The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - John Dumm Joined Marc Hunt Live On “A Life, Unedited” On The I Love CVille Network!

Episode Date: May 6, 2026

John Dumm, Father, Husband, Advocate, From sainthood to devil be damned, joined Marc Hunt live on A Life, Unedited! A Life, Unedited airs live Wednesday from 10:15 pm – 11:00 am on The I Love CVille Network. “A Life, Unedited” is presented by Martha Jefferson House.

Good morning. My name is Mark Hunt, and this is a life unedited. In this podcast, I sit down with remarkable people to hear their life stories and their perspectives without the filters of hindsight. Today, I am very honored to have John Dumb. John is a father, a husband, and an advocate to so many people. Some lives follow a straight path. And then there are lives that break away from it entirely. At 12 years old, John entered a Roman Catholic seminary, preparing for a life of faith, discipline, and devotion, but somewhere along the way, that path began to change. What followed was a life that would take him across continents

from Bangladesh to the Philippines, to so many other countries, working some of the poorest regions in the world, confronting questions not just a belief, but of survival, dignity, and human rights. This is a story about transformation from certainty to questioning to action about a man who walked away from one calling and found another one that would impact the lives of millions of women around the world. John, I'm very, very honored to have you here.

Thank you so much for joining us. John, from an early age, pretty much from when you were born, you were going to be dedicated to the seminary, which was a very high honor from your family. You were named after two uncles. What did your uncles do? Those two uncles were Roman Catholic priest. That sounds high honor in your family.

You were the oldest male in a family of nine in an Irish Catholic household. From the beginning it had been decided that you're going to seminary. and then at just 12 years old you were sent to the Roman Catholic Seminary please take me there take us there that's yes I

was and it was expected of me so I wasn't surprised at all I knew that it was coming and I because I had been named after

Father John and Monsignor Joseph. So in the seminary the daily life was unique, I guess, but I found it to be

very reassuring the the scholastic part of it was very demanding. I had six years of Latin, four years of ancient Greek. I had a lot of sciences. I wore a suit and Thai every day.

There was a lot of silence. There was a lot of silence. sports and a lot of of of of rigid and like it was it was it pretty rigid I wouldn't say rigid

there was you got to know your colleagues well I was searching for the right word on that So during the summers We would go home for a month or so To visit our families So it was

It was a settling cohesive place to be Did you get really close, I'm sure, to your classmates? Yes You lived in a dormitory? We lived in dormitories For a while and then as we grew older,

we moved into more private facilities where there were two of us to a room. But in the beginning for, I forget how many years, we lived in very, very large areas where there would be 50 of us or so in a room. We would be woken up by, very loud bell and we would recite a prayer in Latin as we woke up. Well, that's incredible.

I was age 12, 13 year old. I went to boarding school briefly and I know that a lot of genanagan's go on at night, especially with boys. And I imagine with 50 boys, was there, you know, was there a lot of pranks going on? No. No. Not that kind of environment there. No, I can't recall any to tell you the truth.

That's incredible. Did you feel, I guess, like, you know, from when you can remember, you probably knew that that was going to be your destiny. You were going to go to the seminary. Did you feel like it was your calling, or did you feel like it was just something that had been decided for you? That's an interesting question. I believed it was a calling. I didn't question it at all.

And I can't, even as I prepared for this discussion with you, I can't recall exactly why I decided to leave. and I'm sure that my family and people around me who knew me were quite surprised why I did leave because I was a very successful seminarian. But to this day, I think it was because of, my feelings about the church, that the church was not changing enough

to deal with the changing world. But anyway, I did change, and I felt that I just could not continue on to be ordained as a Roman Catholic priest. It's just fascinating. So from the age of 12 until your early 20s, you were in this school that was, I mean, like you said, the education was next to none.

I mean, that's not even part of one percent. You're less than 1% of the population of the world that would have that kind of upbringing education, which is incredible. But after, you know, more than probably 10 years on this trajectory, you came to, a point where you decided that wasn't for you. How many people were in your class?

Do you remember? I do. I think there were about 40 of us. Wow. And then you told me something very fascinating that out of that 40, what was it, two people that went on to be? Yeah, I looked up the numbers. I'll find them here.

I think there were, I think there were like five people became priests. Wow. and then the rest they decided. Yeah. It wasn't for them. Was the church supportive of you after you decided not?

It wasn't for you. Well, I had, because I had two uncles that were priests, they, there was, I won't use the word pressure put on me to stay.

Sure. But there were sort of incentives. I was told that I would, I could continue in the seminary in Rome, to continue study in Rome to be ordained if I stayed. Surely, no thanks. I said no thanks. So you left the seminary in your 20s? Yeah.

Where did you go after that? Did you have money to start anew? Was it a scramble? Yeah, I joined the Peace Corps. And... Where did they send you at the Peace Corps? They sent me to... Oh, goodness, where did I go for the Peace Corps?

I went to... Was it the Philippines that they initially sent you to, or did you... Yeah, it was. Yeah, excuse me, it was. It was... Well, you mean you've lived in over 40 countries, so I don't blame you for not... I'm sorry. I remember when the first one was.

