Here are an obituary and a remembrance for our classmate Mowry Connelly.

OBITUARY FOR WILLIAM MOWRY CONNELLY

William M. Connelly (1964 graduation)

William Mowry Connelly, a prominent product liability attorney, died Saturday, May 12, 2007, from a heart attack. He was 64.

Connelly was born February 5, 1943 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and grew up in Greenwich, CT. As a boy, he spent his summers in rural Maine, where he developed a fascination of trains and a love of the natural wilderness.

He attended Greenwich Country Day School, followed by Phillips Exeter Academy, where he was active in the theater. He served as class of 1961 correspondent for Exeter until his death. Connelly went on to graduate in 1964 from Yale University in just three years, where he was member of the Society of Book and Snake. He then went on to earn his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1967.

Connelly spent nine years at Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft law firm in New York City before relocating in 1976 to Cleveland to act as head of litigation for TRW. In 1986 he became a partner at Walter and Haverfield law firm in Cleveland, where he retired in 2002.

He was a fan of the New York Metropolitan Opera and an avid American history buff. His fascination with military history led him to become an expert on early American forts. He was known for hosting tours of the James A. Garfield Memorial at Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland.

He is survived by his wife, Diane, daughters Karin Rice, Susan Thompson and Heather, a grandson, Alexander Mowry Thompson, and a cousin, Patricia Mudge.

Services will be held Saturday, May 19th at 4 p.m. at Plymouth Church, 2860 Coventry Road, Shaker Heights. Contributions can be made to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation or the Exeter Academy Theater Department (Attention: Bonnie Weeks), 20 Main St., Exeter, NH, 03833.
 

REMEMBRANCE FOR WILLIAM MOWRY CONNELLY

The following remembrance of William M. (“Mowry”) Connelly was written by Chuck Mokriski as one entry in a Book & Snake Memorial Book. All eleven entries were read at a memorial service on September 8, 2007, in Greenwich, CT. This remembrance was inspired by Mowry’s lifelong passion for Gilbert & Sullivan.

A Bright and Brassy Barrister

He was the very model of a bright and brassy barrister.
For judges and for juries he could make the courtroom merrier.
While precedents and precepts he took little time to ponder,
With family, friends and brothers, he would free his mind to wander.

About maritime marauding of the Monitor and Merrimack,
And midnight infiltration into Skull and Bones and back.
Midst our midnight, beery banter in the tomb of Charlie Ross,
Irreverent wit he wielded while the rest of us got sauced.

Go west, they said, and so he did, old Gotham to forsake;
En route to Cleveland suburbs where he promptly bought a rake.
A pumpkin patch he sowed each spring with keen anticipation,
But Mother Nature, that ornery wench, gave dwarfs and resignation.

With daughters, on the other hand, his nurture brought a bounty
Of stunning damsels, like their Mom, toast of Cayuga County.
In later years, his Memorial tours on Garfield conferred great fame,
As the 20th president’s stature rose after years of George the lame.

The barrister now departed, his memory we hold most highly.
He’s gone to look for the lost Charlie Ross, God bless his soul O’Reilly.