Ron Moffatt: Sault Ste. Marie’s undisputed dad-joke champion

Over the years, Ron Moffatt's cartoons appeared in the Sault Star, Sault This Week and most recently, on SooToday.

To be frank, many of our readers didn't 'get' Ron's dad-joke sense of humour.

But many of us did.

Many of us saw Ron's cartoons for what they were: smiling moments with a kind, humble and much-loved retired school janitor who delighted in making us laugh (or groan) with his weekly Sunday Funny feature.

Ron died on May 13 at age 82, after undergoing surgery in Sudbury.

"It was in the recovery room that his heart gave out," his family wrote in his obituary. 

"It had been a difficult year for Ron health-wise and he was just too tired and weak."

Moffatt kept on drawing comics for SooToday until the end.

In fact, he left us with two final comics.

One will be published on Sunday morning.

The other, originally planned by us to be his final Sunday Funny, appears in the photo gallery at the top of this article.

Coincidentally or not, it deals with death.

Far from being a dad-joke, Ron Moffatt's final comic panel takes a sharp, provocative look at our local doctor shortage.

For a half-century, Ron quietly worked as a caretaker for Algoma District School Board at William Merrifield V.C. Public School, as well as Korah Collegiate, Sir James Dunn and Alexander Henry High School.

For most of those years, he hid a terrible secret from his family and everyone else. 

In September, 1956, at the age of 14, Ron had been wrongfully convicted of murdering a seven-year-old boy on the Canadian National Exhibition grounds.

He spent just under eight months in custody for a crime he didn't commit.

Because he was a juvenile at the time of the offence, Moffatt's name never appeared in newspaper accounts.

Ron spoke to no one about that traumatic experience for 60 years.

In his late 70s, he approached a crime writer named Nate Henley, who published a book in 2018 titled The Boy on The Bicycle: A Forgotten Case of Wrongful Conviction in Toronto.

"This was a gift to Ron," the Moffatt family say in his obituary.

"It was a three-year process for Nate to research and write the book and that time allowed Ron to truly heal. To say this experience shaped Ron’s life is an understatement. 

"The family is eternally grateful to Nate for giving Ron his life back. He spent a portion of his life struggling to make sense of what had happened to him but with grit, tenacity, and a will to survive, he eventually built a good and fulfilling life."

Nate Hendley kindly provided SooToday with these memories today:

I loved working with Ron. He was a kind, thoughtful man with an excellent memory who was willing to share what must have been excruciatingly painful memories with me.

Ron was initially my interview subject, but we gradually became friends. I had the opportunity to meet with Ron and his lovely wife, Debbie, several times. Their company was a joy and my girlfriend, and I loved being around them.

That said, I had no idea who Ron was before he contacted me.

“I am not sure if you would be interested in my story, but I will give you a brief outline and leave it up to you,” wrote Ron in an email dated Sept. 21, 2012.

Ron was aware I was a true-crime writer who had written a book about Steven Truscott (a 14-year-old boy wrongly convicted of murder in smalltown Ontario in 1959). In his email, Ron explained that he too had been wrongly convicted of murder at age 14 in 1956.

Accused of killing a child on the grounds on the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) in Toronto, Ron was subjected to a tough interrogation by two seasoned Toronto detectives at a police station, without a parent or lawyer present.

Coerced into giving a false confession, Ron was convicted in court.

Tragically, the real culprit (sexual predator and serial killer Peter Woodcock) remained at large while Ron was in custody. Woodcock murdered two more children before police realized their error. Ron was acquitted at a subsequent trial. Woodcock was sent to a psychiatric facility where he later murdered a fellow patient while on a day pass.

I read Ron’s account with interest but remained slightly wary. As a true crime writer, people contact me all the time with potential book ideas. Often, these ideas turn out to be little more than conspiracy theories or accounts of minor misdeeds.

I replied to Ron and sent him some questions. When he sent his response, he included scans of old newspaper clippings of his arrest and trial. His name didn’t appear in these clippings (unlike Steven Truscott who was tried as an adult, Ron was tried as a juvenile, so his name went unmentioned in media coverage).

The more we communicated, the more I was convinced Ron was the “real deal” – someone who had suffered a terrible injustice that had been largely forgotten. 

I approached a publisher I worked with called Five Rivers and they agreed a book about Ron was in order. There was a problem; at the time, I was in the middle of writing another book (about cons and hoaxes) for a different publisher. I had to finish this book first before tackling Ron’s story. 

Ron and I remained in communication. I regularly emailed him questions. He would either write down responses or we would go through my questions by phone or Skype. 

At the outset, I warned Ron that I would have to ask tough questions and he would have to be open and honest with me. He was always forthcoming and helpful.

In addition to speaking with Ron, I tracked down newspaper stories, government reports, court and police documents (some of the latter provided by a fellow crime writer) and interviewed other people. 

The cons and hoaxes book was published, then on June 24, 2016, my girlfriend and I finally met Ron and his wife, Debbie in person.

We had lunch at a hotel in Sault Ste. Marie (Ron moved to the 'Soo' decades ago). In between bites, I interviewed Ron again, but we also had time for non-book related conversation.

Finally, in 2018, my book about Ron was published. I considered it my best work to date, mainly because of Ron’s forthrightness.  

Ron attended the official book launch on August 14, 2018 at Toronto Reference Library. There was an audible gasp from the crowd when I introduced him as a special surprise guest. Ron came to the front and talked about his run-in with the law, and the years it took for him to recover. 

As always, Ron was gracious, soft-spoken, and insightful. We continued to meet, socially and professionally.

There was a second book launch in Sault. Ste. Marie that was very well-attended. My girlfriend and I had the pleasure of dining with Ron, Debbie, friends, and family prior to the Sault launch. We all traded laughs, stories, and reminiscences. Ron and Debbie were warm and friendly throughout the evening. 

On October 3, 2018, Ron took part in a Wrongful Conviction Day event hosted by Innocence Canada in the tiny confines of Osgoode Hall in Toronto.

Innocence Canada is an organization that tries to rectify wrongful convictions. Although Innocence Canada hadn’t worked on Ron’s case, they included him in a parade of exonerees and wrongly convicted people and outlined his story to the crowd.

Innocence Canada also included my book about Ron in gift bags for all those in attendance. Seeing Ron receive such recognition was one of the proudest moments of my professional life.

To me, Ron was always the epitome of grace. While clearly upset about his treatment by authorities (which included a harsh stay at the now closed Ontario Training School for Boys in Bowmanville, Ont.), Ron wasn’t bitter.

He frequently expressed how happy he was with his current life and the love he had for his family. His equanimity amazed me. Had I gone through what he did, I think it would have embittered me for life. 

In parting, I want to say thank you Ron, for entrusting me with your story and asking me to share it with the world.

It was an honour to know you and become your friend.