Farewell, Never Goodbye: Maxwell Barrington Nelson – Educator, Financial Planner, Author, Columnist, and Editor-at-Large of Black Maple Magazine Passes at 84
By Charmaine A. Nelson
My father’s name was Maxwell Errington Barrington Nelson. He dropped the Errington when he started his studies at Mico College because he thought the second middle name was too pretentious. Dad was born in a small village near Oracabessa, Saint Mary in Jamaica on 18 June 1941. He passed on Christmas Day 2025 in Brockville, Ontario, Canada. My dad is survived by his wife Tekla Nelson, his ex-wife Barbara Elaine Nelson, his children, sons-in-law, grandchildren, and legions of friends.
Sadly, we have no baby or childhood photos of him. He was raised by his beloved mother, Hilda Maud Nelson, but also by his Aunt Amy who was a second mother with whom he lived from about the age of six until he was fourteen, and his caring and tender-hearted Granpa Harry, whose real name was Samuel.
My dad was a lifelong student, an ace student, and brilliantly-minded person with the ability to learn and perform at the highest levels. In a Jamaica that did not provide high school education for everyone; to finish his high school studies he completed correspondence courses through Wolsey Hall in England between 1959 and 1961. Today, in an age when my university students have almost all of their course texts at their fingertips in a digitized form online, we need to consider the extraordinary discipline and resolve that sending away for, awaiting (by traditional mail), studying and completing such courses demanded at that time. Although he was admitted to Mico College (the oldest teacher training college in the western hemisphere), dad decided to stay and work as a teacher in the Jamaican countryside because he did not have the funds to attend, that is until a last-minute miraculous letter arrived letting him know that he had a full scholarship. When he tried to request the donor’s name to write a thank-you letter, he was informed that the person wished to remain anonymous and that they had committed this generous act without expectation of ever being thanked. That was a lesson that my dad absorbed and passed on to me on countless occasions.
Maxwell B. Nelson (front row, second from the left)
My dad and mom, Barbara Elaine Nelson, bravely moved to Canada from Jamaica in 1969, first settling in Toronto and then moving to Oshawa, Whitby, and Ajax in the Durham Region. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s they were the bank, mortgage advisors, loan officers, tutors, typists, essayists, instructors, and all-around support system for countless family members, Jamaican aunts and uncles, and co-workers in their community, often without warning and without thanks. My memory as a child was of a household where anyone could and did drop in without notice and where my mom constantly had to set another plate for dinner, my dad had to edit another essay, and my mom had to type another paper (or dissertation), long after they had come home from work. Our home was often more like a drop-in centre and looking back I wonder how either of them got anything done for themselves or for each other. My parents were generous to a fault, optimistic without evidence, and willing to try anything, from a vending machine business to becoming landlords.
My dad was also a disciplined and ambitious student for whom learning was a lifetime commitment. After Mico came an Bachelor of Science in Economics at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, then a Masters of Education, a Masters of Industrial Relations, a Masters of Business Administration at the University of Toronto, and his CMA and CFP certifications, all through part time study while maintaining a job, first as a teacher, then as a Vice Principal within an institutionally racist and oppressive Old White Boys Club of a work place in which he was repeatedly denied promotion to Principal.
But my dad, was nothing if not a fighter and one of his defining qualities was that he absolutely detested injustice! That meant not just noticing and commenting on it but fighting it. And fight dad did for a decade to hold the Durham Board of Education accountable for the systemic racism (and sexism) which permeated his workplace. To do so, he understood that he would have to sacrifice his career as a teacher and Vice Principal and start a completely new career in his forties! Dad understood all too well that he was fighting for those who would come after him, many of whom will never know his name. I do not say this lightly. That fight, that battle, surely took years off my father’s life. We did not know it then, but today it is settled science that racism manifests as stress in the body and stress over time takes its toll in various ways.
Banner celebrating Maxwell B. Nelson Leadership Award (2024)
That is why I am so proud that, three years ago I approached that same board, now with a black female Director of Education, to recount the history of my dad’s battle, the outcome of which led to the ability of people like herself to get the opportunities they had earned, opportunities which my dad, despite being the most educated and the most qualified person in the board during his years of service, was never given.
