Reginald John Day

January 5, 1931 - December 8, 2022

Reginald John Day was born in London on January 5, 1931 to Frederick Day and Alice May Kirby, one of five children. He rose out of shopkeepers and printers who had lived for generations on the East End of London. Both his parents and their parents before them were born in Bethnal Green, the most renowned slum in Europe in the 19th century. It was there that Jack the Ripper and Karl Marx plied their trades and foundlings worked in factories, and the air hung black over chimneys and churches. But tracing the family line back, there are silver polishers and silk weavers but also lords and ladies with French names, and before them Vikings. In castles and in London tenements, his ancestors were English; despite having lived two thirds of his life as an American, R. John Day drank his tea and read his Churchill,and to the very end was an Englishman.

During World War II under the Camps Act, intended to move London children to the safety of the countryside away from the Blitz, John and his brother Lenny were sent to Kennylands, a boarding school in Oxfordshire. It was here that he stole paper and pencils from the art room. The art master told him, there is no need to steal, I’ll give you all the paper you need. For the majority of his life, until he could no longer see to draw in his 80s, he made meticulous paintings of London, of birds and flowers, and men in uniform.

In the ‘50s he served in the Royal Engineers, part of the British military. Although his unit was bound for the Korean War, at the last minute -- due to his photography talents -- John was allowed to remain in England to take photographs on the homefront of military balls, tanks, portable bridges and such things as shoes designed for walking across the swampy terrain of war.

John met his future wife, an Irish nurse named Esther Moloney, while photographing an engagement party. They married in 1959 and welcomed their first child, Deirdre, in 1960. She was followed by two sisters, Patricia in 1962 and Jacqueline in 1967. He and Esther were inseparable for the next 63 years, traveling together across the world. They rode elephants in Thailand, saw Roman ruins in Turkey, and explored the markets of Ecuador (among many other travels).

After being offered a position at a company in Rochester, New York, John took his family and his graphic design skills to America in 1968, sailing on one of the last transatlantic voyages of the renowned SS United States, arriving at the West Side piers of New York City. In Rochester, his daughters were joined by a son, John. For many years, he led his department at Rochester Monotype before leaving to launch his own successful graphic design company, John Day Colorcomp, in the early 1980s. Throughout his life, he renovated houses (and then re-renovated them) in England, in Rochester, in Addison NY, and in Maryland, where he spent the last decades of his life. Along the way he also designed and built dollhouses, birdhouses, rocking horses, whirligigs, cabinets, tables -- and just about anything anyone asked him to make (even bricks). John retired in the early 1990s, turning full time to pursuits such as reading, traveling and, of course, making things.

John continued to read the newspaper daily and to envision renovations up until the last. He will be remembered for his humor and kindness.

John is survived by Esther, and by his children Deirdre Day of Rosendale, New York; Jackie Day of Boonton, New Jersey; Patricia Day of Rockville, Maryland; and John Day of Surfside Beach, South Carolina; his sister, Rene Day of Kent, England; and five grandchildren, Sinead and Rory MacLeod, Zoe and Skylar Packel, and Claudia Sanz. He was predeceased by his brothers Lenny, Freddy, and Arthur. In lieu of giving flowers, the family asks that those who are able instead make a donation to the Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless.

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