Macon Magazine

October/November 2026 | maconmagazine.com 73 extended in earnest, the palm of his hand turned up. When his frequent emphases were at their pitch-point zones, he might run his hand across his wide brow and farther onto his balding pate. He was an intelligent, wise, and fascinating leader. Not that he was a saint. Larry angered plenty of people along the way, broke society's rules at times, and once or twice put his fine academic career at risk for nonsensical reasons. Yet, in the end, he owned up to all of it, took responsibility, and righted his ship every time, never looking back. He was born near the end of World War II, the only child of a Baltimore couple divorced by the time their son was a teen. Larry's father served as a Merchant Marine during wartime before settling into a long career with a Baltimore-based aerospace contractor. In the years a er, Larry said he rarely saw his father, who eventually remarried and had two more children — half-siblings that he never knew well. He would never forget his "lost" father, who died relatively young at age 65. Larry told others about the boating excursions they enjoyed, including a thrilling crawler trip from the Chesapeake Bay to the shores of Canada. All his life, Larry would be drawn to ships, boats, and the sea, and to recreational sailing. The next year a er marriage, their first son, Thomas, was born, followed by Marie, Joseph, and Elizabeth. Life was o en an adventure with the Fennellys. The couple traveled abroad with their children even when the kids were very young. The cities of Rome, Pisa, Venice, and Florence also experienced the Fennellys, And Larry was not himself. Yes, he felt all right, and he was doing laundry, walking the dogs. The usual. But… "It is difficult for me without Wanda here," he told me. The carefree, confident Larry I once knew was waning. We met up for coffee the next day, and although he looked healthy enough for a man with, as he repeated, "a bad heart and two cancers," he seemed restless, talking about going to Japan with Wanda the next year. "If I make it." A er that, the Fennellys continued to attend events in Macon without pause. They even showed up at Washington Memorial Library on three consecutive Mondays when I held a series of presentations about children's books. A er the last one on Aug. 24, Larry phoned the next morning to apologize because he and Wanda had le early, not feeling well. I hadn't even realized it. Our exceptional friend, Laurence William Fennelly, 83, died in the early morning hours of Sept. 2. There is no way to capture in words the life of a good man like that. I pay tribute to his wonderful wife, Wanda Eanes; his equally wonderful children, Thomas, Marie, Joseph, and Elizabeth; and to his three small and darling grandchildren, Marie, Joseph, and Raiden, who is newly minted. Wanda says Larry requested his ashes be delivered back to the sea. and when Wanda traveled to Vienna and Innsbruck, Austria, with the Chorale Society of Middle Georgia, Larry and the children went, too. And then this … In August 2025, I called to check on him. Within the last dozen years, he had undergone triple-bypass surgery, and two cancer diagnoses for which he opted out of treatment. Each time we talked, he said something like: "I don't know why I haven't already died…" Wanda and Marie, separately, shared one of the family's stories: Each time Wanda announced a new pregnancy, Larry would lament, "Well, Wanda, since I'm older than you, I will probably never see this child graduate college" (Thomas); high school (Marie); middle school (Joseph); and lastly … the belated "surprise baby," Elizabeth. Would he witness Elizabeth's kindergarten graduation? But the answer would ultimately be just like Molly Bloom's cries at the end of Ulysses: "Yes! Yes! Yes! And yes!" Marie laughed when she said to me: "Dad was a fatalist all his life!" Or a melancholy Irishman, I thought. He told me years ago that when he died, he hoped his funeral service would include the song "Danny Boy" — ideally played on bagpipes. That day in August 2025, Wanda was held over in Okinawa with Marie and her family. She had gone to help them settle into new military housing, and she delayed her return home because she had "come down with something." With some of his beloved dogs. Fennelly with wife Wanda Eanes

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