John C. Ketcham passed away on Tuesday, November 13, 2018, more than a year after being diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his brain. At age 92, he died peacefully at home, with family.
John was born in Syracuse, NY, on August 23, 1926, and graduated from Onondaga Valley Academy (a public high school) in 1944. He served in the US Navy in 1945 and 1946 and entered Harvard College in January 1947, graduating in 1950 with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, cum laude.
John began his career in the General Electric training program in Syracuse but soon shifted his focus to the banking industry. He moved to New York City and the Banker’s Trust Company in 1952. By 1964, he had become a Vice-President of Bankers Trust in its National Division. In 1968, John moved to Cleveland, Ohio to become Senior Vice-President in charge of acquisitions. In 1971 he moved to Toledo to become Executive Vice-President and Director of Northwest Ohio Bankshares and its largest bank, the Toledo Trust Company, where he focused heavily on leading Toledo Trust in creative ways into the real estate sector. He became Chair of the Board of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra and of the Belmont Country Club and was a Trustee of Sienna Heights College.
In 1984, John retired from commercial banking and began to explore the retirement industry for a potential second career. His concept---retirement living that is intellectually stimulating. John enlisted advice from a friend who was President of Warren Wilson College near Asheville, North Carolina who provided great encouragement. John soon focused on finding a site near a college campus. He identified and evaluated eight schools to determine their feelings about older people. Elon College was chosen because then-President Fred Young helped him identify a 15-acre parcel of land adjacent to the Elon campus. In 1985, construction began on the project which became a 40-home community for homeowners 55 and over---Henton-at-Elon. From that beginning grew the Hamlet - 52 senior living apartments, Blakey Hall - a 56-bed assisted care living facility, and the Cottage - a 16-bed Alzheimer unit.
John was strongly interested in giving retirees an opportunity to continue learning as they aged, instead of retirement life on a golf course or a body of water. John felt that people did better mentally and physically when they were not limited to a community of similarly aged people. His retirement community included an after-school program for children, housed farm animals like miniature horses and goats, and provided the opportunity to interact with a college community including attending classes and campus events. He was a pioneer in this effort and this ‘second career’ lasted over 30 years.
Unlike many bankers, John always looked for new and different ways of doing things. His first Henton homes faced inward toward a courtyard square, like homes in Old Salem. The Hamlet had porches on the front of the units encouraging social interaction as residents engaged in evening strolls. Additionally, the Hamlet’s Community Building became the site of daily interaction among residents over meals and activities. John was also a leader in the industry in installing green energy solutions (solar hot water and photovoltaic panels) at Blakey and arranging health care insurance and a retirement plan for employees.
As knee and back problems took away John’s ability to participate in recreational sports he loved such as golf, tennis and skiing, he became incredibly project-driven. He held several patents--one for a device called Tee-Cue, which enabled older adults to tee up their golf ball without leaning down to do so. He established an early Farmers Market in the parking lot on the corner of Manning and Haggard Avenues in Elon. He worked with a mechanic to convert two Volkswagens into electric cars in the late 1980s, well before there were hybrid automobiles. Later, John worked with some North Carolina State graduate students on his idea for a small cylindrical wind turbine which could be mounted on a residential roof. A prototype was developed, but it did not work as envisioned. That did not matter. The fun was in conceiving and developing an idea. He thought of failures as steps on the way to success.
John married Eleanor Blakey Helm in 1955 and is survived by her and their three children:
Jim Ketcham and his wife, Dana, of San Francisco; Clifton Ketcham and his husband, James Moudy of Hood River, Oregon; and Mary Sterner and her husband, David, of St. Charles, Illinois. They also have been blessed with five grandchildren: Mike, Katie and Kristy Ketcham, and Ellie and Joe Sterner.
John was always a loving and supportive husband and father, encouraging all of his loved ones to be his or her best individual self. He delighted in his grandchildren when they were young and even more as they grew into fine young adults. With his wife, he brought to Alamance County a chapter of PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). He was an active member of the Elon Community Church which provided him with great solace as his life wound to a close.
A memorial service will be held at Elon Community Church on Sunday, November 25, at 3 pm. An interment will be held later on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, a second community for John his entire adult life. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to Allied Churches of Alamance County or to Alamance Community College.
To send flowers
to the family or plant a tree
in memory of John C. Ketcham, please visit our floral store.