No, I did. I did. I went to the Philippines, and I worked in... Oh, God, I... Why am I forgetting all this? You worked, that was your first introduction into women's reproduction, right? No, no. No, I started working in malaria control.

That's right. Yeah, we were spraying NEPA huts with DDT. I remember spraying NEPA huts and the DDT would get all over us. And at the end of the day, we would get down to the river and wash off the DDT. What is DDT? It was awful stuff that killed the mosquitoes. And eventually, the U.S. government banned it from use. Because it was so poisonous.

It was essentially like Asian Orange. Yeah, it's lucky I'm alive today, I think. But luckily, we're... we got out of that. And we were about ready to be sent home because the Peace Corps was getting out of that program when I met a governor who wanted to start a reproductive health program. And at that point in the Philippines, there was no reproductive health program available for anybody.

And it would be the first reproductive health program started anywhere in the country. He was the governor of an island province called Cottondwanas. And so if I could get a program started, I could stay in the country and otherwise USAID would send me home and I would probably be drafted to go to Vietnam. So I got to work and developed a program a project and with the help of a woman whose name I can't remember. I sent it to an organization in the U.S. And I got $15,000, which was a huge amount of money in those days.

And I started a program in the island province of Contantuanas. And the governor just fell in love with me. He gave me a scooter, and I hired a bunch of midwives and doctors. and we started the first provincial-wide family planning program in the country. And that started me working in reproductive health in the Philippines. You know what I find fascinating about that, John, is even at that time in the U.S., there wasn't a huge push or concern about women's reproductive rights, even in first world countries.

So you go to the Philippines, you know, which is, I'm sure that. at that time was abstract poverty and the resources were very thin. And you started this program out of the blue, kind of out of, you know, from nowhere. And that started you in this life, in your life's work as helping women and women reproductive rights. So where did that take you after being in the Philippines?

So that took off in the Philippines. How long did you live there for? In the Peace Corps, I lived there for a couple years, and then I joined USAID and then spent living living in Josephine and I hooked up. Did you meet Josephine in the Philippines? No. We met in, oh wait, where did we meet? Yeah, we did meet in Manila.

You met in Manila? In Manila. We spent, and then we spent... So after you got this program off with the USAID, did they send you to Bangladesh next? Or where did they send you next to launch the same program? Well, we went to, we went to Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, did you, did you create the same program?

you started in the Philippines? In, now in now in 1977 to 1981, I was in Bangladesh I designed

a $63 million reproductive maternal health and child health program there and then I moved to the Philippines 1981 to 82 to

82 and oh no 1981 to 1984 then I was in Washington DC to 806 so I'm sorry no you're totally fine so that's a huge huge career and what she started was so significant and I think that's what's so incredible about your career and the trajectory that you took. So you started out in this life in the seminary where you were going to be devoted to God and helping eat people in the Roman Catholic Catholic Catholic Catholic in that direction. And then you chose a road that completely went off, but you chose a road that wasn't selfish or self-serving. You chose a row that was altruistic. and started these programs that helped women.

And ultimately, and we, you know, I did my research, you helped millions of women by the work that you did with reproductive rights. Like I said, in even the first world countries at that time, people were not even interested in women's reproductive rights. But you went into third world countries where, you know, other people might have focused on, on food inequality or healthcare inequalities, you focus on something so specific and so needed,

such as women's reproduction rights, and then you carried that work across the world. You said you'd lived in over 40 countries, which is fascinating, incredible. You and Josephine met in the Philippines, and then together you carried your work to the Middle East, to, back to the Philippines, to India, to Africa.

And now even your two kids live in Africa right now, and they're also serving other people. Was there a moment in your life that you can really say, or you can pinpoint that you're like, all right, this is the work I want to do. What do you mean? After you got out of the Peace Corps, you worked with the governor of the Philippines.

seemed like at first it was kind of a necessity to stay out of the war in Vietnam. You had to scramble to create this program for women's reproductive rights. But did you fall in love with it at that moment? Oh, I mean, every moment I was in love with it. Yeah. Every moment I was in love with it. It was, it was, there were moments when it was difficult. There were moments when it was hard.

There were moments when I failed to get things done. There were moments when I succeeded, of course, but I would not have traded any of the moments for the work that was being done. And if you go out to these countries, go out to Bangladesh, Malaysia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Nepal, these are countries I've been to, Iran, Indonesia, Thailand, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Ghana, Ghana, Cote d'Avoire, El Salvador, Haiti, Haiti, Mexico, Haiti, Mexico, Andovoire. Brazil, on and on and on. And you go into the rural areas where these women live, and you see the impact of them not having access

to reproductive health. And the impact that it has on their lives, it's just appalling. and it leads to early death. And all that they need fundamentally is contraception for the most part. It's... How many of them were dying in childbirth? I'm dying in childbirth, too.

And getting access is pretty simple and fundamental in terms of delivery systems. So, you know, and that can be achieved. And currently now, because of Trump, those systems have been cut off, too. So, you know, it's tragic what's happened now. Yeah. Yeah, those USAID aren't just acronyms. They actually, you know, two beneficial work. around the world and it's unfortunate all that funding got cut.

