iron from the Eagle Mine. They sold it for $700 and the money was given to the fire district.Many knew Merchant because he was an avid birdwatcher, was active in the Audubon Society and helped organize the annual bird counts. He was the resident expert on birds.
He identified an astounding 500 species across the country and was often out every day with binoculars in hand. His friends say he may have been one of the best field ornithologists on the Western Slope and his bird sighting list may never be equaled.Fellow birder Anne Esson of Vail said just days before he died, Merchant and a friend went birding for the last time and he was able to log his 251st species of bird – the rarely seen Eurasian dove.”What an example of how much is there if we only look,” Esson said. “It’s a fine tribute to someone who has enriched the lives of so many.”Friend, fellow birder and skier Jerry Fedrizzi of Eagle said he acquired plenty of knowledge about birding from Merchant. “I learned a lot at his elbow. He knew them by sound, let alone sight,” he said. “I don’t think there was a day when he didn’t go out either by bike or hiking.”He was of stout constitution. He and former Garfield County Judge Victor Zerbi, also a birder, traveled and hiked extensively.”People talk about wanting to be like Mike (Jordan),” Zerbi said. “I want to be like Jack. He was 16 years older than me and many times he walked me into the dirt. He was a remarkable person.”
Helping hand
One measure of the esteem in which Merchant was held by firefighters can be gleaned from how others’ helped him. When Merchant’s illness worsened, members of the fire department took him to his medical appointments, mowed his lawn and even filled his bird feeders.Merchant also loved to ski and was a scratch golfer.To celebrate his 60th birthday, he and three friends by logged 60,000 combined vertical feet on Vail Mountain. They eventually hit 65,000, Fedrizzi said.”He skied so much he knew the vertical feet of each run on Vail Mountain,” Fedrizzi said. One thing Merchant wanted to do was to ski Arapahoe Basin on his 80th birthday, because he knew it would be open in May, Fedrizzi said.Cliff Thompson can be reached via e-mail at cthompson@vaildaily.com or by calling 949-0555 ext. 450.
John "Jack" Merchant was born May 24, 1927 to Mason B. and Helen L. Merchant and was raised in the Providence RI area. He attended Brown University in Providence where he graduated summa cum laude and later earned a Master's in geology from teh University of Michigan. While there he married Dorothy Lobben. While in school he spent some summers as a hutsman on the Appalachian Trail in New Hampshire's White Mountains, ferrying 80-pound packs of food and supplies to the huts. He is survived by his brother, David, and his sister-in-law, Brenda of Little Compton, R.I.; a daughter, Nancy, and son-in-law Stephen of Pacifica, Calif., and a son, David, of Northglen, Colorado. He was preceded in death by his wife.
