City business owner, charity benefactor Terry McKenna dies
WOONSOCKET – Terrence B. McKenna knew how to pick his fights and win, but in the process never lost sight of his place and his pride in the city.
It should be no surprise to hear then, that more recently, McKenna was in a renewed fight against cancer and as it came to an end at his retirement community of Trinity, Fla., he was again thinking of his hometown, Woonsocket.
McKenna died Sept. 29 at Trinity Rehab Center surrounded by his large family.
“His heart was always in Woonsocket even in Florida,” his daughter, Kelly Eileen Leclaire, said while relating the news of her father’s death with her mother, Judy (Creason) McKenna.
In addition to Kelly, the couple has two other children, Terrence B. McKenna II, and Eric C. Christopher McKenna, and their seven grandchildren.
Although he moved to Florida in retirement and sold his namesake business, Terry’s Tire and Auto Service at Monument Square, McKenna continued to return home to Woonsocket over the years to shepherd his favorite causes and surprise his longtime friends with sudden appearances and McKenna-style encouragement and humor.
McKenna is also known as one of the major supporters for the Because He Lives soup kitchen, starting from
the time it was founded by Paul H. Dempster in 1986.
“Well, they certainly broke the mold with Terry McKenna,” longtime friend John R. Dionne said.
“He was a very generous person and a very determined man,” Dionne said.
McKenna had served as Dionne’s campaign chairman back when he entered the realm of politics with Dionne’s successful bid for a seat on the City Council in 1977. McKenna and Dionne also knew each other from the local business world, with Dionne working for the former Marquette Credit Union and McKenna his tire and automotive business, one of many doing business with the local credit union.
He supported the Milk Fund, which Dionne had also headed for many years, and there were many other city organizations and charities he lent his talents too.
McKenna also became involved in city affairs while serving on the Woonsocket
Redevelopment Agency and also as a member of the Zoning Board of Review after being sworn-in in 1987 by then Mayor Charles C. Baldelli.
McKenna would go on to become the board’s chairman.
McKenna’s civic work took a different turn in January, 1991, when the failure of the Rhode Island Share and Deposit Indemnity Corp. (RISDIC) prompted newly inaugurated Gov. Bruce Sundlun to shut down all of RISDIC’s privately-insured credit unions and financial institutions to protect depositors savings and institution assets.
Dionne who was, employed by Marquette in marketing and public relations at the time, said the shutdown came without a plan to return the depositors savings or method of resolving the unfolding state banking crisis.
It was at that point, that Dionne recommended McKenna look into doing something to help.
McKenna did what he always did and put his personnel energy and wit into the cause.
“He was very, very important in resolving the crisis
because he had the support of his family and he had the support of a lot of people in the city,” Dionne said.
It was, after all, a perfect role for McKenna and his boisterous personality.
“Terry was very vocal, very outgoing, and he wasn’t afraid of anyone,” Dionne said. “He knew people were in pain and that no one seemed to care about that,” Dionne said.
The result was McKenna’s local depositor rallies for credit union customers that seemed to get bigger each time and eventually made their way to the halls of Statehouse where 450 of Marquette’s customers carried along their lawn chairs and camped out while waiting to be heard.
“We are going to try to get this bill introduced in the General Assembly and then let the chips fall where they may,” McKenna said at the time while being interviewed about a proposed $300 million bond issue to fund a state solution to the crisis.
With the depositor protests as a backdrop, Gov. Sundlun set to work solving the banking crisis with the creation of the Depositors Economic Protection Corp. (DEPCO), which would manage the recovery of institution assets, manage them, and at the same time repay the depositors, like those in Woonsocket, their full savings with a share of interest.
Dionne believes to this day McKenna’s personality
and drive were a key factor in helping the state to find its solution.
“He did an excellent job with it in Woonsocket and he was big time around the state,” Dionne said. “There would be no DEPCO without all the protests that happened,” Dionne said.
And while McKenna was a very active supporter of Because He Lives over the years, that wasn’t the only contribution he made to help those in need in the community, Dionne noted.
On one occasion, Dionne had become involved in an effort to help Paul Jacob get his terminally ill daughter flown back to Woonsocket from Chicago on short notice and McKenna was a leading member of a small group of city residents who stepped up quickly to raise $6,000 for the flight.
“He was a special guy. I can never remember him saying no to me,” Dionne recalled.
When he would come home to help run the annual Because He Lives fundraiser, Dionne said McKenna would show up at WNRI where Dionne was doing his radio show and just “take over,” and start announcing all the upcoming activities.
“We would go to Barbara’s Place for breakfast and talk about the old times and how he was doing,” Dionne said.
It was harder when McKenna’s cancer returned and he was back fighting it, and
Dionne said his contacts with his old friend became less frequent.
“I miss him, absolutely, and just talking about him makes me want to break up because he was so funny and we were so close friends,” Dionne said.
Paul Jacob recalled this week how the contributions by McKenna and the rest of the community did bring his daughter, Nancy Jacob Lefond, home just in time. Lefond and her husband John, a city firefighter, had gone to a hospital in the Chicago area for a last round of treatments for her cancer and had made the decision it was time to come home, he said. Nancy, the daughter of Paul and his former wife, Marge Jacob, was just 20 at the time in 1989 while fighting her own battle with cancer and had to have an EMT with her on the medical flight to make it home, Jacobs remembered. “We got her home and she died a week later just shy of her 21st birthday,” Jacobs said.
The fact that Terry and so many others worked to make her return possible stays with Jacob to this day.
Former City Councilman Albert G. Brien also remembered McKenna’s longtime involvement in the city after learning this week of his death.
“I had a great deal of admiration for Terry,” said Brien.
“He was a very bright individual and had a great love for Woonsocket,” Brien said. Like Dionne, Brien recalled McKenna’s role in organizing local depositors during the banking crisis and his work to help find a resolution.
“When they write the history of Woonsocket, they are going to have to devote a chapter to that event or disaster, what ever you want to call it, and how it totally depressed Woonsocket,” Brien said.
“Terry’s voice could be heard above all the rest. He led the charge and he rose to occasion,” Brien said.
His work for Because He Lives, also showed him to be an “angel” for that program, Brien said. “You just couldn’t say no to the guy. No one could,” Brien said. “My thoughts go out to his family,” Brien added.
Jeanne Michon, now running the New Beginnings Kitchen since its revival a year ago, had been Pat Dempster’s head chef and remembers McKenna’s contributions to Because He Lives.
“He started the fundraiser at Terry’s Auto and it became the biggest fundraiser for the soup kitchen during the year,” she said. The program operated solely on donations and took no grant funding to do its ministry, making the fundraiser all the more important.
“He would have all the cars off the lot and we had food and raffles. He brought police cars and fire trucks and city equipment and even had John Dionne doing his show there,” she recalled.
“We always knew it would be a success when he came up from Florida. He would take over and do all the publicity and get all the raffle prizes donated,” Michon said.
“He went out and put everything into what he did. He didn’t do anything halfway,” she noted. “And if he liked you, he liked you big time,” Michon said.
Michon said her fondest memory of McKenna is of him wearing his green Irish beret, a trademark even in local drawings of him. “I actually have one at my house that he gave to me,” she said.
McKenna’s services in Florida were to be held on Oct. 3. A memorial service in Woonsocket will be held for McKenna at St. James Episcopal Church at 24 Hamlet Ave. on Oct. 13.