John "Jack" Joseph Higgins

John Joseph “Jack” Higgins, age 69, was born into eternal life on February 10, 2024. Born into this life on August 19, 1954, he grew up on the Southwest side of Chicago, in St. Thomas More parish, as the 6th child of Maurice and Helen Egan Higgins. Maurice “Moe” Higgins was a Chicago Police Department district commander, and Helen was a devoted wife and mother to their seven children. Jack attended St. Thomas More Grammar School and St. Ignatius College Prep High School, both in Chicago. He earned a B.A. in economics from the College of the Holy Cross, in Worcester, MA, in 1976.

Jack spent his childhood playing hockey, serving as an altar boy at St. Thomas More and singing in its choir, and swimming at his family’s cottage on Lake Michigan. He attended school as a means to an end, art class with Miss Brogan. He established his habit of waking early with a paper route he held all through his school years. He lost his cherished brother and best friend, Tommy, to a brain tumor, when both were still young boys. While walking home from choir practice, Jack was hit by a car at the age of 13, and spent six months in traction. During that time he honed his developing artistic skills.

Spending thirty years as the editorial cartoonist for the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper, Jack felt honored to have worked with some of the most talented journalists in the business. Over the course of his long, distinguished career, Jack earned numerous professional awards including first prize in the International Salon of Cartoons, the Sigma Delta Chi Award, Illinois Journalist of the Year, and in 1989, the Pulitzer Prize. He travelled professionally to the former USSR, Hungary, Ireland, and to Cuba, where he had to dodge his communist minders in order to Fax his cartoons back to the U.S. The subversiveness of his actions only heightened his enjoyment of the trip.

Jack married Mary Elizabeth Ann “Missy” Irving in 1997. They had first met many years earlier, in 1977, and their shared recollection of a St. Patrick’s Day long past led them both to realize their meeting again was nothing short of Divine Providence. They were blessed with five beautiful children who were Jack’s greatest joy and heart’s contentment, Thomas Patrick Aloysius, Brigid Kathleen, Rose Perpetua, Sean Francis Xavier (Jackie), and Brendan Ignatius Ambrose. Although he rose between 4:30 and 5am each morning, and worked long hours, Jack cheerfully and eagerly then drove to all the altar boy and choir rehearsals, the hockey and soccer practices, and sat gleefully through many Irish dance performances. He was so deeply proud of in and in love with his family, and never tired of sharing his delight with his friends. He enjoyed taking his family on Sunday outings after Mass at St. John Cantius Church, with visits to Navy Pier, Chinatown, The Billy Goat, the Lincoln Park Zoo, and Ravinia. When he noticed that several of his children exhibited artistic skills of their own, he enthusiastically encouraged them and proudly displayed their drawings in his studio. He even let the children “finish” his cartoons with their colored pencils and markers. Mayor Daley with a purple face and horns, or President Obama sporting a top hat, gold-star eyes, and wreath of flowers, these too he hung up to everyone’s great amusement. Even as he worked, Jack’s family was never far from his heart or mind. His children soon came to notice a curious resemblance to themselves and their mother, in every cartoon depicting children and families. If Mommy was pregnant, so was the lady in the cartoon. The Chicago Blackhawks, the Southwest side of Chicago, Irish folk music, any and every John Wayne movie, and whoever plays the Cubs, were close to his heart.

Jack lived his faith as charity in action. He explained to Missy, on an early date, that a gentleman always walked street-side for a lady, saying, “My father taught me that.” He charged forward to open every door and set the same example for his sons. He generously drew countless retirement, birthday, and bereavement drawings and portraits for friends and co-workers, and he donated a significant number of his cartoons to Catholic parishes and charities. Jack’s personal heroes were, not political figures, but the devoted and heroic Catholic priests, police officers, and firefighters he was honored to know and call friends. Once asked which notable figure he’d met had most impressed him, without taking a breath, Jack answered, “Monsignor McDermott.” Whenever a Chicago police officer or firefighter fell in the line of duty, Jack shelved whatever cartoon he had planned for the next day to commemorate their sacrifice in the newspaper. He said he was really drawing for the grieving families, just sharing it with the readers. He prayed the Rosary with his family each evening, and even when his illness caused him to forget many words and names, he still remembered his prayers. Jack Higgins was exceptional, not for his artistic skill and penetrating wit, but for his decency, steadfastness, and faith. He was a true Catholic gentleman. A Catholic Requiem Mass and Rite of Committal are pending, and the family requests prayers and Masses for Jack’s soul. May the road rise to meet you, our dearest husband and father, and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Arrangements for Jack have been entrusted to Brown-Wynne Funeral Home, 300 Saint Mary's St. Raleigh, NC.