‘He Fought Hard For Everyone In Education’

A former Saint John teacher described as a well-liked and respected educator has died.

Gerald “Gerry” Mabey passed away on Friday after an eight-year battle with cancer; he was 79.

Mabey began his teaching career in the late 1950s and worked for 36 years before retiring, but his devotion to education never stopped.

He spent the last seven years representing west Saint John schools on the Anglophone South School District Education Council.

Rob Fowler, chair of the District Education Council, told our newsroom he had a lot of respect for Mabey.

“He was a friend as well as a mentor to a lot of us around the table, especially to me,” Fowler said. “He was definitely somebody I could talk to about things that were going on and his perspective was always sound and wise.”

Fowler said he recalls one particular conversation with Mabey shortly after they met about the changing environment around education.

“He said the saddest thing about being around education for him now was you can’t hug a kid anymore,” Fowler said. “He thought so many kids just needed a hug to get them through the day and that bothered him. Then it struck me that that’s the kind of mentality that he had.”

Seaside Park Elementary School

Mabey was instrumental in getting Saint John its first new school in the anglophone sector in nearly 40 years.

Seaside Park Elementary, which opened last fall, welcomed students from St. Patrick’s, Seawood and Havelock schools.

A learning centre at the school was named after Mabey for his role in helping the three school communities transform into one.

“He fought hard for everybody in education,” Fowler said. “It was an honour for us to be able to name the learning centre after him.”

So proud of the amazing job Gerry has done to make our new achool possible, working tirelessly to bring our 3 former student bodies together pic.twitter.com/0VDUQLDuBi

— Seaside Park School (@SeasidePES) October 15, 2017