John Theodore Laury

He was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on April 16, 1927 and lived there for the next 23 years. He attended public schools there and graduated with honors from Liberty High School in the class of 1945. He was class president during his sophomore and junior years and enjoyed singing in the men’s glee club.

After graduating from Lehigh University in 1950, he started working in New York City with a corporate employee benefits consulting firm. And it was there that he met his future wife Helen Louise Stevens from Greenwich, Connecticut. His career took them from New York to Buffalo, Philadelphia, Chicago, back to New York City and finally to Atlanta, where he retired in 1990 as a Principal at Mercer, a large international consulting firm specializing in all aspects of personnel management.

Retirement was filled with very rewarding volunteer work and other activities, including working as a driver for the officials and coaches of the Japanese delegation to the 1996 Centennial Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, and then in a similar capacity for the Australian delegation to the Paralympic Games, which were held right after the Olympics.

He was a lifelong student and avid learner, which extended into his retirement years during which he studied German for eight years at the Goethe Institute in Atlanta, as well as French for two years and Italian for one year.

Later, he and Helen moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, where he served as a class coordinator for the off-campus University of Virginia-sponsored senior citizens spring/fall lecture series and worked as a driver for the annual University of Virginia Film Festival.

After Charlottesville, Helen and Jack moved to Rome, Georgia, to be closer to their son Jack in Atlanta and daughter Leslie in Chattanooga. And finally, going full circle, they returned to Atlanta, where they lived at three assisted living facilities a short distance away from family.

One of Jack’s primary life interests was participating in various sports, including playing both offense and defense on the high school football team. During his working years, he came to love playing squash and racquetball and then got into the running craze that started in the 1970s. He ultimately went on to run 10 km races, marathons and triathlons. He also enjoyed many years of biking and took up hiking while in Virginia.

Helen and Jack loved to travel and took full advantage of their retirement years to travel extensively in the US, western Canada and in many European countries, on several occasions to visit his son Scott who was living in France, Italy and Austria at different times.

He is survived by his daughter and son-in-law Leslie and Jim Tarvin of Atlanta and their daughter Emily Tarvin and her fiancée Chad Wong of Boston; his son and daughter-in-law Jack and Claire Laury and their daughters Hannah and Abby Laury, all in Atlanta; and his son and daughter-in-law Scott and Isadora Laury and their sons Rafael and Julian Laury, of Vienna, Austria and Atlanta.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.floralhillsfuneral.com for the family.