John L. Ferrie

May 21, 1948 – August 13, 2026

John Louis Ferrie, known to nearly everyone as Jack, spent 78 years on this earth cultivating things: baseball diamonds, gardens, friendships, children, and, in one of his final acts, a Japanese flowering cherry tree in a neighborhood that had never seen one.

He died on August 13, 2026, surrounded by his family, in Simpsonville, South Carolina.

Jack was born on May 21, 1948, in Taunton, Massachusetts, to Louis N. Ferris, a Marine, and Ann Rita (Noonan) Ferris, a textile worker. His mother gave him the surname Ferrie at birth, believing it to be the family's original Portuguese surname. 

His early childhood was lived between military bases in Virginia, North Carolina, and Massachusetts, the rhythms of military life setting the tempo. One October afternoon in 1962, Louis came home on the base and told his wife and son that he had to leave immediately. He could not tell them why or where he was going. Jack was fourteen. That was the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was a memory that never left him.

After Louis retired from the Marines, the family settled back in Taunton, where Jack graduated from Taunton High School in 1967 as captain of the state champion football team and a varsity baseball player. He enlisted in the Air Force immediately after graduation and served as a military police officer in Arizona. He later recalled watching the sun rise over the flat desert horizon and thinking it looked close enough to reach by foot. He was honorably discharged at nineteen under the Sole Survivor Policy after his father was killed in a car accident. Louis Ferris, the Marine who had survived World War II, Korea, and the Cold War's most dangerous thirteen days, died on an ordinary road.

A Life Built by Hand

Jack returned to Taunton. He worked in a metal fabrication shop, then found his footing as a foreman with the Taunton Park and Recreation Department. The work revealed an instinct for landscaping and a craftsman’s eye for how a place should look. As head foreman, he oversaw the annual Lighting of the Green, a Taunton holiday tradition more than a century old. Each year he worked to make the display different from the one before, bringing the kind of focused attention to a small creative problem that most people save for things that look more important. His favorite part was opening night, the moment he handed the honor of switching on the lights to a small child. He kept that part the same every time.

In February 1973, he met Elizabeth Jane Taylor. They were married that June. Over the next decade, they had three children: Peter Louis in 1976, Kendra Ann in 1980, and Ronald Raymond in 1982. His mother Ann died in 1986, a loss he carried quietly for the rest of his life.

Baseball was one of the constants of his life. Jack tracked statistics, scouting reports, and front office decisions with the care of someone who understood that the game's beauty lived in its details. He coached little league and Babe Ruth teams for years after his own sons aged out of those levels, staying on because the kids needed coaching and because he needed the game. He served as president of Taunton West Little League. He built a batting cage in his backyard by hand. Next to it, he constructed a pitching mound built to regulation specifications, the exact distance, the exact height, as precise as a surveyed lot.

The same backyard held two pear trees and a long row of rose bushes that had come with the house when he bought it. He added three apple trees and a garden. He chose that house partly because of the yard. He chose the place his family would call home based on what the land could become.

The Best Years

After his children graduated from college, Jack and Elizabeth relocated to Simpsonville, South Carolina. He worked part-time security for years to stay busy before stepping away from work eight years ago. The years before Elizabeth fell ill were, by all accounts, among the best years of their marriage. They drank too much wine. They laughed at stories only they understood. Elizabeth died on July 7, 2023, after a long illness. They had been married for fifty years.

After her death, Jack grew even closer to the neighbors he had spent years cultivating. He never believed good fences made good neighbors. He believed good neighbors made great friends. He refused to put up fences at any home he ever lived in. Over the years, those neighbors became an extended family. They visited daily, walking in without ringing the bell or knocking.

One Last Thing to Grow

A few days before he fell ill, he planted a Japanese flowering cherry tree in his yard. He chose that particular tree for what it represented. It blooms early and briefly. A symbol of renewal and hope, but more importantly the fleeting nature of life and beauty, and the importance of living fully in the present.

He is survived by his son Peter L. Ferrie of Greenville, South Carolina; his daughter Kendra A. Trabookis and her husband Zachary of Greenville, South Carolina; and his son Ronald R. Ferris and his wife Stacey L. Kaufman of Charleston, South Carolina. He is also survived by a nephew, Jeffery T. Jackson of Rumford, Rhode Island, and a niece, Rebecca Taylor-Ann (Jackson) Jil of North Attleboro, Massachusetts. Though an only child, Jack remained close with his cousins throughout his life, relationships that were more like those of siblings despite the miles between them. His granddaughter, Ariana Grace Trabookis, brought him a joy he never thought to hide.His granddaughter, Ariana Grace Trabookis, who knew him as “Patty Cake,” brought him a joy he never thought to hide.

He was preceded in death by the love of his life, Elizabeth Jane Ferrie, by his parents Louis and Ann, cousin Connie M. (McCarthy) Babula, and other beloved family members and friends.

He leaves behind a quiet absence among those who knew him, along with the flowering cherry tree he planted. Come spring, it will bloom.

A memorial funeral mass will be held at St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church, 2252 Woodruff Road, Simpsonville, South Carolina, on a Friday date to be announced. Interment will be at St. Joseph Cemetery in Taunton, Massachusetts at a date and time to be determined.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Jack’s memory to Taunton West Little League.