We will be back with your regularly scheduled Nuance Matters materials next week.
But first.
On the afternoon of March 1, 2024, my grandpa Tom O’Hearn peacefully passed away surrounded by his family. He was 90 years old, just over a week away from his 91st birthday (March 9) and two weeks before his favorite holiday, St. Patrick’s Day.1
Yesterday, March 6, we laid him to rest. I have included the eulogy I gave at his funeral below.2
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Good afternoon. For those of you who do not know, my name is Patrick O’Hearn and Tom O’Hearn was my grandpa.
As everyone here knows, Tom O’Hearn loved sports, particularly his Wisconsin professional teams and the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. When my family lived in Mequon, he would come down to attend Brewers and Bucks games with us, which were always a highlight. Long after my family left Wisconsin, this continued with the Biemanns, Ulches and other relatives. Over the years, he would come with us to Notre Dame football games, and stand in awe of the Golden Dome and Touchdown Jesus, while enthusiastically listening to the marching band as they played the Notre Dame Victory March.
Naturally, we would engage in good natured sports debates, including the classic Wisconsin argument, Bart Starr, Brett Favre or Aaron Rodgers. Grandpa was convinced Starr, even if he didn’t have the same natural ability as the other two, was the best. And if recent off-the-field antics are taken into consideration, Grandpa undoubtedly won the debate. At a minimum, at least Bart Starr didn’t play for the Jets.
While the debates were fun and rooting for the professional teams was great, for over a decade, there was no question which team mattered the most. In the late 90s, my family started a small fantasy baseball league – the Bunny League. At the time, my brother, Connor, and cousin, John, were quite young, and while passionate about sports, would not have been able to manage a team on their own. So, each team had two managers. Connor co-managed a team with my dad, and John with his dad. This meant that Grandpa and I teamed up to manage the third team in our three-team Bunny League.
I’ll admit, as a 10-year-old looking to have a modicum of independence, I was not too pleased about having to team up. Especially after we drew the first pick and he convinced me to go for “positional scarcity” and draft catcher Mike Piazza over a more fun player like A-Rod (the other one). We did not win that year and I had to listen to my dad gloat for a winter.
But I quickly warmed to the idea and we developed a great partnership. We would have calls to strategize and talk about how our team was underperforming or he would allow me to vent at how annoying the other teams were (especially the one I had to share a house with).
But in 2001, after my family moved halfway across the world, it became about more than just baseball; our Bunny League team became the entry point to our connection.
You have to remember; this was an era before smartphones and Zoom. Before Facebook and Instagram. Twenty years ago, staying connected with someone required a much more conscious and deliberate effort – especially when you could not just call them up at a moment’s notice (a 15-hour time difference and international calling rates made unscheduled calls a bit difficult).
But being co-managers of a Bunny League team allowed me and Grandpa to stay close. We would send emails back and forth discussing how our team was doing and figuring out what move we should make that month. Over time, the emails evolved, with Grandpa asking about how things were going in Japan, and making sure that everything was alright. Sure, we didn’t see as much of each other as we had the first 13 years of my life, but the Bunny League allowed us to stay connected in a way that never would have happened if the league and our co-management did not exist. And even when we moved back to the states and I eventually went off to college, the Bunny League kept us linked.
And for those of you keeping track at home, we competed as teams for 12 seasons. Dick’s brother Dave, who joined the league at some point in the 2000s, won one season. Dick and John won two. Connor and Dad won 4. And Grandpa and I’s team won a record 5 titles.
Hoo-rah.
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[Grandpa also loved to joke around. As everyone in this room can probably attest, nobody loved forwarding joke emails more than he did. But it was a prank he pulled on me that I will always remember and that represents both his good-natured humor, and his love for his family.
When I was around 10 years old, my grandparents asked what I wanted for Christmas. I’m not sure what it was that year, maybe I was just being lazy, but I decided I didn’t really want anything. So for weeks, every time they would ask, I would say “nothing”. The big day finally arrived and the extended family went to Rip Van Winkle to celebrate for a few days. At the time, there were six grandchildren 10 years-old and younger, so the Christmas tree in the family room was surrounded by a wall of gifts. The grandkids greedily eyed the gifts, trying to spot the ones that had our names on them and guess what was inside. Everyone had two or three wrapped presents, but there was one for me. A big box, towering over the others. I had no idea what was in it, but it almost didn’t matter – when you are a kid, the bigger the box, the greater the anticipation and thrill.
Eventually it came time to open gifts. As the oldest grandkid, I patiently waited my turn as the Biemann kids and my brother and sister each opened one gift. Finally, it was my turn. I tore into the paper to find a big brown box. I opened the box, and what was inside?
Nothing.
My grandparents had followed through on my wishes and gotten me nothing for Christmas. Needless to say, I was not happy. But I knew had brought this on myself, so I tried to put on a straight face, smiling and laughing along with everyone else. But it didn’t take a genius to figure out that I was crestfallen.
As I stoically sat there, holding back tears, Grandpa said hold on a second, and left the room. 10 seconds later, he came back in holding a pile of gifts with my name on them. Because at the end of the day, while he was going to have his fun, there was no way he was going to disappoint his grandson.]
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But his love and impact extended well beyond his family. I was five when he retired in 1994, so I’m not going to stand up here and act like I know what he was like as an educator. But if the past thirty years of interactions with the community are any indication, he was simply the best.
I can’t tell you how many times we would be out and about in Appleton and someone would come up to us and excitedly say, “Tom O’Hearn!” Picking up a gallon of milk at the grocery store, going to the local YMCA to workout, golfing at Irish Waters, eating out at the Darboy Club – it didn’t matter, it was almost like a statutory requirement that we had to run into someone who recognized him. Perhaps the person was someone he volunteered with at LEAVEN or was a member of the Lion’s Club and just wanted to say hello. Or they had been a student when he was principal at Highlands Elementary and was coming up to him to say how, 20 to 30 years later, they still remembered him and what a great principal he had been. He would take each of these compliments with humility, thanking them and actively engaging in the conversation.
I would stand there, honored to have a grandpa who was such a beacon of light throughout the Appleton community. Inevitably Grandpa would pivot the conversation towards me and my siblings and cousins, and he would proudly say, these are my grandkids. The person would look at us and say pleasure to meet you, your grandpa was a great principal, and a wonderful man, you are lucky to have him.
Yes, we were. And while he may have been proud of his grandkids, I was equally proud to call Tom O’Hearn, grandpa.
Rest in peace Grandpa O.
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As the long-time principal of an elementary school, he instituted a rule whereby if you had an Irish name, or wore a hint of green, you would get out of school a few minutes early on St. Patrick’s Day. This was celebrated in an article in the local paper!
Naturally, some people will take any opportunity to get mad about anything, though he had his own vocal supporters.
The part in italics/brackets was excluded for time.