Got cut. So you met Josephine. So you talked about you had two main loves of your life and that we just talked about the one of the first love of your life was, you know, your career. And then you met Josephine in the Philippines and she has been your steadfast love and you two have traveled the world together, live remarkable lives. You moved here 15 years ago. Yeah.

And Josephine joined you a couple years later. She moved in, she moved back from China. What is the secret to such a long-term and successful marriage? That's a great question. I think it's really no secret. Josephine is a remarkable person. She's incredibly smart. She's very adaptable to so many environments.

When we were living overseas, she would adapt much faster, to what we were up against in terms of our living environment. She was so much more adaptable in terms of dealing with our children and what their needs were than I was. I was singularly more straightforward in trying to figure things out than she was much more complex in dealing with complexity than I was. And so she could deal with problems better than I could.

She could always calm me down better than I could calm myself down. And so she was such a perfect mate for me. And she, you know, was, was, and she also could go off and, and, and, and figure out her own career when she had the opportunity to do that, when she had the opportunity to do that, when she had the opportunity to branch out on her own own. and have a long, successful career in China when I went off and spent about close to 10 years in Boston after we were finished with our overseas work. She had a great time there, and I went out and visit her a couple times there,

and it was just amazing what she was doing. what she had accomplished. That's incredible. Yeah. That was. Was it difficult raising two kids? You have a son and a daughter? We have a son and a daughter.

Was it difficult raising them overseas? No, they, you know, they went to international schools overseas, and fortunately those international schools were excellent. They, they're, our grandkids are now in international schools. Wow. Legacy continues. Yeah. Both your kids are in Africa now, right?

They're both in Africa. Our son is in Tanzania and our daughter is in Kenya. Wow. We visited them around Christmas time. They, and I, you know, you know, You know, when I was preparing this for you, which apparently I didn't do a very good job. Didn't want to do it. I thought, you know, there's not too many good people who have done what we've done.

It's true. You know? It's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, and, and, and, and, and, and there's such an incredible need, uh, out there that, you know, that, you know, that, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the cancellationation of US AID, which has had such a, profound effect, good effect, on the poorest people on the face of the earth, cost us 0.0.04% of the federal budget. There's nothing. Nothing. compared to what we spend on garbage every single day.

And think he just said yesterday that he wants the taxpayer to spend another $1 billion on his ballroom at the White House. A billion dollars. It's obscene. Sometimes it doesn't seem real. Yeah. Yeah. And I, it's just amazing.

It's just amazing. Well, I can imagine after living in over 40 countries, all of which are the poorest of the poor. Yeah. And you see the most need that something like that would definitely resonate. Not so well.

Well, some more existential questions. So I had the opportunity to meet you and Josephine this past December. I'm at the Jefferson House. Another transitional place in life where you start thinking about your future and where you're going to spend the latter part of your life. And Martha Jefferson House, obviously, you've been looking into the end of the independent living, with the intention of having that peace of mind knowing that the nursing care is there in case it's ever needed.

What brought you to that point? What made you and Josephine decide that maybe we should start thinking ahead and move into something like the Martha Jefferson House? That's a very good question. And Josephine probably has a better answer than I do. But I think that... I think we both came to that conclusion. I mean, we've looked at other homes as well,

and I think we decided on Martha Jefferson because it just seemed to be the best of the best. best of the best. And we've come to that point where we think we need that kind of assistance that we need the kind of help that Martha Jefferson can provide. We're both, you know, we both can get around and we both are. cognitive. You saw my slippage

on that today. But between the two of us I think we can handle things most well, but we also recognize that we need help in certain areas. And Martha Jefferson can be a big

support for us. So we're very We're very honored to. I'm excited to have you a part of our community. A couple more questions. Sure.

What would you say that you are most proud of, not professionally, but personally, as a person? What would you say you're most proud of? Most proud of as a person. That I had the best sense of Marion Josephine.

Good answer. I think marrying Josephine was a good answer. Okay. I think yeah. Especially since she's right there. If you could sit down with that 12-year-old boy about to enter the seminary.

Oh, boy. Yeah? Is there something that you would tell you, tell that boy now? I would tell him to enter the seminary. It was a great experience. Hell of an education. Yeah. Yeah.

That I would not have gotten in the normal high school. And it paid his cividence. Yeah, it really did. I mean, it was tough. I mean, it was, it was, the discipline was amazing. It wasn't easy. It was not a typical high school. And then final question.

This is the question I ask everybody. Years from now, when people think about you, your family, your grandkids, your kids, obviously, what do you hope that they understand about you or remember about you? Psychiatrist. Ask it again. I'm sorry? Years from now? Years.

When we're long gone, what do you hope that your family, your grandkids, and their kids remember about you? He was really a good guy. I think that goes without saying. What you've accomplished and what you've done with your life has helped millions of women,

and that is something that nobody else that I've ever met could ever say. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, John, for taking this. the time. I appreciate you. This is a life unedited, where I can sit down with remarkable people like John Dumb and hear their life stories. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, John. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.