By Jeffry Christian Burden, Esq., PCinC & Jefferson D. Lilly II, JVCinC
Though one of twelve children of prominent Boston parents, John Thomas Lenahan O’Connell was born on June 6, 1913, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in order to have his mother’s Pennsylvania uncle deliver him. His father Joseph Francis O’Connell was a one-term Member of Congress, prominent Boston attorney, and political activist. His mother, the former Marisita Lenahan, was the daughter of Pennsylvania attorney and Congressman John Thomas Lenahan IV. Raised in Brookline and then Brighton, young John Thomas prepped at Boston Latin and English High. He lived at home during his undergraduate years, working as a potato packer at the local A&P grocery store, and graduated from Boston College with the Class of 1934. He then enrolled at his father’s alma mater, Harvard University, to pursue his legal education. His grades were subpar, and he was asked to leave. Young Lenahan, as he would be called, then had little love for the law (and Harvard for that matter) and wanted to engage in business pursuits. His attorney father would not hear of it, seeing his potential as an attorney. As such, he enrolled in the law school of Boston University, where he received his law degree in 1938.
Companion O’Connell enlisted in the United States Army during his legal studies, in 1936. He was detailed to attend Officer Candidate School at the Massachusetts Military Academy in 1936, earning a promotion and commission to Second Lieutenant. Between his graduation from law school and the commencement of hostilities in World War II, he worked at his father’s law office in Boston, focusing on civil and administrative matters.
He entered active military service in World War II as a Second Lieutenant as a battery officer with the United States Army, 79th Division, stationed at Camp Blanding, Florida. After promotion to First Lieutenant and service in the 86th Division, he attended the Judge Advocate School in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1944. He was thereafter posted with the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, assigned to the 182nd and 23rd Infantry Divisions in Dutch New Guinea and the Philippines, where he was promoted to Captain. John later served in the Army of Occupation in Yokohama, Japan in 1945 before being discharged from active service at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. He continued his uniformed service in both the United States Army Reserve and Massachusetts National Guard, retiring in 1973 as a Lieutenant Colonel. From 1948 to 1952 he was an assistant prosecutor. After his service there, John had a long and successful private legal career, spanning decades, in the areas of family law and state government.
Companion O’Connell joined the Loyal Legion in 1957, assigned Insignia #19984, and served the Massachusetts Commandery in a variety of roles before being elected the 40th Commander-in-Chief of the Order in 1967. He served two terms of office through 1971 and was succeeded by Colonel Brooke Montgomery Lessig. His Hereditary Companionship was derived through a maternal Great-Grandfather, Patrick Lenahan (1825-1898), who served as a Second Lieutenant in Company D, 8th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.
John also served as Secretary of the Massachusetts Commission on the Civil War Centennial, as member and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Boston Public Library, and as member of the Board of Trustees of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, among other appointments. His organizational life memberships, beyond the Loyal Legion, included the Eire Society of Boston, the American Irish Historical Society, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Charitable Irish Society, the American Legion, the Massachusetts Military Academy, and the Knights of Columbus.
Soon after his graduation from law school, he met the daughter of a local restaurant owner. He married the former Priscilla Halloran on September 7, 1942, at St. Thomas Catholic Church in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. They had three sons: Lenahan Louis, Donn, and Brendan H., all of whom became Hereditary Companions of the Order. Mrs. O’Connell died in 1995. On January 5, 2014, at the age of 100 years and six months, Lieutenant Colonel John Thomas Lenahan O’Connell, Esq. answered the final call. He was buried aside his wife 53 years at Saint Joseph Cemetery in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Companion O’Connell currently holds the distinction of being the longest-lived PCinC and the first to achieve the centenary mark.
Remarking on his 100th birthday and proud Irish heritage, he noted in an interview with the Boston Irish Reporter, “Justly so, the history of the O’Connell family…serves as a microcosm of the Irish people, who, denied their basic rights and liberties for centuries, chose exile and undertook perilous ocean passages to come to America. Those exiles who survived, prevailed, and carved out their niche in the United States serve as a continuous living testament to the determination of the Irish people to endure and succeed.”