MaryAnn, and Orwell, his beloved cat. Gerald—or Jerry as he preferred to be known—lost his own
mother in his first year, so he had no memories of her. His father, Patrick, took Jerry to Ireland for the
next five years, where Patrick met the woman who was to become Jerry’s stepmother. They moved back
to New York. When he was eight and eleven years old, Jerry became the older step-brother to Mary and
Thomas Sheehan, both of whom are long deceased.
Jerry left high school and worked for a time as a short-order cook in a diner. During this time he met his
future wife, Norma Rosen, mother of Jim, who passed in 2003. As a young man, Jerry learned the trade
of printing, working at this for many years to support his family, including twenty-five years for The
Seagram Company, Ltd., from which he retired in 1998. Although Jerry left school as a teenager, years
later he earned his high school equivalency diploma, an accomplishment of which he was extremely
proud. He passed away in hospice on June 25, 2022, succumbing after a long bout with dementia and
other ailments. He wished to be remembered as one who “tried to do the right thing most of the time.”
He grew into a man of kindness, compassion and patience—a loving father who treasured his wife and
his son
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