William Bryan Devlin, Sr.
- May 1
- 1 min read
Updated: May 2
1940 - 2026
MASS OF CHRISTIAN BURIAL
Monday, May 4 10:45 AM St. Catherine of Sienna R.C. Church 33 New Hyde Park Road, Franklin Square, NY
INTERMENT
Holy Cross Cemetery 3620 Tilden Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
Where to start? I miss you Pa. I miss you stopping by for coffee, I miss baking you your chocolate cakes with powdered sugar, I miss painting seashells for you to use as ash trays, and I miss you. You taught me the best lesson I could ever learn to always try and always ask because the worst thing anyone will say is “No.” You overcame so much and accomplished more than anyone would believe. Every story and trip to Brooklyn is something I will hold onto forever, that Dunkin Donuts in Brooklyn will always be a special place. I am sure your happiest and proudest days were going to One Police Plaza to honor you grandfather, a true NYPD…
My dad had a hard life. As a boy, he was shuffled from one foster home to another. After an accident, he spent a year in a hospital bed. He started working to support himself before he was even a teenager.
That kind of life could have made him a hard, bitter man — and if you judged him only by appearance, you might have thought it did. He was impassive, taciturn, hard-looking, and imposing. But Pa was a textbook example of why you should never judge a book by its cover.
He may have looked gruff, but that was only a veneer hiding his goodness and generosity. He said little, but he did so much — not for himself,…