William Edward “Bill” Hatch, 89, of Nanuet, NY passed away peacefully on October 3, 2020 at Calvary Hospital. Born February 28, 1931, in Bronx, NY, he was the son of the late Mary (Kiernan) and Paul Hatch, the youngest of their 3 children.
Bill attended Cardinal Hayes High School for one year and then went on to graduate from Samuel Gompers Industrial High School for Boys in the Bronx. During high school he met Joan Frances O’Connor in a candy store, and married her in 1952 while serving as a corporal during the Korean War in the U.S. Army Signal Corps.
Bill graduated from the New York City Police Academy in 1955 and served for 36 years, rising to the rank of Lieutenant before retiring in 1991. He worked on many high-profile cases that he loved to talk about after his retirement, especially those from his time as Executive Officer in the NYPD/DEA Task Force. However, perhaps the highlight of his career was serving as a bodyguard to Pope John Paul II during his visit to NYC in 1979.
Bill retired from the NYPD after twenty years and went to work as a postal carrier. After being bitten by a dog on his route, he pulled his retirement papers and returned to the relative safety of the NYPD for another 16 years. In spite of this incident, he always loved dogs.
Bill and Joan moved from the Bronx to Nanuet in 1964 where they raised their family, Bill often working multiple moonlighting jobs to provide opportunities for his family that had not been afforded to him. His favorite was transporting financial securities from a local Rockland county bank to its NYC headquarters office, as this allowed him to bring one of his children to ride shotgun to “watch his back and keep an eye peeled for suspicious looking characters” while he made his delivery. Each night’s successful run was rewarded with a stop at Baskin Robbins ice cream for a treat to eat while listening to mystery theater radio or a ballgame on the ride home from the city. What his kids didn’t realize then was that this was his way of spending one on one time with each of his six children. In what spare time he had, Bill also volunteered as a gym instructor at St. Anthony’s school and coached little league baseball. After retiring, he was treasurer of the Hudson Valley 10-13 Association.
Always a kid at heart, Bill loved playing practical jokes which often resulted in his victim (usually one of his children) scared for days and Joan yelling at him to “grow up.” Bill was most proud of his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and loved spending time with all of them and would tell anyone who would listen stories about them. In retirement, he enjoyed researching his family genealogy and was an avid Yankees fan, watching late night games in his favorite pair of NY Yankees pajama pants.
Bill is survived by his loving wife of 67 years, Joan; daughters, Maureen, Karen and her husband Dennis Fasulo, and Kristen; sons Thomas, and Christopher and his wife Denise; son-in-law Kevin Butrick, twelve grandchildren, five great grandchildren and many loving nieces, nephews, and relatives. Bill was preceded in death by his sisters, Mary (Menihan) and Catherine (Koch); and his daughters Frances and Barbara (Butrick).
A special thank you to the people at Calvary Hospital in Bronx, NY for their loving care during his final days.
Funeral services will be private due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation in Bill’s memory to either the Shriners Hospitals for Children or St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Arrangements under the care of Higgins Funeral Home. To send a personal condolence, please visit https://www.dignitymemorial.com/funeral-homes/new-city-ny/michael-j-higgins-funeral-service-inc/4537
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Shriners Hospitals for Children, Processing Center, PO Box 863765, Orlando, FL 32886 <https://www.shrinershospitalsforchildren.org/shc>
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 501 St. Jude Place, Memphis, TN 38105 <https://www.stjude.org/
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