Patrick FOODY

1930 - 2022

PATRICK FOODY May 1, 1930 - August 13, 2022 Pat Foody passed away peacefully shortly after a stroke. From humble beginnings in Northern Ireland, he immigrated to Montreal and made a new life filled with energy and creativity. He was an engineer, entrepreneur, inventor, stalwart clean energy advocate, bon vivant, leprechaun and devoted husband, father and grandfather. He was the beloved husband of Helen for almost 64 years; father of six boys - Brian, Michael, Pat, Kevin, Tom and Dan; father-in-law of Wendy, Marianne, Margaret, Marnie and Laura; grandfather of Andrew, Elizabeth, Caroline, Charlotte, Shannon, Devon, Claire, Caitlin, Julia, Connor, Jacqueline, Brendan, Sean and Anna; and grandfather-in-law to Alex Wijnbergen (husband of Elizabeth). Pat was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and grew up off the Falls Road at 41 Norfolk Parade with elder twin siblings Jim and Bridget as well as with childhood friend and neighbor Con O'Gorman, who still lives on Norfolk Parade. Pat (or Paddy as he was known then) was the proud son of James, a retired and much-admired policeman and carpenter. Both his mother (Bridget Dougherty) and twin brother, Desmond, died before he turned four. As a boy, he adventured in the hills of Donegal with relatives on his mother's side from the Brennan, Dougherty and O'Grady clans and marveled at the beautiful countryside where the arrival of the railroad (an ominous instrument of the devil to some) was remembered as a recent event, tinkers still plied their trade, and residents almost rejected electrification in a plebiscite. Throughout his life, Pat had an enormous personality and will be remembered as a charismatic storyteller and mischief maker with unrivaled joie de vivre, never letting a leg go unpulled or the truth get in the way of a good story. He left Ireland in 1952 for America (or Montreal at least) days after graduating from Queen's University Belfast as a Civil Engineer, with neither a job in hand nor money in his pocket, but with the intense energy of a young Belfast hard man. After a stint at C.D. Howe Engineering, he joined Pentagon Construction to run projects around the country, living long enough to see one of his jobs, the No. 5 Grain Elevator in Montreal, become a national historic monument. He met Helen Kotch, his beautiful bride-to-be, in Montreal, where he spirited her away from his own roommate and then, shortly after they married in 1958, quit his job to start his own construction firm. He set out on this new adventure with the unrelenting drive and self confidence that characterized his life … never working for anyone else again. Helen and Pat moved to the town of Hudson, Quebec in 1960 and have been there ever since. They raised their six boys there and were a fixture in the community for many years. Pat was also drawn into his lifelong hobby of home renovation there when, in 1972, he bought an historic lakefront home that dated back to the 1850s. He eventually made it his castle and earned architectural awards for the effort. Pat also built a thriving construction and engineering business, actively invested in dozens of start-ups, and later in his career turned his focus to developing technology for a new kind of waste-based renewable fuel. He was an inventor, unwavering visionary and ultra-stubborn advocate who saw his work inspire billions of dollars of investment and provide a foundation for the future of energy without oil. Pat was buried at St. Mary's Church in Hudson across the street from his home of fifty years in a private family ceremony following a funeral service at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Hudson. In his last conscious act before slipping away, he reached out, held his beloved wife Helen's hand, brought it to his lips and kissed it. In remembrance of Pat's life, the family ask that any charitable donations be made to Nova Hudson at www.novahudson.com.