John W. Walsh III, aka Captain Jack, a summer resident of Duxbury, died on Sept. 2, at the age of 94 at the Kaplan Family Hospice House in Danvers, surrounded by his family.

Mr. Walsh graduated from Boston University in 1940 with a BS and later with a Masters of Education in Secondary School Counseling. His career as an educator began in 1939 as a teacher/coach at Marshfield High School where he met his future wife, Helen Cora Chase, the home economics teacher and cheerleader coach. Walsh actually proposed to his wife at a restaurant in Snug Harbor that is long-since gone. He served as a physical fitness officer in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II, attaining the rank of Captain. After the war, he taught and coached at several New England private schools until 1952 when he took a job in Melrose.

In addition to working as a teacher, coach and counselor at Melrose High School, Walsh was also a head football coach, track and baseball coach, but when his wife was diagnosed with severe emphysema, he had to minimize his time away from home. He finished his Master’s degree at Boston University and became a guidance counselor, then director of guidance and head counselor until his retirement.

Walsh also spent more than twenty years directing various summer camps in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts accompanied and assisted by his wife and children. From 1955 to 1958 he became the camp director for Camp Chappa Challa, remnants of which can still be seen today on Powder Point. The Walsh family enjoyed three summers in this setting before Mr. Walsh took a job at a summer camp in the mountains of New Hampshire on the advice of his wife’s doctor who was concerned for her failing health. Many years later, he would return to spend summers with his son Fred and family who had moved to Duxbury in 1995.

Mr. Walsh also contributed to local, state and national guidance and counseling associations. He served as President and Secretary-Treasurer of the Greater Boston Guidance Association, President of the Massachusetts School Counselors’ Association, and as a Delegate to the American Personnel and Guidance Association. He retired from Melrose School System in 1981 but soon took another job spending the next 10 years as an admissions counselor for Merrimack College. Following his second retirement he was a life coach to many, including those with Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency, the genetic lung disease from which his late wife died in 1965, and with which three of his four children have been diagnosed.

Mr. Walsh leaves his four children and their spouses:  Susan and Donald Ferro of Hume, Va; John IV and Diane Walsh of Miami, Fla; Fred and Pamela Walsh of Duxbury; and Judith Walsh of Smyrna, Ga; six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. He also leaves a sister, Muriel Cottrell, of Arlington.

A memorial service will be held on Oct. 17 at 10 a.m., St. John’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, followed by a celebration of his life. For more information, call 877-227-7931. Memorial contributions in his name may be made to the: Alpha-1 Foundation, 2937 Southwest 27th Avenue, Suite 302, Miami, FL 33133.