Gerald O'Connor

08/11/2001

Gerald Waldron O'Connor, 98, of 440 Long Mountain Road, Washington, Va., formerly of Sheffield, died Saturday at Fauquier Hospital in Warrenton, Va. He was the father of former Eagle reporter Gerald B. "Rory" O'Connor of South Royalton, Vt. Born in Flushing, Long Island, N.Y., on May 7, 1903, son of Bernard F. and Anna McHenry Barnard O'Connor, he graduated from Kent (Conn.) School in 1920. He also graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., in 1924, where he was the last surviving member of his class. He enrolled in Johns Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore, but left in his second year to study art. He had resided in Washington since 1971 in a house he designed and helped build. Mr. O'Connor worked as an illustrator for The May Co. in Baltimore, then joined the faculty of St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., where he taught French, Latin, English, and mechanical and freehand drawing, In 1938, he bought a dairy farm in Sheffield, where his mother's family had lived for generations, and managed it until the house and barns were destroyed by fire in 1943. He also resided in Bel Air, Md., and Conowingo, Md., before moving to Virginia in 1970, where he taught briefly at schools in Warrenton and Flint Hill and served as a teaching aide and substitute teacher at Rappahannock County High School in Washington. He also designed renovations to the former Rappahannock County (Va.) Library, now the Washington Town Hall. While in Washington, he and his wife, the former Cornelia Dickinson Pell of Sheffield and Staten Island, N.Y., were among the founding members of the Rappahannock Association for the Arts and Community and participated in its theatrical and historical productions for many years. While in Sheffield during the 1930s, he participated in amateur theatrical productions both on the town green and at the Town Hall. His first wife, the former Elizabeth Carroll, and second wife, the former Phyllis Hukill, are deceased. Besides his wife and son, he leaves a daughter, Elizabeth McGurk of New York City and Essex, England; four grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

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