A Memorial Mass for former BJ reporter Bill Canterbury will start at 9:30 a.m. Friday, October 26 at St. Sebastian Church. Bill’s widow, Paula, and her family will receive friends 30 minutes before the Mass.

There will be a reception at the O’Neil House after the Mass. The memorial Mass was scheduled for October because the clan will be in Akron for a family wedding later that day.

St. Sebastian is at 476 Mull Avenue. The O’Neil House is at 1290 W. Exchange Street.

Paula explains:

“I am having a short reception afterward and we are due for pictures for my nephew’s wedding at 12:30 at Stan Hywet.  Weddings and funerals, John.  It will be quite the day.” 

 

Gloria Irwin, because Mustard Seed charges a rental fee for its private room, will “just grab a table in the café about noon” for any of Bill’s co-workers and friends who want to go there after the Mass and O’Neil House stops.

Former BJ religion writer Laura Haferd, who plans to attend, noted that “Bill sang in the St. Sebastian Choir for many years, so the choir will be there. At least those who don’t have to be at work on a Friday morning.” 
Others who say they will be at the reception are former Ol’ Blue Walls occupants Betsy Lammerding, Ann and Roger Mezger, Marilyn Miller, Dave Scott, Gloria Irwin, Bob Springer, Chuck Montague, Mary Beth Nord Breckenridge, George “Bing Davis and wife Merleen, Kathy Byland Gardner and Greg Gardner and Charlene Nevada.

Robin Sallie is a maybe. Katie Byard and Jim Carney will be out of town and will miss the event. 

And me. I wouldn't miss a farewell to Bill for the world.

But not Paula Stone Tucker, 1970s State Desk reporter, who is in The Villages, Florida while I’m in our Tallmadge home staring and yelling at our TV set or in Mountaineer Field cheering on my alma mater’s football team.

In 2009 my Paula and I ran into Bill and his Paula at the annual St. Sebastian Church Thanksgiving dinner on Mull Avenue in Akron. Bill was with Meals on Wheels, still being the good guy helping others. 

Bill’s Paula is an Ellet High and University of Akron graduate. Bill and Paula had moved to Fort Myers, Florida, where Bill passed away May 1. Their children are Eddie Canterbury and Lyn Pfordresher. Bill’s sisters are Ann Canterbury and Helen Westneat.

In Fort Myers, Paula said, her Bill “was playing tennis and swimming in the Gulf of Mexico in February!" He also was an avid tennis player, painter, musician, skiier and a dedicated naturalist. Quiet but good man, our Bill.

Bill once wrote:

“I remember Paula. So now we both have a Paula in our lives. Lovely name, beautiful people attached to them.”

Indeed, Bill. And you are at the head of the class when it comes to beautiful people.

Here’s an example of Bill’s writing that, like him, was simple, heart-felt and moving, from a 1985 article:

"The dead still rest in peace in a hilltop cemetery in rural Holmes County. But to their survivors, the scenic, century-old burial ground has become a matter of unrest."

Simple and classic. That’s our Bill.

Bill was a member of the 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winning team for “A Question of Color.”

Bill and I have an extra bonding. We are both West Virginia natives. Bill grew up in Wayne County, which shares a border with Mingo County, where my late wife, Monnie Turkette Olesky, grew up in the Cinderella coal camp adjacent to Williamson. I met Monnie on a baseball field in Williamson when I was sports editor of the Williamson Daily News, my first job after my graduation from the West Virginia University School of Journalism.

While Paula Canterbury and I were discussing Bill’s Memorial Mass and publishing information about it on this BJ Alums blog, Paula wrote:

“You are such a kind man and remind me so much of Bill. A true gentleman with a wry sense of humor and a full heart.”

That probably is the greatest compliment I have received in my life.

Other WVU J School alumni who prowled Ol’ Blue Walls include Scott Bosley, Tom Melody and Bonnie Bolden.

George “Bing” Davis, who I think still writes for the BJ, has known Bill since 1964 “when I succeeded him at the Lynchburg (Virginia) Daily Advance and got his apartment, too."