John Edward Reagan (July 13, 1883 – May 18, 1941) was an American salesman. He was the father of future U.S. president Ronald Reagan.

Ancestry

Jack's paternal grandfather, Michael O'Regan, was a native of County Tipperary, Ireland. O'Regan worked as a tenant farmer during his early years in Ireland, before he moved to London in 1852. While living there, O'Regan married an Irish refugee named Catherine Mulcahey, and anglicized his family surname to "Reagan" before emigrating to Carroll County, Illinois in 1856. John Michael, their son, became a grain elevator farmer, and married Jenny Cusick in 1878. Cusick was born in Canada, but like John Michael, her parents came from Ireland. Their son, John Edward "Jack," was born five years later, in 1883.

Life and career

At the time of his second son Ronald's birth in 1911, the 27-year-old Jack was working at a store in Tampico, Illinois. He went on to work as a traveling salesman during Ronald's childhood. Politically, he was a populist Democrat, supporting economically progressive policies such as financial support for the working poor, trust-busting, child labor laws, a minimum wage, and progressive taxation. From his Irish heritage he inherited a dislike of the British Empire. He was a keen supporter of the United States' involvement in World War I and attempted to enlist. He was strongly opposed to the Ku Klux Klan due to his Catholic heritage, but also due to the Klan's antisemitism and racism. Reagan was a member of the Catholic men's organization the Knights of Columbus, according to an address given to the group by his son, President Ronald Reagan in 1986. Reagan died on May 19, 1941, at the age of 57 after a series of heart attacks. It has been suggested that he might have survived if a nearby ambulance had been allowed to cross out of their service territory. This possibility may have been one reason that Ronald Reagan, as governor of California, signed into law the Wedworth-Townsend Paramedic Act of 1970, authorizing the first paramedic program in the United States.