Honoring a New Canaan Teacher: A Tribute to Mr. Parry

Tim Parry, 44, began to see his father differently—through the eyes of his schoolmates—after arriving at New Canaan High School as a freshman in the late-1980s.

By then his dad, Ray Parry, was approaching 30 years teaching science at the high school, including stints as an assistant football coach and equipment manager there.

“I came to see a whole different world,” Tim recalled on a recent afternoon. “A world of people that he had done things for. I started to hear, ‘Your dad meant this and that to me,’ ‘I wouldn’t have got into college if not for your dad,’ ‘He pulled me aside and gave me something to read and it changed my life.’ ”

The elder Parry will turn 85 on April 12 and Tim has a special plan to mark the day: Gather videos from former students and colleagues telling his dad what he’s meant to them, and combine the clips in a digital tribute reel (instructions on how to participate can be found at end of this article).

“I think this will be a reminder of all the great things he’s done,” Tim said.

And more than that.

The project is also a son’s attempt to remind his father—a man who has found himself increasingly isolated in recent years, following profound personal losses—that he’s remembered and loved by those whose lives he’s touched.

Ray Parry in 2010 lost one of his five children, suddenly and inexplicably. Jim Parry was 55. The following year, Ray lost a granddaughter at 33. And on May 19, 2013, he lost his wife of 61 years following an illness.

“The first thing my dad told me after my mom passed away was, ‘If you wonder why I’m not crying, it’s because I have been preparing for this, because I knew that this day was going to come.’ ”

Though Ray still does his crossword puzzles, watches war documentaries on The History Channel and can explain exactly how to fix the New York Giants—and though between Tim and grandson, Jeff, he has company at his Fairfield home most days—he’s lost touch with many friends, including former students and colleagues.

“Hopefully this will put him back in touch with people on a regular basis,” Tim said. “He’ll get to ‘see,’ so to speak, people he hasn’t seen in years.”

“He isn’t in the best shape but he’s in decent health, still driving and taking care of himself, but I see he’s lonely,” Tim added. “He was just telling me today that he’d filled up the tank in his car a month ago, and I can see he’s only driven 25 miles since then. So he’s just going out to get coffee and then coming home.”

Family Life

Raymond William Parry was born and raised on Bridgeport’s east side. He attended public schools in the city and graduated from Harding High School in 1947. Four years later, in 1951, he was part of the first-ever graduating class from Fairfield University.

He served as a corpsman in the U.S. Navy from 1951 to 1955—in 1952 marrying Ann Senshack, a first-generation American of Czech descent who’d graduated from Harding one year after Ray.

“For them, toward the end, a trip to Costco was a big day out,” Tim recalled. “They would shop together and stuff like that. They did things together.”

Though not everything.

Ann enjoyed traveling while Ray preferred to stay at home, so when Tim was 13 or 14, he recalled, she began taking international cruises with friends. Still, family life revolved around the church and holidays.

“Mom loved to entertain,” Tim recalled. “In 2012, she said she’d never do St. Patrick’s Day again. Then in 2013 she was doing St. Patrick’s Day, and she died two months later.”

Ray and Ann started their family when a girl, Deb, was born in 1953, and they’d have four more children over the next 15 years, three boys and a girl.

Tim said he inherited Ray’s headstrong personality as well as his patience. “As I look back now, I am so much like my dad,” he said, adding: “The biggest thing I’ve learned from him is work ethic.”

“It seemed like my father was always working a second, third job sometimes. Summers always meant taking on another kind of role—freelance work and things. While dad was in New Canaan, he also served as principal of the Summer Leaning Program for a time.” Importantly, Tim said, he learned from Ray what it is to be a good husband and father.

Asked what those things meant to him, Tim said: “Just being there for one another, listening both to your wife and children.”

“Being a good father and husband means you are there—really there. You’re not running off. You’re involved, you’re actually caring about what is going on with your wife and your child’s life.” Other lessons Tim said he learned from his dad: Be responsible for your own actions, learn from your mistakes and if you’ve got a problem with a coach, “it’s your job to confront him, not your parents’.”

