HE served his country in many capacities — Anglican priest; custos rotolorum of Kingston; deputy governor general — and was enlisted in the national honours society as a result. But it was perhaps in his contribution to the people of Allman Town, whom he served for more than 40 years, that Reverend Canon Weeville McHervin Gordon was most impactful.

To them, none of the titles mattered. They simply called him ‘Rev G’ or ‘Rector’. In their eyes he was father, friend and mentor.

“My mother have 17 pickney and is Weeville Gordon christen all of dem. He was the father that I didn’t have,” Suelen McLean told the Sunday Observer yesterday.

“Him look out for me, give me lunch money to go school and then him come back now and send my kids to school. My son is (now) 18 and is him pay him school fee every year.

“He was like a mentor to me, always encouraging. He and my aunt Ava were closer. He was like a father to her but she’s overseas, so I’m representing the family,” said Shari Cargill.

McLean and Cargill were part of the congregation that spilled over into the adjoining church hall and under a large tent in the parking lot at St Matthew’s Church, where final rites were offered for Canon Gordon, who died November 20, 10 days after his 85th birthday.

Many other residents, dressed casually in housedresses, jeans and flip-flops, lined the former Hitchen’s Street in the vicinity of the church and observed the proceedings from there. Everyone you talked with sang his praises.

“It’s beyond words to express what the loss mean to Allman Town,” said Leroy Morgan. “He was like a father here. He always try to help. Most people here, especially the younger ones, is him christen dem.

One of those he christened was Doreen Stennett, who, accompanied by Veronica Robinson and Tamara Jackson, turned up to say farewell.

“Nobody cyaan replace him. Nobody cyaan walk inna rector shoes,” Stennett said.

Added Robinson: “He was everybody daddy. He was beloved in Allman Town by all of us.”

“Next to his service to God and the church, family was everything to him,” said his daughter Dr Angela Gordon-Stair. That family, she said, extended far beyond his wife Ellonia and their three biological children — Peter-John Gordon, Flavia Gunter and herself.

“Our house was always full. In Grange Hill, Westmoreland, there were many who came to live with us in order to attend the Grange Hill Primary School… When we moved to Kingston, ours was a house where cousins or the children of family friends came to attend high school or to find their first job in the city,” she added.

Yesterday his family, friend and, parishioners, described the late priest as affable, patient, tolerant, non-condemnatory, an outstanding public servant, a dedicated community activist, a man of honour, a good big brother, a lover of ice-cream, and a prankster with an often irreverent sense of humour.

Dr Gordon-Stair gave examples of the latter trait. She talked about the time he asked his grand niece, “How do you make holy water?” and answered his own question: “By boiling the hell out of it.” She also talked about his preaching to congregations of goats as a boy, him chasing her with a toad and throwing ice cold water over the shower curtain on her, and him benefitting from the non-existent rat in the ceiling. There was also the time he gave his mother the shock of her life by leaving the hospital — where he was admitted with a broken arm — without permission, to go frolic in the sea nearby.

“Dad loved to laugh and to make others laugh,” she said.

“By the way he lived his life, he taught us many lessons. One of the most important was that one does not have to be important or wealthy to make a difference… The other is that all people have value regardless of their socio-economic background, level of education, gender, or age,” she added.

In the homily, Bishop of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, the Rt Rev’d Alfred Reid lauded his late colleague’s contribution to nation building, but said it was his character as a priest that defined him.

“Based on the accolades bestowed on him by the secular press and the many unsolicited and spontaneous tributes paid by all and sundry, we would agree that he certainly ranked with, if not above, some of those who have been accorded official funerals at the National Arena,” he said, adding that it was however appropriate for the service to be held at St Matthew’s.

Tributes for Canon Gordon, who retired from official duties in 2002, also came from the Kingston chapter of the Lay Magistrates’ Association of Jamaica, the Anglican Diocese, Mico University, the St Elizabeth Homecoming Foundation and from granddaughter Adria in the form of a journal entry reprinted in the funeral programme.

“Grandpa, I won’t say good-bye to you. Instead, I say, see you later. Have fun walking again, eating ice cream, watching CNN and chatting on the phone,” a section of it read.

Among those in attendance at the church were Governor General Sir Patrick Allen, former Governor General Sir Kenneth Hall and Mrs Hall, Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller and her husband Errald Miller and Member of Parliament for Central Kingston, Ronald Thwaites. The Prime Minister was represented by minister with responsibility for information, Daryl Vaz.