Biography: John Henry “Jack” Bornhofen, 99, died peacefully  on April 22, 2025.
 
Born to Kathryn and Harry Bornhofen in 1925, Jack and his two brothers grew up on Glenlake Avenue on the north side of Chicago as members of St. Gertrude Parish. His father and uncles ran a small grocery in the neighborhood. Jack graduated from Loyola Academy in 1943, attended Northwestern University through the V-12 Navy College Training Program and served in the Navy near the end of World War II. He obtained a mechanical engineering degree from Iowa State in 1949 but quickly decided on another course of study: medicine. A member of the class of 1954 at Loyola University’s Stritch School of Medicine, he served his residency at the University of Minnesota, where he specialized in pediatrics and then — a field that was new at the time — pediatric neurology.
 
It was in Minneapolis that Jack met his future wife, Missy Block, then of Washington, D.C., when she visited her sister, Helen, who was married to Jack’s good friend, J.T. Jabbour. Jack and Missy were married in August 1961 at the University of Notre Dame and lived briefly in Minneapolis and Fort Worth before settling in Little Rock in the summer of 1963. Recruited to be the state’s first pediatric neurologist by Dr. Ted Panos, Jack served on the faculty at UAMS and spent many wonderful years on the staff at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, whose Endowed Chair in Child Neurology bears his name.
 
Jack was particularly proud of his service aboard Project HOPE’s SS Hope hospital ship in 1967, which allowed him to provide free medical care and training in Cartagena, Colombia, and his tenure as president of the Arkansas chapter of Partners of the Americas, a component of President Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress that facilitated cultural and professional exchange between this state and eastern Bolivia.
 
Jack was a founding member of Christ the King Catholic Church. At home, he enjoyed gardening and reading. A longtime avid subscriber to several news periodicals, we knew he’d had enough when he recently directed us to “cancel The Economist.”
 
Jack is survived by his wife, Missy, their three children: Cristina (Mark Colyvan) of Sydney, Australia; Ana Gauché (Paul) of Fairfax, Virginia; and John of St. Louis, Missouri; and granddaughter, Junia Gauché of Savannah, Georgia.
 
The family offers thanks and gratitude to the staff at Arkansas Hospice. Donations in Jack’s memory may be made to that organization, to Arkansas Children’s Hospital or to your charity of choice.
 
There will be a reception on Thursday, May 1 from 5-7pm and a memorial service on Friday, May 2 at 11:00am, both at Ruebel Funeral Home located at 6313 W. Markham. There will be an inurnment at Calvary Cemetery directly after the memorial service Friday. Arrangements under the direction of RuebelFuneralHome.com