Obituary of Arthur Thomas McNeill

Arthur T. McNeill, at age 84, died peacefully on September 19, 2013 at Halquist Memorial Hospice Center, Arlington. He is predeceased by his loving wife of 50 years and 26 days, Mary Tierney Gilligan McNeill (June 19, 2005). Art is survived by their three adult children, Thomas G. McNeill (wife, Patricia), Grosse Pointe, MI, Mary Alison Teller (husband, Roy), Manassas, VA, Paul A. McNeill, Potomac, MD; eight grandchildren, Casey Marie, Erin Kelly and Anne Tierney McNeill, Jeanette Alicia, Melissa Mary, Emily Ann and Brian Bishop Teller and Raziel Patricio Castaneda; and sisters-in-law Margaret Gilligan Alt, Sandpoint, ID and Rita Gilligan, Marblehead, MA. Family and friends will gather Friday, October 4, from 5:00 to 7:30 pm at the chapel and gathering space at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, 1427 W. Braddock Road, Alexandria. The Mass of the Resurrection will be celebrated at Blessed Sacrament on Saturday, October 5, at 12 noon, by Fr. John Cregan, with concelebrants Fr. Gene Leonard and Fr. Gerry Credon. Immediately following the Mass on Saturday, the family will host a joyous Celebration of Life at Murphy’s Grand Irish Pub (second floor), 713 King Street, and lunch will be served. All are warmly encouraged to attend to share fellowship and your memories of Art and Mary McNeill. Interment (with Honor Guard) will take place on Monday, October 7, at 12 noon at Columbia Gardens Cemetery in Arlington (on Route 50 near N. Glebe Road), which is primarily intended for family, but all are welcome. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests a charitable donation in his name to DC Central Kitchen, www.dccentralkitchen.org or The Haitian Project, Louverture Cleary School, Croix des Bouquets, Haiti, www.haitianproject.org. Family, friends and colleagues will remember many details of a life and a deep faith well lived, and so the family offers just a few basic historical facts, with a modest sprinkling of arbitrarily selected vignettes, as guideposts for sharing with one another at this time, or later. Art McNeill was born on August 10, 1929 in the small town of New Brunswick, NJ, the sole child of Carolina Marie “Lillian” Jeanette McNeill (deceased 1987) and John Joseph McNeill (deceased 1962). The McNeills immigrated to America in the 1840’s from County Antrim (and centuries before from the south of Scotland to the north of Ireland); and the Jeanette family (then Janello) arrived from Naples, Italy in 1896. Art’s father and mother raised their child in the hard scrabble times of a depression and a World War. John toiled in a succession of jobs and professions (including deliverer of dairy products by horse drawn cart, shipping clerk and motion picture photographer) and Lillian supplemented by working in a factory and later as a retail clothing salesperson. Art’s parents never owned a home, but he was rich in hometown experiences. He delighted in listening to the radio broadcasts of his then beloved Yankees in their golden era, and once with his Dad met Babe Ruth (then retired) in the stands of Yankee stadium after traveling by train for a game. (Later as an adult he transferred his allegiances, in succession, to the Senators, the Orioles and then the Nationals). Art graduated from Holy Trinity High School (now in Westfield, NJ), where he was a multi-sport athlete and the starting center on the school’s state championship basketball team. In his youth, he was an alter server, until nearly burning the church to the ground by failing to extinguish incense after mass (a story he loved to tell). Art attended Brown University on an academic scholarship and in his junior year began dating the love of his life, Mary Gilligan, a senior from Yonkers, New York, the eldest child of two New York City public school teachers, James P. Gilligan (deceased 1974) and Mary Price Gilligan (deceased 1985), and the adoring and doting older sister of Jim (deceased 2012) and Margaret (two and ten years her younger, respectively). Mary briefly had dated Brown’s star quarterback, Joe Paterno, but Art caught her eye. Mary graduated in 1950 and earned a master’s degree in early childhood education from Columbia University; Art graduated from Brown in 1951 (with some measure of academic success after nearly losing his scholarship due to a freshman run-in with physics – another story he loved to tell). Art proposed to Mary in May, 1952 and the couple was married on May 24, 1955. In a recently discovered handmade, hand written card to Art, Mary included in her love poem a reference to receiving an engagement ring in one May but waiting from May to May for three years for the day to finally arrive (last week her ring and the purchase receipt and “guarantee” were found together in the same box). Art’s service in the U.S. Army (in training camps and Korea) intervened during that period of Mays in the early 1950’s. Upon his honorable discharge and their marriage back in Yonkers, the young couple moved to Washington, D.C. Art applied to the State Department, but instead was escorted through a series of confusing interviews in a nondescript Washington building (including mysteriously with his Dean from Brown) that included vague references to patriotic government service, and which concluded in his joining the Central Intelligence Agency. During a 30 plus year career at the agency, Art served in operations and in the field as a far east specialist, then as the director of the agency’s international language programs (he was then fluent or proficient in a half dozen languages) and finally as a senior member of the staff of the Inspector General (for internal investigations). He thrilled to the foreign travel and experience. After his retirement from the CIA in 1985, Art engaged in several careers of volunteer service (lasting nearly as long as his service to his country). He particularly relished his role as a mediator with the Northern Virginia Mediation Service (Mediator of the Year, 1990) and later his service with The Ignatian Volunteer Corps (especially at the DC Central Kitchen). For his death certificate, he designated his life’s occupation as “mediator” and without reference to his illustrious CIA career. From the late 1950’s, Art and Mary lived in Northern Virginia; and from 1965 in the home on North Overlook Drive (Alexandria). In 1961, Art and Mary joined Blessed Sacrament Parish, which for half a century was the central touchstone of their spiritual and personal lives and their social justice, Christian and charitable service. Art enjoyed a number of leadership roles within the parish; but it is also true that Mary was the soft and quiet emotional bedrock of so much of their combined service to parish, parishioners and those in need throughout the community. Just one day before his death, Art again recounted how overjoyed and pleased he continued to be that Mary had received the Sister Laurentia Award in recognition of her service (valuing that, he said, even more than conferral upon himself of the Msgr. Martin T. Quinn Award). In May, 2013, Art finally sold the family home (amicably arranged without a broker to a good friend’s daughter and her husband); and turned to community living at The Village at Orchard Ridge in Winchester, albeit for a short three months. Art was heartened by visits to the hospital from several of his new friends at Orchard Ridge. For so many reasons, we dearly will miss our Dad and so soon after his death we still struggle with our sadness and grief. But we are devoted to celebrating and honoring his life, and his life with our Mom, we are deeply comforted by his tremendous and unwavering faith in the resurrection and the Glory of God everlasting and we are supported by the friendship and support of so many – from the bottom of our hearts, thanks to all. Tom McNeill, Alison Teller and Paul McNeill