Remembering John D. “Jack” Wallace

John D. “Jack” Wallace was a dedicated family man and an excellent businessman who had a terrific sense of humor and gobs of longtime friends. A strategic thinker, he never sugarcoated his words, and he always worked to do what was best for the community.

He and Happy, his wife of more than 65 years, felt a responsibility to give back to local nonprofits.

“We’ve been fortunate to be successful in business, and to us it’s a natural thing to support people and causes that need encouragement,” Jack once said when asked about the couple’s philanthropy. “And it’s sort of the give-back philosophy. I always remember talking with my family (as a child) about various things they were supporting and why.”

Jack died on May 1 at the age of 92, but he led a lifetime of service and his legacy in the community will continue for years to come.

“They’re a wonderful family, as everyone would attest, and he was a jewel,” said Nancy Kieling, the retired President & CEO of the Community Foundation. “He was a real friend of the foundation forever.”

Princeton roots

Jack grew up in Princeton, and his family, known for their generosity, had longstanding ties in Mercer County. He and Happy raised their three children in the community. The couple has six grandchildren and a great grandchild.

Jack was the former Mayor of Princeton Township, a volunteer with many local nonprofit boards, including Princeton Day School, McCarter Theatre, and a Trustee Emeritus at the Community Foundation after serving as a founding board member and 21 years as a trustee, including as Board Vice Chair and the chair of numerous committees.

“In those early years, Jack was enormously helpful,” Nancy said. “He knew tons of people, and he was not shy about making introductions. I came to realize what a good businessman he’d been.”

Jack attended Princeton County Day School, was a graduate of The Hotchkiss School and a member of Princeton University’s Class of 1955. A Navy veteran, he served as an Admiral’s Aide to the Vice Admiral in command of the Atlantic amphibious fleet. He retired in 1993 as the CEO of CoreStates Bank/New Jersey National Bank.

Mentorship

When Carolyn Sanderson, a former Community Foundation Board Vice Chair, moved to Princeton in 1992, her boss introduced her to the important people in the community.

“Jack was absolutely one of them,” she said. “Jack had multigenerational contacts within the Princeton community. I think he knew everyone, and if he didn’t know them, they knew him. He was truly larger than life in every way.”

They sat on several nonprofit boards together. Pre-COVID, he often gave her advice over breakfast at the Nassau Club. Among his bits of wisdom: always secure a seat on the finance committee of any board on which you serve, because that’s where you’ll learn the most about the health of an organization.

“He was an incredible mentor to me in so many ways,” she said.

Jack also served as a mentor to Ann Reichelderfer, a former Board Chair of the Community Foundation, who got to know him when they volunteered together on the Board of Trinity Counseling Service (now Center at 353) in Princeton. He was the chair of that board – and he was a tremendous board chair, she said.

“I learned so much from him about how to work with a board,” she said. “He ran the best meeting of anyone I ever knew.”

Visionary

In the early 2000s, Ann and Jack served together on the Community Foundation Board. During a strategic planning session, trustees were assigned to envision what the Community Foundation would be like a decade later. Jack encouraged his group to shoot for $100 million in assets – unthinkable to some at the time.

“Jack just had this vision, if we kept at it, we’d eventually be successful, and it took a lot of work get there,” Ann said. “He was an inspiration to lot of people, including me.”

The Community Foundation now has more than $275 million in assets under care and has awarded more than $241 million in grants since its founding.

Jack was always interested in how the Community Foundation could help the Mercer County region.

“He was a very thoughtful guy who was always worried about what was going on with people around him and with larger community,” said Ann. “He wanted to do something to make a difference in people’s lives. He didn’t want to do things just to do them. He wanted to do them to make a difference.”

Jack loved the word eleemosynary (meaning relating to or supported by charity), and he did an enormous amount of fundraising for local organizations in a very quiet way.

Meetings

He had little use for small talk, and he despised meetings.

The only thing he may have disliked more than meetings were board retreats, said Eleanor Horne, Community Foundation Trustee Emerita, who got to know Jack when they served on the Wells Fargo Regional Foundation Board, often traveling together to meetings in Philadelphia.

Jack thought too much time was wasted in meetings, talking about things that didn’t lead to solving problems in the community, she said. But it was impossible to sit through a meeting with Jack where you didn’t laugh about something, she said.

Values

“There were several things that were important to him,” she said. “Integrity was important to him, but he felt it was fast becoming an old-fashioned value. Family was important to him. He often said one of the most important things that happened to him was meeting Happy and marrying her. We’d talk about our families, and I realized how fortunate he felt to marry Happy and how seriously he took being a father. And he valued friendship. Many of his friends had been his friends for ages.”

He also valued the work of the Community Foundation, because it represented people with resources working to benefit those less fortunate, Eleanor said.

“For Jack, it wasn’t money that was important,” she said. “It was what you did with money that made the difference.”

Jack and Happy created a Grandchildren’s Fund at the Community Foundation to teach their grandkids about philanthropy. For many years, they held annual meetings in December – with Jack taking meticulous minutes. Jack and Happy provided guidance, but they gave the grandkids the responsibility of making decisions about grant recommendations.

It was the couple’s favorite fund at the Community Foundation.

“What a great use of the Community Foundation, and what a spectacular grandfather he was!” said Nancy.

Founding Board Member

Tom Harvey, another former Board Chair, described Jack as an indispensable board member. In the early days, many people didn’t understand the concept of a Community Foundation.

“I think Jack being involved really put people at ease,” Tom said. “They’d say, I don’t know what the Community Foundation does, but Jack and Bill (Burks) are involved, so it must be good. That was really important for an organization that had not been around so long.”

An extraordinary personality

Jack Hall, a former board member, first met Jack when they served together on the Rider University Board of Trustees in the 1980s.

“The community is in a better place today than it would have been without Jack,” he said. “He was a good friend. He cared for the community, and he also cared deeply for his family. His kids, grandchildren, and great-grandchild were a very important part of his life.”

Jack had a big personality. He was incredibly generous. Kind. Funny. Whip-smart and well informed.

“One of the funniest things that Jack was able to do, which is unmatched in anyone I’ve ever seen, was his ability to deliver the unvarnished truth to someone with charm and humor,” said Carolyn. “He was able to deliver it in a way that everyone knew it was true and everyone laughed, which was a gift – a total gift.”

Eleanor said he always struck her as a gentle man.

“He was like an oak tree in stature with the heart of a butterfly,” she said. “He was just quite a guy.”