Lance Richard Tumulty

Victim’s family recalls a wonderful life
By KARA L. RICHARDSON
Staff Writer

BRIDGEWATER - Lynne Devlyn keeps replaying a video of her friend playing with his two daughters on a Cape Cod porch. Lance Tumulty tickles the ever-giggling Sara, 3, and coos at his newborn baby, Caroline. The video was taken during the families’ vacation together just two weeks before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of many Central Jersey residents, including Tumulty.

Money was tight for the Devlyns this year, so Tumulty, 32, and his wife, Cynthia, footed the bill so the families could be together in the same two-bedroom cottage they’ve vacationed in for six summers. Tumulty slept on the floor so everyone else could have a bed.

“He loved life and everything about it,” Devlyn’s, husband, P.J., said about their friend who worked for EuroBrokers on the 84th floor of Two World Trade Center.

On Wednesday and Thursday, they celebrated Tumulty’s life. Some cried, wiping tears from cheeks with tissues as they looked at the hundreds of family photographs in a room at the Liberty Church in the Liberty Corner section of Bernards. The more than 200 guests wearing red, white and blue ribbons were invited to write their memories on empty scrapbook pages. They later will go in a book for Sara, 3, and Caroline, 4 months.

Despite the deep mourning that penetrated Wednesday’s gathering, there was a sense of gratitude that each person there somehow knew Tumulty and was a part of his life.

“In every aspect of life, he was out to make everyone else happy because that brought him happiness,” said Rich Henriksen, one of Tumulty’s friends from high school. “You meet him once, and he’s your best friend. The next time you saw him, it was like you’ve known him forever.”

Tumulty was a hunter, a motorcyclist and a home-improvement fiend. He also was a tender, loving husband, father and friend, his brother James Tumulty said.

Lance Tumulty and his two brothers, James and Shawn, worked for different companies in the same field , so they would call each other several times each day, he said. During weekends, the brothers and other family members also would get together, working as a team to paint a house, chop wood or refinish a basement.

“It seems like mundane work, but it was great because of Lance,” said James Tumulty, who loved Lance Tumulty’s games, which included such challenges as “How many logs can you split in 15 minutes?”

“Some of my fondest memories with Lance were just splitting wood,” he said.

Tumulty’s cousin, Tom O’Connor, laughed as he talked about some of their hunting adventures. Tumulty shot his first buck at age 12. The family would hunt geese and deer locally and traveled out West for big-game hunting.

“He was a great sportsman and a great family man,” O’Connor said.

Lin Miller, a family friend, recalled that Lance Tumulty would lovingly joke with his wife and her friends about their Mary Kay makeup parties and scrapbook hobbies.

“Lance had the biggest heart of anyone I knew. He had a tough exterior, but when you needed anything, you didn’t even have to call. He would help,” Miller said.

Tumulty even would help in the classroom at Marion T. Bedwell School in Bernardsville, where his wife teaches school. “You don’t see a lot of husbands helping in a kindergarten room, but he would help decorate, come visit. He’d bring in the baby for show and tell.”

More than anything, he loved his wife and loved being a father, said Carole Pisani, his mother-in-law.

“He was a great dad - a great, great dad,” she said. From the moment they came from the hospital, Lance adored and cared for his children.

He was cherished by friends and relatives alike, said Kevin O’Connor, Tumulty’s cousin.

“He was always like our older brother,” said Taryn Lupinacci, 17, about her second cousin who would keep tabs on the guys she dated. “You could trust him and talk to him about anything.”

“He was so excited when he found out Cynthia was pregnant with Caroline,” Alison Lupinacci, 14, said. Tumulty remodeled the basement into a playroom for his growing family, she said.

Just days after the terrorist attack, Miller said Sara was talking about her father and said, “I was hoping the angels would have brought him back to me, but the angels brought him straight up to heaven instead.”

Reprinted with permission of The Courier News, Bridgewater, N.J.
Copyright © 2001. All rights reserved.


Lance Tumulty, esteemed businessman He was the captain of the Matawan High School football team, earning the title of All County/All Shore quarterback, before his graduation in 1987.

Even through adulthood, Lance Richard Tumulty was admired and cheered by those who knew him. They recalled how he was always good for a laugh or a smile.

"He was never in a bad mood," said his mother, Diane Tumulty of the Morganville section of Marlboro Township.

On Sept. 11, at age 32, the father of two small children, became one of the victims lost in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

Family members say Mr. Tumulty had only recently taken the job as a manager of distressed trading operations for Eurobrokers Inc., located on the 84th floor of 2 World Trade Center.

He formerly worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, a firm that lost a considerable number of its work force in the attack.

For Mr. Tumulty's mother, the tragedy add one more layer of grief. This is the second child she has had to bury, she said. She lost a daughter in an auto accident a few years ago, but hasn't forgotten.

"Now, I have two children left," she said, referring to her sons James of Aberdeen, and Shawn of Colts Neck.

Scores of Mr. Tumulty's former high school buddies as well as friends he met at Glassboro State College, where he majored in business and graduated in 1992, have visited his Bridgewater home to pay their respects.

Mr. Tumulty is survived by his wife of seven years, Cynthia, a schoolteacher, and daughters, Sara, 3, and Caroline, 4 months.

"He was a super son, a great father and a friend to his brothers," said Diane Tumulty. "He loved life, he really did, and he enjoyed every minute of it," she said.

A celebration of his life will be held from 4-8 p.m. tomorrow at Liberty Church, 45 Church St., Liberty Corner. A memorial service will be held at noon Thursday at the church.