Jack Elrod loved to cook, and he especially enjoyed making breakfast, including typical morning fare as well as the unexpected.
One morning when his children were still young, daughter Candee invited friends to spend the night. Elrod had breakfast waiting for them in the morning — green eggs and ham.
One friend thought the green eggs looked unappetizing, but the other relished them. As for Candee, she was not surprised.
“He just did funny things,” said Candee Butler of Loganville. “We also used him for our school projects.”
Because Elrod had an unusual career as a comic strip artist and creator, students loved it when one of the four Elrod children brought their father to school.
Stephen Elrod, one of Jack Elrod’s three sons, remembered one day when he took his father to school. His father brought an easel and his pens and pencils and set up to draw Stephen for the class.
Elrod arranged it so that Stephen would face the classroom and he himself would face Stephen. That way, the other students in the class could watch the work in progress without Stephen seeing it.
With necks craning, the children watched wide-eyed as Elrod began to draw. Soon, giggles erupted and then laughter rang throughout the room as the drawing took shape. Elrod, without cracking a smile, had drawn the face of a chimpanzee instead of his son.
Jack Harrington Elrod, Jr., nationally syndicated cartoonist, died peacefully at his home in Loganville on Feb. 3. He had suffered renal failure and was having a range of complications, said his daughter Candee Butler, who lived next door to him. Elrod was 91.
Elrod was born in Gainesville on March 29, 1924 to Jack and Pauline Gillespie Elrod. His mother died when he was six, and his father raised Jack and his five siblings by himself, his daughter said.
Elrod served in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Teton as a meteorologist in the Pacific Theater in World War II, his son Stephen said. After the war, Elrod returned home and attended art school. He met and married a Breneau College student named Mary Anne Candee, and the couple lived in what is now Sandy Springs. The time he spent in the war was the only time he lived outside of Georgia, Stephen Elrod said.
In 1950, Elrod began working as a cartoonist with Ed Dodd on the “Mark Trail” comic strip, unusual at at the time for its strong environmental theme. Dodd had started the strip, which was said to have been loosely based on the life of U.S. forest ranger Charles Elliott, in 1946.
Elrod took over the rights and sole authorship of the strip when Dodd retired in 1978. Elrod continued the strip until his 90th birthday in 2014. At one time, the strip was distributed to hundreds of newspapers around the world. He was especially proud that it ran in his hometown newspaper, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, his daughter said.
Mr. Elrod also created a family-style cartoon strip, “The Ryatts”, which was based on his own family.
“If something happened to one of us, it would be in the (Ryatts) strip,” said Stephen Elrod.
The family was especially close, and “he loved his grandchildren and great-grandchildren with a fierce heart,” daughter Candee Butler said.
She said he had a kind heart and a gentle spirit: “I don’t remember my father ever saying a bad word about anyone.”
Elrod worked with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Weather Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on several campaigns promoting weather safety, fire prevention and environmental conservation. He received more than 30 conservationist awards from national agencies and private organizations, including the “Take Pride in America” Award from President Ronald Reagan and the Golden Smokey (the Bear) from the USDA Forest Service. His family said he was perhaps proudest of the designation of the “Mark Trail Wilderness” in 1991. The 16,000 acres of the Chattahoochee National Forest includes parts of the Appalachian Trail, which Elrod hiked throughout life. He was pleased to have covered it all at various times, Butler said.
Elrod’s last outing was to another nature center, the Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center in Mansfield, Ga., near Covington, Butler said. That was just a few months ago, she said.
A private memorial service is planned Feb. 20, with interment at a later date. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Chattahoochee Nature Center, Roswell (www.chattnaturecenter.org).
Elrod’s wife of 62 years, Mary Ann Candee Elrod, preceded him in death. In addition to Candee Butler and son Stephen, he is survived by two other sons: Jack, III, of Westchester, Pa. and Tony, of Loganville; 11 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren.
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