Member of longtime CT newspaper family dies at 83

Editor’s note: This news obituary is contributed by the Jackson family.

Herrick Jackson, whose family owned two New Haven daily newspapers, died unexpectedly Aug. 19 at his home in Berkeley, Calif., where he had lived since 2010.

He was 83.

He began his newspaper career at the New Haven Journal-Courier after he graduated in 1962 from Yale University and earned a master’s degree from Columbia Journalism School. He later lived for several years at the Community of Jesus in Orleans, Mass.

After leaving the Community of Jesus, Jackson devoted himself to social work at Fellowship Place in New Haven, a drop-in center for people with mental illness. In his younger years, he was an avid art collector. Reading was a lifelong avocation.

He also was involved with music throughout his life. He played the double bass in New Haven area community orchestras and sang in various choruses, including the Yale Alumni Chorus. In Berkeley he sang in the Berkeley Community Chorus & Orchestra.

He and his wife, Elaine Norton Jackson, joined villages based on Boston’s Beacon Hill Village both in New Haven and in Berkeley. Villages help keep people in their homes as they age.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by three daughters from his first wife, Mary Brown Jackson of Orleans, Mass., – Sandy Pugsley and Sr. Joan Jackson of Orleans, Mass., and Polly Friess of Jackson Hole, Wyo.;  two sons from his second wife, Margaret Mary Doud of Wilton, Conn. – Michael Jackson of Stamford, Conn., and Tyler Jackson of Corte Madera, Calif.; Elaine’s children – Analisa Madrone, Noah Hooker and Emily Hooker, all of Berkeley, Calif., and Miranda Hooker of Arlington, Mass., and Elaine’s stepdaughters Lucia Huntington of Cambridge, Mass., and Britt Gappelberg of Lexington, Mass.; several grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and numerous cousins.

He is survived by his sister, Alison Van Dyk of Martha’s Vineyard, and Alison’s two children, John Van Dijk of Burlington, Vt., and Issa Van Dyk of New Orleans, La. A brother, Robert Wolcott Jackson, died in 1998 in Greenwich, Conn.

Jackson was born in New Haven on Sept. 13, 1940, to the late John Herrick Jackson and Mary Keen Richardson. His paternal grandfather, John Day Jackson, owned the New Haven newspapers, the New Haven Register and the Journal-Courier, which stayed in the family until 1989.

His maternal grandfather was H. Smith Richardson, chairman of the Vick Chemical Co., which created Vicks VapoRub; the company was sold to Proctor & Gamble in 1985.

In addition to his career at the Journal-Courier, where he was a reporter and at one time assistant production manager, he spent two years at The Louisville Times and the Courier-Journal learning various aspects of the newspaper business, and he interned at The Wall Street Journal and the New York Daily News. He also worked for another family firm, the Smith Richardson Foundation in New York, N.Y.

He was inducted into the U.S. Army Reserve in June 1963 and did his basic training at Fort Jackson, S.C. During his 6 ½ years in the Army, he received a direct commission to the rank of Second Lieutenant. He also was a reporter for the Fort Jackson newspaper.

Jackson was a member of four hereditary organizations: the Society of the Cincinnati, the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence and the General Society of Colonial Wars.

A memorial service will be held Sept. 15 in Berkeley, Calif. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Westminster School, Simsbury, Conn.