John Jefferson, 1921-2018: Spitfire pilot ranByWard Market's gritty Château Lafeyette

John Jefferson flew fighter planes in the Second World War. Decades later, he managed the Château Lafayette in the ByWard Market in a time when The Laff was the place to booze and brawl.
Jefferson died Feb. 17 in Saanichton, B.C., at the age of 96, still mentally clear. He had always considered himself a very lucky man. 
The eldest of six children, Jefferson was born in 1921, in Schenectady, New York, and grew up on a farm in Nova Scotia. With the coming of the war, he renounced his A