Jason's Story

Jason Patrick Gould was born on January 10, 1970, the son of Roger D. and Sandy (Lipscomb) Gould in Aurora, Illinois.  Jason grew up in Elburn in the family home on Timbercrest Drive.  His grandpa, Harold Lipscomb built the house in 1969 just in time for the arrival of Jason.  Grandpa built an extra large bedroom for Jason and his brother Jeff.  There he grew up with his brother Jeff and sister Jenni, his parents and many dogs, cats, and gerbils. His extended family of many  grandparents, aunts. uncles and cousins were nearby in rural Elburn.  Across the street were lifelong friends, the Macks, Dick, Karen, Regan and Regina. Thirty years later, Jas would spend one of his last weekends with the Mack family in Wisconsin.

Jason went to Kaneland schools and had many friends, including his lifelong friends, Matt, Mike and Todd. Jas was an excellent student and was inducted into the National Honor Society as a junior in high school.  Jason went to college at Northern Illinois University in Dekalb where he studied marketing and history.  As an adult, he and his dad would continue to attend the Northern Illinois Huskies football games that they both so enjoyed.

Jason found his true calling and passion when he switched careers in 2004 and became a fifth grade teacher at Eastview Elementary School in Oswego Illinois.  He was working on his masters degree when he relapsed with leukemia in 2004. Jason loved teaching and positively touched the lives of his students in a very short period of time. Many of them came to his funeral and shared great stories.

Jason married Dawn Trube on February 21, 1999 in Reno, Nevada, surrounded by the love of friends and family.  They began a new chapter in their lives and bought their first home in Oswego.  They shared their lives with their three kitties, AJ, Tabatha and Molly.  They enjoyed many fun and exciting trips together.  They made the taffy apples for the Gould family cider mill in Elburn.  Jas worked at the cider mill for many years and loved the time there with his uncle Tom, uncle Charles, Grandpa Norris and the rest of the Gould family. Dawn has many great stories and will hopefully share some of them on this website.

Jason was a very bright and witty guy.  He had a great sense of humor and his laugh was contagious.  He was an avid Arkansas Razorback fan, even having HOGFAN 7 on his license plates!  There wasn’t a game of trivial pursuit he couldn’t win or any construction riddle he couldn’t solve.  He was an avid collector of Star Wars memorabilia.  He loved history, especially the Civil War.  He loved M*A*S*H*, John Wayne movies and old Andy Griffith episodes.  He knew every character like they were his friend. 

Jason had a passion for the outdoors and nature.  He loved fishing for trout in the White River in Arkansas with this grandpa Lipscomb. They would get up before dawn and get down to the river before the army corps of engineers opened up the damn.  Grandma Marge would fry those trout up like no one else could.  When Jas passed away, it was his wish to have his ashes put in the White River where he fished with grandpa.  Jason loved the mountains of Montana and Wyoming.  He enjoyed many many trips as a young boy with his family and later with his wife, Dawn.  In 2004, when he was in remission, he went out to Montana and stayed with Carol Slay, one of his mom’s best friends in Missoula. There he went hiking and fishing up in the Bitterroot mountains and experienced eagles, bears and beauty like never before.  Carol’s friend, an avid mountain hiker, took Jason up into the remote areas he had never seen before.  He took many pictures and even a self portrait that his mom sketched in charcoal and called “Mountain Man Jas” 

Jason loved family.  He loved his wife, Dawn and his kitties who shared his last months. He loved the lake house in Indiana where they shared many fun times.  He loved his brother Jeff and his wife Sandy and Abby, Cal, and Seth.  He loved his sister Jenni and was looking forward to mentoring her as she became a first year teacher.  Her kids Alex, Ryan, and Kristen were his other nephews and neice that he so looked forward to spending time with after he was well.  His family meant everything to him, he told me that many times that last year.  He wasn’t able to share time with them because of being in isolation and the doctors scaring him to death about catching “stuff”.  Jason loved his friends.  Matt, Mike, Todd and his new friends, Mary, Jim, Tara, Eric, and many I do not know.  He loved going to Chicago Cubs games with his dad, his brother, nephews and friends.  Jason was simply a passionate lover of life!

Jason was diagnosed with acute leukemia in May of 2003.  He responded well to chemotherapy and went into remission.  He was told that in 80% of cases this type of leukemia will not come back.  Unfortunately, he was in the unlucky 20%. But he enjoyed over a year of remission before it returned.  In that year he learned more about life than most of us.  He had a chance to teach, travel, study, read the bible and many many books.  He told me that Joel Osteen’s book,” Live Your Best Life Now”, especially changed his view on how to live his life.  He probably got more out of life on a spiritual level those last years.

When Jason’s leukemia relapsed, it broke his heart to have to leave teaching and his students.  It broke their hearts as well.  But Jas was a fighter.  He was told that his best chance for survival was a transplant.  He and Dawn and his family searched transplant centers and decided on Loyola Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois.  Jason had the baby cord stem cell transplant in May of 2005.  He had some pretty scary infections, but was doing great and told he could resume his life.  Unfortunately, he had developed a rare viral complication that was treated too late.   Jason’s adventure in this life was over.  His spirit of love and adventure will live with us until we meet again.

I will close with two  quotes: 

One from  Abraham Lincoln 


“ Live a Good Life and in the end,
it’s not the years in a life,
it’s the life in the years.”


The other from Jason Gould, which is on his orange leukemia bracelets,

“Live for Today, Life is a Gift.