John Culver, 80, manager in Daily News, Inquirer circulation departments

J OHN CULVER battled cancer for 10 years, but if you called to find out how he was doing, he'd want to know how you were doing.

If you asked him if he needed anything, he'd ask if you needed anything.

To say John Culver was selfless, generous and compassionate would be understatements. Those words are descriptive, but inadequate. There was no summing up the kind of persona that John Culver presented to the world without getting into superlatives.

John Culver, who held managerial jobs in circulation for the Daily News and Inquirer for 30 years, a former bank executive and a devoted and supportive Catholic, died Aug. 25 after a 10-year battle with cancer. He was 80 and lived in Bensalem, but had lived most of his life in Kensington.

John was a math whiz who would rather be playing with figures, stock quotes, taxes or handicapping horses than watching the TV mysteries that his wife, Bernie, favored.

"He would rather sit there and figure out stuff," said his wife, the former Bernadette Sienko. "I would say, 'Don't you want to watch this?' and he'd say he had something else to do. He'd sit in another room."

After all, John majored in economics at La Salle University, graduating with honors. And he worked in international banking for First Pennsylvania Bank, now Wells Fargo, for 17 years.

He knew figures and he applied his knowledge to his work in the newspapers' circulation department, where calculations of where the papers went and how many were needed were crucial to the job.

"He was a very fine man," said Bob Palmo, retired regional circulation manager for the Daily News and Inquirer. "Everyone who knew him loved him. He was devoted to his wife. He would say, 'She's keeping me alive.' "

"He was fantastic," Bernie said. "He would have given me the world if he could, anything I wanted. He would tell me, 'If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be happy.'

"He enjoyed his work. He liked meeting different people. He liked being involved in everything."

Bob Palmo said that as a supervisor, John was "a fair person. Very understanding."

John started in home delivery for the Daily News and moved up to district manager of two zones. He later moved to head of single-copy sales for both papers, which involved delivering papers to stores and other businesses.

"That meant 240,000 papers total," Bob said.

John's last position was as home-delivery manager in New Jersey for both papers. He retired in 2000.

John was devoted to the National Shrine of St. John Neumann at St. Peter the Apostle Church, 5th Street and Girard Avenue. Its former pastor, the Rev. Kevin Moley, became a good friend. They would get together and banter playfully.

"I appreciated his frankness," said Father Moley, now pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Newton Grove, N.C. "He was not afraid to ask questions about the church, the priesthood. He was honest and aboveboard. I loved John."

John surprised Moley some years back when he wrote a check for $20,000 for the Archdiocese Bishops Fund, knowing that some of the money would come back to the St. John Neumann Shrine.

"He said, 'I want you to know I can make up $20,000, but I can never make up a friendship.'

"He was a dear friend," Moley said. "He would do anything for you."

It was another priest who helped John quit smoking about 25 years ago, his wife said. He was hypnotized by a priest who gave him the word "stop" as a trigger for the hypnosis. So, every time John encountered a stop sign, the spell would kick in. Anyway, it worked.

John was born in Kensington to Catherine and William Culver. He graduated from Northeast Catholic High School and went to La Salle at night after work.

He always said he learned perseverance from his mother. If he failed at some task, she would say, "Do it again," until he succeeded.

John enjoyed keeping up with the stock market, but was reluctant to put much money into it. He was more free with his money when it came to betting on horses. He would visit the area tracks, and as far away as Atlantic City, to test his calculations.

Bob Palmo said John was a man of simple pleasures and modest needs. For instance, he said, John treasured a good greeting card.

"I used to send him Christmas cards with a good message, but I ran out of cards," Bob said. "Next time I saw him, he said, 'What about that beautiful card you sent me?' And I had to go dig one up."

When John retired, fellow employees gave him a bronze statue of a racehorse.

His wife is his only immediate survivor.

Services: Were yesterday. Burial was in Westminster Cemetery, Bala Cynwyd.