John Fairbairn Jenkisson ’33 died on October 7, 2005, in La Canada Flintridge, California.

Born on May 15, 1911, in Chicago, IL, he prepared for college at Deerfield- Shields High School in Highland Park, IL, and became a member of Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity at Bowdoin.

Following his graduation in 1933, he was in the insurance business in Chicago until 1943, when he became a newspaper reporter with the Springfield Union in Massachusetts, followed by a year as a reporter with the New York World Telegram. He joined LIFE Magazine in 1945 and remained with the magazine until his retirement in 1965.

He wrote for most of LIFE’s editorial departments and ran several of them as an associate editor until 1949, when he became a bureau chief, based in Paris, France, and covering most of continental Europe and North Africa. He was successively an editor in the National Affairs Department, edition editor with LIFE International, LIFE bureau chief on the West Coast, and senior editor and director of special publishing projects, based in New York City. He retired in 1965. He edited the 1965 LIFE book, Winston Churchill: Giant of the Century.

He was married in 1937 to Martha Bray, who predeceased him, and is survived by a daughter, Nancy J. Attanasio of La Canada Flintridge, CA.