John F. Mathers | Mechanic, D-Day vet, 83

John F. Mathers, 83, formerly of Willow Grove, a retired sheet-metal mechanic and World War II veteran who loved to play Santa Claus for neighborhood children, died of esophageal cancer May 16 at his home in Doylestown.

Mr. Mathers graduated from Roman Catholic High School in Philadelphia. During World War II, he was in the Navy and served on a landing craft carrying troops ashore at Normandy on D-Day. He remained in the U.S. Navy Reserve until 1955 as a mechanic with a fighter squadron stationed at Willow Grove Naval Air Station.

Mr. Mathers worked as a sheet-metal mechanic for a manufacturer in Philadelphia. He then worked for 15 years for Leeds & Northrup in North Wales, a manufacturer of precision instruments. He retired in 1993.

For more than 70 years he was active with the Boy Scouts - as a scout, troop leader in Hatboro, and as a district commissioner. In 1977, he received the Silver Beaver Award for his contributions to scouting. He donated his collection of scouting memorabilia to the Bucks County Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

Mr. Mathers was president of the Upper Moreland Township Municipal Authority, which developed plans for the new Municipal Building in the 1960s.

For 50 years he participated in the Lower Moreland Santa Claus project - dressing as Santa Claus with other neighborhood men and visiting households that had young children.

Since 1946, Mr. Mathers had been married to Mary Elizabeth Schuyler Mathers. They were longtime members of the Dixie Derbys' Square Dance Club in Hatboro and traveled to 16 national square-dance conventions around the country. During those trips, they camped out rather than stay in hotels, their daughter Elizabeth Freymen said.

In addition to his wife and daughter, Mr. Mathers is survived by another daughter, Kathlene Wesley; sons Michael and James R.; two sisters; seven grandchildren; and two great-grandsons.

A memorial Mass will be said at 10 a.m. Saturday at St. John Bosco Church, where Mr. Mathers was a founding member, 235 E. County Line Rd., Hatboro. He will be buried at sea.