Mentally and physically Father Jerome Pearson had been a wreck for some years before he died - a wreck which broke up slowly, painfully, piecemeal, like a stranded ship at the mercy of wind and waves. It was a piteous ending for a man like him, always full of life and energy, ever young in mind and manner, so obtrusively cheerful, brim full of fresh ideas and plans for the future. Doubtless he had his hours of depression - reaction of some kind there must have been - but they were never in evidence; he was too kindly and considerate to serve up his low spirits and ill-humour for the entertainment of his friends. We knew him well - one side of him, at least - the one which was always in the sunshine. He was not, however, an optimist; much of his conversation was a breezy criticism or a good-natured grumble; but this was invariably in defence of some opinion or theory or person that he thought to be misjudged or ill-used.
He could grow eloquent on two subjects: first, in praise of the mediaevalism of the Pugin school, concerning itself mainly with the Gothic revival in architecture, ritual and chant, and, secondly, in the chivalrous attempt to win sympathy for something or somebody out of fashion, out of favour or out at elbow. In his athletic days - he was a superb football player, and was good, if not excellent, at most games - he liked, and schemed, to be included in the weaker side, and was invariably at his best when trying to snatch for it an unexpected victory. In later years, only his patent loyalty to the Church and the Order saved him from trouble through the indiscriminate identification of himself with lost causes, or because of a generous, if thoughtless and useless, interference on behalf of people very properly and justly under a cloud. It was generally enough to enlist his outspoken sympathy that they had somehow got themselves into a scrape.
Father Jerome did very good work on the mission in Liverpool (at St Mary’s and St Anne’s), at Ormskirk, in Cumberland, on the east coast at Bedlington, and, in later years, at Barton-on-Humber and Easingwold. But he has left no notable achievement behind him, and he will be best remembered for a warm-hearted loyalty to his friends, and for many thoughtful and unexpected acts of kindness - trivial, perhaps, in themselves, ill-judged, perhaps, at times - which brought comfort and encouragement to some who had need of it, if they did not rightly deserve it.
He died on January 8, 1913, in the sixty-ninth year of his age, the forty-ninth of his religious profession and the forty-second of the priesthood. May he rest in peace.
Ralph Jerome PEARSON 8 January 1913
1844 Born at Brownedge
Educ at Ampleforth
1863 29 Sep Habit Belmont for St Lawrences
1864 24 Nov Simple Vows Prior B Vaughan
1868 11 Jan Solemn Vows Ampleforth Prior B Prest
1867 17 Feb Minor Orders Belmont Bishop Brown
1868 27 Dec Subdeacon
1871 26 Feb Deacon
1871 23 Dec Priest
1872 St Anne's Liverpool
St Mary's Liverpool
1876 Ormskirk
1877 Cowpen
1885 Easingwold
1889 Frizington
1890 Warwick Bridge
1891 Burton
1892 Easingwold
1907 23 Feb Ampleforth Abbey
13 Jul Warwick Bridge Assistant
1909 Ampleforth invalided
1910 Jul Removed to Nursing Home St Mary's Hall Newton Heath Manchester where died
1913 8 Jan Buried at Brownedge