As many of you know, Ed was number nine of ten children who grew up in Roslindale, City of Boston. Ed’s brother, Bill, was number eight (his email address was Liam810 for #8 of 10).

We learned that Bill passed away at the Labor Day weekend. He had lived in St Paul, Minnesota for more than 40 years, ever since he went there to earn a PhD in medicinal chemistry at the University of Minnesota. In recent years, he firmly resisted suggestions that he move closer to family in the Boston area by those of us who were concerned that he didn’t have relatives nearby. He made St Paul his home to the end.

A big and unique personality, Bill was a significant figure in Ed’s life… and in Anne’s. In the seventies, shortly after we started dating, Bill visited his parents and siblings in Boston and launched the first of many piercing conversations with Anne. He ran marathons and, as a scientist and later, a university professor, he never hesitated to share finely judged points of view.

As the years went on, Bill broke up with his partner, Gary, the parents died, Bill took early retirement from the university and switched to working as a pharmacist. Unchanging, however, was Bill’s commitment to the family. Whenever he could, he attended family gatherings. He tracked the names of the children, the grandchildren, the great-grandchildren. Over decades, he made countless biannual pilgrimages to Ireland to ĺook up, and in many cases, visit with Muldoon, Lynch, McGlinchey relations.

We dedicate this Pilgrimage on the Via Francigena to Bill.