Former officer’s family hopes obit saves lives
Son: Retired sergeant, 87, had COVID, Alzheimer’s
BRIDGEPORT — In life, Eugene O’Neill, who died Friday at 87, developed a reputation for his generosity and willingness to always try and make things better for individuals and the city as a whole.
“This man did more favors and helped more people over the last 50 years than anyone I know in the city,” recalled friend Jay Piccirillo, owner of the Micalizzi Italian ice shop on Madison Avenue.
“Gene was always there if you needed some type of assistance,” agreed former Mayor John Fabrizi. “From ‘Where can I get the best long dog in Bridgeport?’ to ‘Listen, I’m jammed in. I need some help.’ The guy always went out of his way.”
So his family decided O’Neill would also make a positive difference in death by ensuring the cause was not kept private but instead clearly stated in the first sentence of his obituary: COVID-19.
“I knew a lot of people would be reading that obituary because of who my father was,” his son, Ken O’Neill, explained Monday. “And there are a lot of people who are not taking this (coronavirus) seriously — or as seriously as they should. I just thought there would be people who would see my father died of COVID and say, ‘I better get religion about this.’ ”
While the worldwide health crisis is blamed for numerous deaths throughout Bridgeport and Connecticut since it began in mid-March, and has claimed more than 257,000 victims nationwide, the younger O’Neill observed that some families choose to keep that detail private: “I’m not the kind of person who reads the obits all the time, but this weekend I’ve been looking at them and was kind of shocked to see some of these people had to have died from COVID this week, not just my father.”
O’Neill said the family’s decision to be up front about his dad’s recent illness — he also had Alzheimer’s disease for the past few years — was in keeping with his father’s
own forthrightness.
“I had an older brother who died of AIDS in 1996,” O’Neill said. “A lot of people were not putting cause of death because of the stigma. My parents were very adamant they were going to put my brother died of AIDS in the obit. They wanted to draw attention to it because they knew they could help people by being up front. I had the same thought working on my dad’s obit.”
Eugene O’Neill was born and raised in Bridgeport and spent 37 years as a police officer, retiring as a sergeant. He later became head of security for the public schools and sat on the mayoral-appointed police commission.
O’Neill, according to family and friends like Piccirillo and Fabrizi, also went by a handful of nicknames — “Mayor,” “Pope,” “Sarge” and “Uncle Gene” — that represent all the time he spent helping various community groups and the affection so many people felt for him.
“I couldn’t even begin to tell you the things he did for others because my father didn’t ever brag about it. Someone would contact him and he just made it happen,” O’Neill said, adding with a chuckle: “I’ve gotten calls from people where I feel I spend half the call consoling them, like they’re the one who lost their father and not the other way around.”
“Gene was a gem,” said Fabrizi, who remembered all of the advice he received over the years from his late friend: “Gene was a history book about Bridgeport, the
police department and the goings on in the city. (He) always gave me great insight.”
In more recent years, however, Alzheimer’s had begun to take a toll. Ken O’Neill said his father had been living at a memorycare facility in Trumbull.
Meanwhile the son’s home is in New York and, before COVID-19 struck, he would return to Connecticut to visit his dad every two to three weeks. But for eight months, pandemicrelated health and safety restrictions prevented that personal contact.
“It was really hard,” O’Neill said, recalling that, at least “face to face,” his father was able to carry on or “bluff” his way through a conversation.
“I always had nice visits with him. But the phone calls — with no face attached — were pretty brutal,” O’Neill said.
The pandemic has also prevented any public memorial service. The family hopes to schedule one sometime next year, he said.
While the beginning of O’Neill’s obituary was intended as a wake-up call, the death notice also ended with advice about how to best pay homage to his memory: “The family asks that you honor Gene by following his example of kindness and compassion for others, particularly during the challenging months ahead.”
“We’re so polarized, so we just have to try and remember that,” Ken O’Neill said Monday. “That’s the only thing that’s going to save us. Remember our humanity.”