Maxwell B. Nelson Leadership Award Ceremony (2024)
I asked her to “give my dad his flowers while he’s still alive,” and I am so happy that they created the Maxwell B. Nelson Leadership Award for Vision, Courage, and Sacrifice, presenting him with the inaugural award in 2024 and inviting him to present the first two awards, in 2024 and 2025, to deserving recipients who exemplified these qualities.
Camille Williams-Taylor (Director of Education), Maxwell B. Nelson, and Tekla Nelson
at the Maxwell B. Nelson Leadership Award Ceremony (2024)
My dad was a well-rounded person. He was a joy to be around and he quite literally lit up a room with his laughter, great sense of humour, and incredible stories. He loved music and was my teacher in all things Reggae.
Robert Nesta Marley (b. 6 February 1945 – d. 11 May 1981)
This of course meant Bob Marley, but also Peter Tosh, Ken Boothe, Toots and the Maytals, Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaacs, Culture, and Joe Gibbs. Then later Beres, Sanchez, Freddie, Luciano and more. Dad also schooled me in early African American Soul and R & B greats like Ray Charles and Nat King Cole.
Toots and the Maytals “Reggae got Soul” (1976)
But he was also unafraid to listen to new things. When my Dominican husband, Ellis Ramirez Ortiz, introduced him to Reggaeton – Latin Reggae – dad would groove to the rhythm and tell him to turn it up. (Bass is a necessity of Jamaicans and Dominicans alike!)
Maxwell B. Nelson and Ellis Ramirez Ortiz
Although my husband is over forty years his junior and Spanish-speaking from the Dominican Republic, not English-speaking from Jamaica, they bonded over food, sports, culture, and a shared Caribbean heritage in a way that was beautiful to watch. In my husband, who called him Father, my dad got a son, not a son-in-law; someone who shared his Caribbean upbringing, the wild outdoor life of young boys who got into absolutely everything their mothers expressly warned them not to, including going to the river!
One of my earliest memories of my dad is dancing in the front living room of our Park Road South home in Oshawa, Ontario with mom and my older sister. We were standing on our parents’ feet as they moved to the rhythm of Ernie Smith’s Reggae song “Duppy Gun Man” (1974). Duppy is the Jamaica word for a ghost. I was actually quite afraid because, even at four years old, I knew what a duppy was. Dad had loads of Jamaica duppy stories!
Dad was also the judge of many a dancing contest between me and my sister in the 1970s and 80s. But by then, we insisted on a disco soundtrack and dad obliged. (He was once the co-owner of a record store by the way!) Dad was very tolerant and allowed us to play all our favourites after which he ensured that we each won an equal number of contests, always. It took me years to figure out that this was by design.
My dad also taught me about Old Hollywood and over the years, we delighted in watching classics together that featured stars like Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, and Robert Redford. He loved a good cowboy movie.
“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” (1966)
Dad was also a cheerleader and a tireless support system. Throughout my varsity volleyball career, first in high school and later for Concordia University (Montreal), dad and mom logged thousands of miles travelling between Durham Region, Ontario and Montreal and were most times, the only fans in the gym to cheer on our women’s varsity team. My dad was also a dedicated sports fan who taught us the ins and outs of American football (NFL) back in the heyday of the Dallas Cowboys, Pittsburgh Steelers rivalry. But we also watched NBA Basketball, MLB Baseball, track and field, and in those early years, NFL Hockey.
Maxwell B. Nelson at the Naismith Basketball Hall Fame, Springfield, Massachusetts
One of my best childhood memories was the year he coached our softball team. I must have been in my early teens. My parents planned our family vacation around the team schedule. Dad was a great coach. We won it all that season, of course! My dad was also a great athlete from youth, playing cricket, and running track.
Maxwell B. Nelson, #11, and his teammates in Jamaica (back row, second from right)
Later, on the job as a teacher, he played softball in the work league at the Whitby Psychiatric Hospital wearing #44 for one of his favourite players, Reggie Jackson, and hitting quite a few home runs himself. Dad was also a student of sports history and history, talking frequently about sports legends like Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, and Jamaican heroes like Marcus Garvey and Paul Bogle.