“I remember the day my senior year when I wanted my dad to ask [New Canaan High School head football coach] Lou Marinelli why I wasn’t getting any playing time,” Parry recalled. “My dad yelled at me for even suggesting that. He told me he didn’t like that when he was a coach, didn’t do that for any of his other kids, and wasn’t about to start now. I did approach Lou, and he was appreciative, told me why I wasn’t getting playing time, and what I could do to get better.”

In New Canaan

Ray earned a master’s degree from Fairfield in 1957 and taught with the National Science Foundation at both Yale and Brown. He and Ann moved their young family to Fairfield in 1958 and Ray launched his career at New Canaan High School (today the site of Saxe Middle School) in 1959, specializing in anatomy, physiology and biology.

Ray served as an assistant football coach for the Rams from 1959 to 1967 under the late Joe Sikorski, then ran the school’s ticket operations from 1968 to 1990, pulling double-duty during that final decade as its equipment manager, as well.

“There are a lot of people I’ll hear from who’ll say, ‘Oh, your dad was my old line coach,’ ” Tim said.

Ray was honored by the New Canaan Old Timers in 2006.

“Lou [Marinelli] and Fiver [Mark Rearick] always make a point of asking me how my father is doing, and how thankful they are for things he’d done for them,” Tim said.

Tim himself had been on a path to attend public schools in his family’s hometown of Fairfield, but as the smallest kid in his Tomlinson Middle School class, he became an easy target for bullies.

“My parents saw me just coming home and hiding in a back room, not going out,” Tim recalled. “My dad, being an educator for more than 20 years at that point, had gone to the administration at the school and said, ‘There’s a problem here.’ And they took the approach of, ‘Well, boys will be boys.’ My dad said, ‘To hell with that. Bring him to New Canaan.’

Tim would develop deep and lasting roots in town. The managing editor of “Multichannel Merchant” magazine for Access Intelligence, Tim started his career in journalism as the sports editor at the New Canaan Advertiser. He also continues to play in the town’s recreational men’s slow-pitch softball league.

“Even before going to schools in New Canaan, I was going to New Canaan sporting events with my dad,” Tim recalled. “Football and basketball. My dad would take me, and I pretty much grew up hearing about legends like Peel Pennington, and different athletes from other sports. Bill Toomey, for instance, or Lenny Paglialunga.”

What Ray’s been living for in recent years is the New Canaan Old Timers clam bake in the fall, Tim said. “That’s his big event,” Tim said. “He can’t wait to go and get there to see the old boys. He used to be more mobile, he’d get to some New Canaan football games.” Video Tribute There’s no chance that this article will spoil the birthday surprise for his dad, Tim told NewCanaanite.com.

“The last time he used a computer was when he worked at WCSU in 2000,” Tim said, referring to his father’s role as equipment manager at the Danbury university.

In that role, according to a citation that went with Ray’s 2009 WCSU Athletic Hall of Fame induction, Tim’s father mentored student employees and “was also involved in the transition of the school’s athletic department from aging facilities at the school’s Midtown Campus to its new location at the O’Neil Center at the WCSU Westside Campus, and assisted in the design and configuration of the equipment facilities there.” Tim said he’s received a strong response to posts calling for tributes on his own Facebook page and online groups where New Canaan High School alumni communicate, such as the “If You’re Really from New Canaan, You’d Know” Facebook group.

Readers wishing to participate in the video tribute can send clips to Tim at tparrymcm@gmail.com or can text an iPhone selfie video to Tim at 203-274-3890. Anyone who wants to send a written note or card can email Tim for instructions on how to post their well-wishes.

Ray has nine grandchildren—three in the area—and two great-grandchildren. Tim’s surviving siblings don’t live locally, and it’s difficult for them to get back home to Connecticut often, he said.

Asked to imagine the scene where his dad sits down to view the video, Tim said, “I’m pretty sure it will wind up being just me and him.”

“It’ll be a father-son moment,” he said.