Rees, growing up during the Great Depression years, became a socialist in his early 20s. He was a machinist and was working in a factory in New Jersey when he joined the communist movement. Mary Rees, his lifelong companion, was also an early recruit to socialism. She joined as a teenager, first working in a laundry and then in the major steel plant in Youngstown, Ohio, where the Socialist Workers Party was concentrating its efforts. Both were active members of the party for some time. Under the pressure from the employers’ anticommunist witch-hunt, Jack and Mary Rees left the Socialist Workers Party in the early 1950s.

After being away from organized political activity for more than a decade, they became active participants in the anti-Vietnam war movement in the early 1960s. Jack Rees used his basement as a silk-screening factory, designing and producing posters opposing the war.

Rees, an avid reader of the Militant who valued its coverage of working-class struggles and analysis, would often send clippings from his local newspaper to Militant staff writer Harry Ring for use in his weekly column, “The Great Society.”

An exceptionally talented carpenter and all-around handyman, Rees used his skills to help construct many Socialist Workers Party halls, often building finely crafted bookshelves, at different locations in Boston.

Until health reasons prevented it, Jack and Mary Rees regularly staffed the party’s book center in Boston, making sure that workers and youth were able to obtain Pathfinder books, containing the vital lessons necessary to fight effectively the oppression and exploitation perpetuated by capitalism.

During the 1990s they also took regular assignments caring for the Socialist Workers Party leadership school when members of the party were attending conventions and conferences. Jack put his skills to use during those times to maintain and upgrade the school, always leaving the facilities in better condition than when he arrived.

Rees established his belief in the struggle for a socialist society at an early age, and his support for the Socialist Workers Party continued throughout his life.  
 
 
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