Legendary MLB Baseball Hall of Famer, Reginald (Reggie) Martinez Jackson (b. 18 May 1946)
Dad prioritized our education and ensured that we knew that good was never good enough. The grade of “A” elicited the question, “what happened to the plus?”. High achievement and university were givens, not questions. What he was teaching me was to strive and to set an internal barometre where excellence was normal and expected.
Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. (b. 17 August 1887 – d. 10 June 1940)
When I came home from university and announced that I was switching my major to Art History, like most people of colour immigrant parents, dad was perplexed and disconcerted. Actually, as a true Jamaica, he was vex! But in the end, what he actually wanted to know was that I had a clear educational and career path ahead of me and that I would be able to take care of myself after he was gone. It was my mom who reminded him, “she’s been drawing and painting since she was a child, she took art class until grade thirteen, art is in her.” Dad became one of my biggest supporters and he read almost as many of my publications as my mom.
After his career as a teacher and a Vice Principal, then as a successful financial planner, my dad did not really retire. His teaching continued with his work with me on my online platform Black Maple Magazine of which he was also a huge fan and supporter. But dad was also an author, columnist, and the editor-at-large. With Max’s Grammar Corner he gave us all the gift of proper English grammar, a topic about which he was extremely passionate. Dad abhorred hearing people, especially news broadcasters, butcher the English language! People who received strong schooling in Jamaica in my dad’s generation have a command of the English language that rivalled those trained in Britain. In his regular column, Max’s Pearls of Wisdom, beginning in January 2023, dad generously shared his knowledge and sagacity in the fourteen articles we were able to publish before his passing. His topics of choice included pedagogy and childhood literacy, black entrepreneurship, the need for black parents to participate fully in the educational lives of their children, and tributes to his tender-hearted Grandpa Harry and his beloved Aunt Amy. Bravely too, he wrote a three part series, called The Old White Boys Club, recounting his experiences of racial discrimination at the Durham Board of Education and generously sharing the lessons he had gained from surviving that experience.
My dad had two brothers on his mother’s side and a sister and several brothers on his father’s side. On the father side that was quite wealthy and white passing, although he was excluded from the wealth and privilege of his brothers (all of whom attended prestigious high schools in Jamaica) it was my dad alone who attended university. My dad read the bible, not sometimes, not when he felt like it, but every night, every single night! As it says in Psalm 118:22, the stone that the builder refused, shall be the head cornerstone. Initially, rejected by his father as the outside child, my dad became the head cornerstone, and being the man that he was, he forgave his father for his tremendous failings.
My father loved and respected his mother deeply, and I believe that Grandma Hilda Maud Nelson was there to enfold him in her loving embrace alongside Grandpa Samuel known as Grandpa Harry (her father, my dad’s grandfather), when he passed on Christmas Day. It is prophetic that the last article I asked dad to write, the last one we published before he passed, was entitled, The True Meaning of Christmas, his favourite holiday.
I do not believe dad would have ever chosen to leave us on Christmas Day, so this was perhaps a decision that was out of his hands. I do not believe he wanted, that is the incarnation known as Maxwell Barrington Nelson, to go right now. I know this because I have had many conversations with him, recent conversations, in which he promised me that he had every intention of living to at least one hundred years old because he wanted to beat his brother Carl who died in his late nineties. Well, sadly for all of us who loved him so dearly, he has left us at eighty-four. What I do know though, is that if this was his time, dad was ready. He was at peace. His soul was at peace.
My dad’s incredible legacy will live on in his family, in scores of students, in his writings and teachings, and in all those who embrace his lesson to act courageously and for the good of others in the face of injustice. His legacy will also live on in Black Maple Magazine. My dad wrote far faster than I could publish, so we are blessed that there are yet more Pearls of Wisdom to come from him!
I do not know exactly how I’ll get along without my dad who was much more than a father to me. He was my confidant, intellectual sparring partner, cheerleader, inspiration, hero, coach, mentor, editor-at-large, and my friend. He is irreplaceable in my life the way you can’t replace the sun or the moon. My hope is that the ache in my soul will dull over time and become bearable and that, as he promised me, he will never leave me, but become an angel on my shoulder, guiding me and cheering me on from the other side, until we meet again. Love you dad!
Maxwell B. Nelson and Charmaine A. Nelson at Harvard University (2017)