By:JOSEPH KELLARD
Whether working for area newspapers or out around town on his own time, O'Neill could often be found with camera in hand, taking snapshots at all manner of events and incidents, from black-tie affairs to town hall meetings to auto accidents.
The seeds of O'Neill's work were planted when his family bought him a 35-mm camera some 20 years ago, he once said. He initially liked taking pictures of his many relatives, particularly his grandchildren. A member of the Columbia Engine Company in Oceanside, O'Neill carried his camera to firematic functions and fires throughout the district, and later to departments in Island Park, Baldwin, Long Beach and Freeport. In the late 1980s, he landed a job as a photographer and reporter at the now defunct Oceanside Beacon.
The signature pose O'Neill had his subjects strike was the thumbs-up sign, something the Rev. Carston Martensen of St. Anthony's Church in Oceanside noted at O'Neill's funeral service Feb. 4. "Pete's thumbs up that life is good, his huge smile, his positive attitude, we thank him for all this," Martensen said, mentioning the many events O'Neill had shot for the church. "...He made a huge impact on his community."
"Pete basically became my personal photographer for School 2 when I was the principal there," said Don Maresca, now a member of the Oceanside school board. "His passing is a great loss."
One of O'Neill's shining qualities was his reaction when friends like Maresca or relatives asked him for a favor. He delivered above and beyond what people asked of him, whether they needed a simple photo that he would instead blow up to poster size, or whether a friend wanted a copy of the Tribune and O'Neill would leave dozens of copies at his doorstep, or whether his daughter would mention that she craved sweets and he'd drive to Suffolk County to bring her a box of Dunkin' Donuts.
"There are many people in the world who do things for other people and say that they don't mind, and then they'll go home and complain about it," said Kelly Artus, O'Neill's youngest child. "But my father never, ever did this. He truly enjoyed doing things for other people."
Born Oct. 25, 1932, and raised in Long Beach, O'Neill attended Oceanside High School. After graduating in 1950, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps and served in the Korean War. On his return to the states in 1953, O'Neill married Kay Watson, whom he met while on leave in Arizona, and they moved to Oceanside. A year later, the couple had their first child, Lynda (Grossman), followed by a son, Peter Jr., and two more daughters, Geri (Sundermier) and Artus. O'Neill is survived by his wife, four children and 16 grandchildren.
Along with his father, Edmund, O'Neill founded Peter O'Neill Associates, a marble import company. Years later, however, an accident on the job in which he broke both his legs and an ankle effectively ended his career in the field.
O'Neill received the Oceanside Fire Department's Firefighter of the Year award in 1992 for his newspaper stories and photos of the department. He served as historian of the Columbia Engine Company, the fire company he began battling blazes with in 1956. During the 1960s and '70s, he was president of the Oceanside Stallions youth football league as well as a member of the Oceanside Republican Club.
Having grown up during the turbulent 1960s, Grossman recalled that when it came to people, her father was blind to race, politics and religion. She recalled a gesture he made when "a stir" was created in Oceanside after the first black family moved to town. "The family didn't live in our neighborhood, but my father went over to their house anyway and introduced himself and welcomed them," Grossman said. "That's the type of person he was. He didn't care if you were white, black, Chinese, Democrat, Republican, Catholic or Jewish. He treated everyone the same, and was giving to all people."
Sundermier learned from her father that no obstacle was too large to overcome, and recalled her wedding day in February 1983, when a few feet of snow fell. O'Neill kept his family calm with jokes and smiles, and the next day he figured out a way to climb through mounds of snow so he could drive the newlyweds to JFK Airport to make a flight for their honeymoon.
"He would never let anything stand in the way of his family," Sundermier said. "I will always remember his courage, boundless energy, strength and wisdom. He loved life and lived it to the fullest."
That love of life was obvious to people who knew O'Neill, from friends in his youth to his grandchildren. "He was so much fun to grow up with," said Gerri O'Neill about her brother, "and was always protective of me." Said Michelle Grossman at her grandfather's wake at Jordan's Funeral Home in Island Park, "He told a lot of great, larger-than-life stories about himself, and I didn't know whether or not to believe some of them. ... But I know he lived a long and happy life."
Michelle's mother said that O'Neill made sure he had a special relationship with each grandchild, and Dennis McGlynn, past commissioner of the OFD, noted in his eulogy that O'Neill especially gleamed when he spoke about them.
McGlynn, whom O'Neill called his "nearest and dearest friend," remembered that when he joined the Columbia firehouse in 1980, O'Neill immediately took him under his wing and steered him in the right direction. "He went out of his way to introduce me to the right people," McGlynn said, "and this led to me eventually becoming fire commissioner." Echoing similar sentiments about befriending O'Neill, Commissioner Bill Lynch said, "Pete made me who I am today, no doubt. I'm going to miss him a lot."
An avid Internet surfer, O'Neill also made friends in far corners of the globe, from California to Italy. Michelle noted how she would miss her grandfather's routine mass e-mails that informed everyone on his list about the various goings-on in his and his family's lives.
His friendships even extended to the animal world. In his later years, O'Neill joined several rescue organizations, particularly for feral cats. In addition to personally nurturing some of them, he befriended neighborhood squirrels with a daily diet of crackers and peanut butter, and fed ducks day-old bread while vacationing with his wife in Florida each winter.
"Once he got on to something he liked," Artus said, "whether it was photography or saving animals, it just mushroomed, and he became completely devoted to it."
O'Neill's ashes will be buried at Holy Rood Cemetery in Westbury on March 5 at a private ceremony.
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
