For several decades, Harry Lecky has shared his love of music with many fellow musicians.
On Thursday at Ferguson’s Funeral Home in O’Leary, several of those musician friends will gather to play for Lecky and to remember him.
Lecky, a lifelong resident of Milburn, passed away on Tuesday. He turned 90 last April.
“I think he’d love it. He’d love to be there with us,” said neighbor and friend Stanley Coughlin. He’s anticipating 35 to 40 musicians and friends who have played music with Lecky over the years, will gather to play music, unplugged, near the funeral home’s fireplace.
Coughlin said Lecky’s relatives felt the jam session at the funeral home would be a fitting tribute to a man who loved music and who was a friend to all. His repertoire included jigs and reels and gospel hymns.
Coughlin refers to Lecky’s death as a great loss.
Lecky was a long-time member of the Warren Leard group that played together all over the Maritimes.
Leard said Lecky was very much a gentleman.
“Everybody seemed to like Harry. He had a nice way. A smooth way with people. He was very well-liked all over.”
Leard, Coughlin and Lecky were part of a group that played regularly at the Alberton Arts and Heritage Centre. They played as recently as last Saturday night.
“I give special thanks to Harry: all the nice gatherings we had together. I feel very sorry about his death,” Leard said. “I’m going to miss him terribly.”
Island singer-songwriter Meaghan Blanchard shared a social media tribute to her Milburn neighbuor who she’d come to know since moving to the community three years ago.
Lecky, she said “was such a beautiful, sharp, musical, old soul".
“Have you ever met someone who you felt like you've known forever? Maybe in another life? That was Harry. He was my dear friend and I'm going to miss him so much.”
Blanchard posted that she’s thankful she got to meet him.
“More than anything, I just hope he knew how loved he really was and is.”
Coughlin said one of Lecky’s highlights of his final month was a visit by Blanchard and her husband, Thomas Webb, and of being recorded playing for one of Blanchard’s songs.
“I guess he said he’s been playing since he was a kid, eight or nine years old,” Coughlin said of his friend’s lifelong connection to music and the fiddle.
Another friend and musician and Ceilidh Brae band leader Gerald McNally said Lecky was "a great friend to everybody he played music with."
“He was dependable. It wouldn’t matter if it was day or night or 3 o’clock in the morning. You could wake him up and he’d go with you.”
Musicians tell of having attended jam sessions at Lecky’s home. All it took was for someone to show up with a musical instrument for Lecky to open up his fiddle case.
“I’ve seen as high as eight of us there, around the kitchen, playing. It was pretty full,” said Coughlin, who was in that kitchen singing while Lecky played on Monday afternoon.
The wake for Harry Lecky will be held at Ferguson’s Funeral Home and Chapel, O’Leary, Thursday, Jan. 30, 5-8 p.m.
His funeral will be at St. Anthony’s Roman Catholic Church, Woodstock, Friday, Jan. 31,10:30 a.m.
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