Jim Fallon was not much of a “hugger,” says Chris, one of his five sons. “But you never doubted for a moment that you were deeply loved.” 

Jim died five years ago at the age of 97 after a very long lifetime of deep love, not just for his family but for humanity. Jim was a lawyer with a practice in Sayville and a family summer place in Cherry Grove. 

In the 1950s, he and a few other local lawyers took cases no one else would touch – representing gay men who had been rounded up in police raids in the Meat Rack. In those dark days, to be in Cherry Grove or Fire Island Pines when the cops were there for a raid was to put your life at risk. They came in police boats and stormed the beach with their flashlights in the middle of the night. They took the shackled suspects back to the mainland jails. The men were charged with sodomy and other sex crimes. 

In those dark pre-Stonewall days of homophobia in the 1950s and ‘60s, many of them called Jim who took their cases without hesitation – and usually without remuneration. Jim never lost a case. 

Jim’s wife Maria called these men “my boys” and she looked after them and tried to make up for what their estranged biological families had denied them. “Everyone needs a birthday cake,” Chris quoted her. The dreaded raids finally ended in 1968.

Jim met Maria at his first job after law school when he worked in a Sayville law office where she was the legal secretary there. They married in 1941 and had a full life together for 66 years, producing five sons: Jim Jr., Michael, Paul, Chris and David, all now married with children of their own.  When three cousins Dick, Bobbie, and Donne, were left parentless, Jim took them in to the Fallon house, along with another aunt to helped raise this brood.

Summers, Jim took an early ferry every day from Cherry Grove to his Sayville office dressed in a crisp seersucker suit and straw Panama cap, with his briefcase and his lunch in a bag. After a long stretch of renting and finally, after they had sent all his sons through college, thirty-six years ago, he and Maria bought The Legal Pad, his memory-filled cottage on Beach Walk. 

Jim was a believer in the power of positive thinking. Chris remembers that his father would stand in front of the mirror in the morning and talk to himself. “He'd say: ‘Jim, you’re a good guy. You may go the whole day without a compliment, so I’m giving you one now.’”

Jim was an “attorney’s attorney,” says son Jim Jr. “He loved the law and had the highest Martindale Hubbell rating.” Jim remembers that in one of his courtroom exchanges, his dad said: “I object to that half-assed question.” The judge immediately asked him to repeat it and quick-witted Jim said: ‘I objected to that half-asked question.”

He was bestowed many plaques but his favorite was: “Honest lawyer, one flight up.”

  James V. Fallon took his law degree from St John’s University and was a member of the New York State Bar Association for 75 years. He had his own successful practice in Sayville and went to the office everyday till the day he died in 2014. 

In 1942 as World War Two raged, Jim qualified for Navy Officer Candidate School and entered Columbia University’s Midshipman School.  After receiving his commission, the young ensign went to communications school in Annapolis; married Maria in October and was assigned to the USS Wilson DD-408 as the communications officer. Jim saw action in the Pacific and later in the Atlantic as a liaison officer on a British Cruiser.  He earned seven battle stars pinned on his campaign ribbons. He retired as Lt Cmdr USNR. 

His son Michael recalls that Jim was a true believer in giving back to one’s community “In the 50s and 60s we rarely ever saw him. Before dinner he had his drink with Mom and after-dinner he would either be off to the office or to one of his meetings.”

Jim was active in and held officer positions the Sayville Rotary Club, the Suffolk County Bar Association, Sayville Fire District Board of Commissioners, the VFW and American Legion, the Knights of Columbus, and served for over 50 years as one to two trustees for his parish, St Lawrence the Martyr.  He also represented the Nassau and Suffolk County Bar associations in the NY State Bar Association.  

Pines residents remember him as the reader at Sunday Mass during the summer and Grove resident remember Jim as an avid ocean fisherman who was out in the surf every day, especially in September.

But Cherry Grove will remember Jim Fallon for so much more. Thank you, Jim Fallon, for being such an important part of our history and for actually making our history -- and for being a man whose life and values define faith, charity and love.