A tragedy, and a love story
David Condon and Lindsay Sullivan at their wedding on Donnelly Walk in Fairfield on Nov. 12, 2019.
It was 19 years ago this month that the funeral Mass for Tim and Kim Donnelly was celebrated in the standing-room only cavern of St. Augustine’s Cathedral atop Bridgeport’s Golden Hill.
The ceremony that cold February morning was both devastating — two vibrant, well-loved members of the community, owners of a downtown Fairfield jewelry store, were shot to death in a robbery — but by its end, lifeaffirming in the sheer energy of the people they brought together.
The entire Donnelly family, of Bridgeport, had been long-time friends of mine. I sat among the mourners. As only he could do, then-Monsignor, Lawrence Carroll, another family friend, offered words that helped the transition from devastation to affirmation.
I sat that day next to a woman from Fairfield. Her name was Kathleen Tetley. As happened that morning all around the cathedral, we introduced ourselves. She mused as we chatted quietly about how nice it would be if something in downtown Fairfield was named in memory of the Donnellys. “Donnelly Corner” was her suggestion.
A beautiful gesture, I thought. At the end of a subsequent column, Feb. 17, 2005, I offered my own musing on “Donnelly Corner:”
Put some benches there and maybe the whole idea draws people together. Strangers, even.
Or some day, maybe, just say, a 17-year-old kid from Fairfield Prep, the map of Ireland all over his face, meets a pretty 17-year-old blonde girl from, say, Notre Dame high school at a party someplace. And say they talk a little and in those moments when
their eyes meet they think they see something that looks a little like affection and a little like hope, but, hey, I gotta run. But I’ d like to see you again. How’s tomorrow? OK? Donnelly’s Corner?
Sure.
And it begins again.
The naming idea took hold, and with the support of many people, including then-Fairfield First Selectman Ken Flatto and radio personality Don Imus, who was both customer and friend of the Donnellys (Imus helped Tim, a skilled competitive runner, get into his first New York City Marathon after Tim missed a filing deadline) the short alley between Sanford Street and Unquowa Road became “Donnelly Walk.”
Just last week, Tara Donnelly, the now 42-year-old daughter of Tim and Kim, contacted me and began this magical story with a nice compliment on that column: “It is perhaps the only article from that time that makes me smile to read,” she wrote. But that was not the purpose for reaching out all these years later.
Some magic had indeed happened on Donnelly Walk.
Every Feb. 2, the anniversary of her parents’ deaths, Tara and her two kids, 8-year-old KC — short for Kimberly Claire — and son Coleman, 5, and when they’re available, her brother, Eric, and his kids, get together for what Tara calls “Family Day.”
This year, KC suggested they make jewelry. So Tara contacted the Independent Jewelers Organization in Southport, and the Donnellys went there. Her parents had been members of the IJO. On hand to help was Lindsay Sullivan, of Fairfield, who provided beads in boxes with the Donnelly kids’ names painted on them.
As the two women chatted, a magical connection began to emerge.
On Nov. 12, 2009, a 19-year-old Lindsay Sullivan was working in a shop on Donnelly Walk named
Pink Cloud Beading Company. She’d convinced the store’s owner to let her keep the doors open past 5 p.m. to see if any foot traffic — and business — might develop when most of the other businesses in the area were closing.
So, it was after 5 — on any other day the store would have been closed — when 23-year-old David Condon walked in. He was not a customer, but a salesman.
“He was peddling artwork” Lindsay said with a laugh the other day.
Sparks flew. A whirlwind romance began that eventually led to resettling in Baltimore, the birth of two children — with fine Irish names, Rory, now 11, and Kieran, 4 — a return to Fairfield and the start of a new business, andHOW! Graphics on Linwood Avenue, 10 years to the day after their first meeting, and a wedding on Fairfield’s Sherman Green. When the ceremony was over, the couple walked with friends and family, people who had been brought together by their love, to take pictures at Donnelly Walk.
Where for two young Irish kids it had all begun. Begun again. Just as we all knew something good would.
And for Tara Donnelly, who forever carries the memories of her parents, the tale of Lindsay and David was the closing of a circle, something of a balm, particularly coming on the day of the anniversary.
The story of Tim and Kim Donnelly is unavoidably laden with sadness. But it will not be defined solely by that. They were two kids who fell in love and started a life together and a family.
Whenever two kids fall in love, especially when it happens on Donnelly Walk, it is a reminder, as Lindsay put it the other day of “life’s sweet possibilities.”
Michael J. Daly is retired editor of the Connecticut Post Opinion page. Email: mjdwrite@aol.com.
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