The world is a better place because John Blaine Mahany lived here for 92 love-filled years. He was born the 10th of November, 1930 in Minnewauken, North Dakota to parents James Mahany and Lelah Kiblinger. John’s early years in a small settlement of only 350 people alongside his brother, Harold, taught him the value of hard work and perseverance. He carried these qualities with him, instilled them in his family, and made them part of his enduring legacy.

John traveled west to California as a teenager in the 1940s. In stark contrast to the frozen northern tier, he found his place in the warm embrace of sunny Southern California where he lived the rest of his life. He worked as a delivery man, a photographer’s apprentice, and as a hand in Hughes Aircraft’s factory…often carrying more than one of these jobs on the same day. He loved the industriousness of the city. It was also in this time that he found something he loved even more. John found Marilyn, the woman who became his wife at only fifteen years of age herself. They fell in love and married. In the early 1950s, they started a family. His daughter, Jackie, along with sons, John and Don, made the Mahany family whole.

Marilyn found work teaching kindergarten, and John made his way through the fire academy in the first step that would begin his career in the fire service. John moved through the ranks, first as a firefighter, then an Engineer. He promoted to Captain and ultimately to Battalion Chief with the City of Santa Ana. The fire service became part of his identity. Some of his most cherished life-long friends were firefighters. He took great pride in serving his community and helping to lead a department that held a special place in his heart.

During these same decades in Santa Ana, John and Marilyn watched their children grow, marry, and begin their own lives. Don followed his dad into a career in the fire service. John moved to Yucca Valley where he opened his own plumbing company. Jackie moved north to the Mojave Desert. And when the elder John retired, he moved north as well, settling into his beloved home on the water in the small community of Silver Lakes. Grand children, Linda, John, Billy, Bobby, Brian, and Jana followed, each becoming John’s next source of immense pride. His grandkids called him Pop, a name that would stay with him until his final moments on Earth. John would later say that of all the wonderful experiences he had, the years spent with his young grandchildren were his most treasured. He taught them to hunt, fish, and explore. He encouraged them through college and their own career ambitions. He watched them grow and he loved them dearly.

And yet even in these family-filled years of retirement, John’s sense of responsibility for his community remained strong. He championed support for a new fire station in Silver Lakes, ultimately garnering the county’s backing, helping to train an all-volunteer crew, and establishing San Bernardino County Fire Department’s “Station 4” to protect several neighboring remote desert towns. Today, this station has a full paid crew and touts one of California’s largest response areas, owing largely to John’s leadership, passion, and commitment.

But life also changed dramatically for John in these years when Marilyn died unexpectedly in 1997. Absent his first true love by his side, John wandered the American West, visiting friends in Colorado and Alaska, searching for grounding and purpose knowing God held the ultimate plan. And God had a plan indeed. Any of us is lucky if we find true love once. John would often say he was the luckiest person on Earth, especially when he talked about Sally Kaminksy. The story of how they met following the death of Sally’s beloved husband, how they found companionship in one another, and how they fell in love can only be explained through divine design. John and Sally married and remained by each other’s side for more than two decades until the day he died.

John and Sally became the patriarch and matriarch of a wonderful blended family like none other. John adored Sally’s sons and daughter in law: Scott, Howard, and Lisa. Nick and Adam became shared grandchildren between the two. And together they watched nine great grandchildren begin their own journeys. Abbey, Tyler, Blaine, Shelby, Bowie, Caden, Breken, Lincoln, and Torin found warmth, love, and pride indescribable to anyone except those who have felt it first-hand.

Whether you call him John, Chief, Dad, or Pop, this extraordinary man filled our world with more pride, persistence, love, and compassion than any man’s lifetime share. He was the common-man’s hero to those who knew him. He was a friend, even to those he didn’t know at all. His legacy will endure in his beloved family, his lifelong contributions to his communities, and the connectedness he created everywhere he went. The world is a better place because John Mahany was here. And today, God smiles because heaven opened its gates to an angel who lived with gentleness, humility, strength, passion, and pride.

Please join us for a celebration of John’s life on the 17th of October at 11:30AM at Fairhaven Cemetery, 1702 Fairhaven Ave, Santa Ana, CA.

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