June 12, 2012 "He Must Have Missed the Train. We Miss Him When He Doesn't Come."

To Mark, John, Ann and Elizabeth:


Your dad, "Sully", a little bit older and wiser, was a steadfast companion and pal who showed B & Bonnie all of Connecticut soon after their arrival.  Whether a trip to the beach, taking them for clam fritters, to his parents’ hometown or for a row around the sound, there was always a good time to be had.  Your parents were so much a part of their lives, it's hard to decide what to include in this short note.  After your dad left New Haven, he continued to return on weekends to stay with B & Bonnie while he took his Saturday classes.  B & Bonnie anxiously awaited the introduction of Be, and when she came on the scene they immediately became the inseparable foursome, spending weekends together, visiting your grandparents' homes, sharing meals, "bull sessions" and just enjoying one another.  Your parents, as well as your grandparents, embraced B & Bonnie as part of their own families, and stayed in touch long after the Connecticut years.  It was fun for me to look at my baby book and find a note from your mom, commenting on the choice of the name, Ann.  Mark, I hope that by referring to this project as the “the blogggggg”, you don’t mean the “blah blah blah-g”!  Thanks for writing!

Mark shares:

Dad was born February 6, 1916, the youngest of three children of Margaret and Roderick Sullivan.  He worked for two years after high school, most of the time as a gravedigger.  He graduated from Willimantic State Teachers College in 1942 and earned a master’s degree from Yale in 1944.  In August of 1945 he was married to Beatrice Bates, known as “Be”. 

Dad worked at the Oaks School as a 5^th grade teacher for three years in Willimantic CT and then moved to Willimantic State Teachers College as faculty member in charge of the media center where he was the Director for 38 years.  It was there that he set up a state of the art dial access system in 1968...the first was audio and made many of their classes available for review.  In 1970 that expanded to include a video system which was available to the students in a lab on demand.  It had a potpourri of undergraduate classes available for review.  In 1972 it became a computer controlled dial access system and many of the classes were produced in the broadcast quality TV studio.

Dad retired in 1982.  The father of 4 children and 10 grandchildren, he died on February 1, 1999.