Alphonsus Joseph Mitchell

Alphonsus J. Mitchell, 93, a Bergen County, N.J., native and longtime resident of Wallingford, Conn., died on Saturday, Feb. 15, at the Whitney Center in Hamden, Conn., his home of the past nine years. Born in 1931 as the middle child of three, Mitchell grew up in Teaneck, N.J., and attended Xavier High School in Manhattan, hitchhiking across the George Washington Bridge each day to reach the school. He then commuted to Fordham University in the Bronx for the next four years, earning his bachelor's degree at age 20 in 1952. Drafted into the Army, he served in an infantry unit that was deployed in June 1953 to a three-hill complex at the front line of the Korean War, arriving several weeks before the fighting ended and just days after a fierce battle in which nearly nine out of every 10 men stationed at one of the hills were killed defending it. He didn't like to talk about that. He learned to type while in the Army and made use of that skill throughout his professional career. After stints at a Teaneck newspaper and The Bergen Evening Record in North Jersey, he moved to The New Haven Register and was covering Wallingford and writing a page a day for the broadsheet when he met Elizabeth Mushinsky, a reporter covering the same town for the rival Meriden Record. The two married in 1960 and started a family. In 1963, he left the newspaper to join the publications office at Wesleyan University, later rising to director of public information. He was editor of the Yale alumni magazine for several years beginning in 1979, and finished his career, fittingly, at a Jesuit institution, Fairfield University, where he was director of publications. After retirement, he continued to write, often in pursuit of stories that engaged him. He and his wife, Liz, raised four children, and as a man committed to serving others, he devoted time to various community and church activities. He briefly served on Wallingford's Democratic Town Committee, taught Catholic catechism classes for several years, served as a minister of the eucharist at Holy Trinity Church, worked at a local soup kitchen, painted his house every seven years, recorded audiobooks for the blind, and was a co-leader of Wallingford's annual road race and a dedicated financial supporter of the Wallingford Symphony Orchestra. A generous holiday host, a great talker and listener, a lover of music, sports, reading, his family, and his faith, he was a student of life and of living ethically to the end. He is predeceased by his wife, Elizabeth, and his sisters, Margaret Della Torre and Marianne Fischer. He is survived by his son Edward Mitchell and his wife, Lisa Govan, of Cincinnati; his son Sam Mitchell and his wife, Suzanne, of Hamden, Conn.; his son Chris Mitchell and his wife, Ann McGuire, of Buck Hill Falls, Pa.; his daughter, Elizabeth (Biz) Mitchell, of Brooklyn, N.Y.; 10 grandchildren; and many nieces and nephews. Visiting hours will be held at B.C. Bailey Funeral Home in Wallingford from 4 to 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 28. A funeral mass will be held at the Most Holy Trinity Church in Wallingford at 10:30 a.m., Saturday, March 1. B.C. Bailey Funeral Home is honored to have been entrusted with his care and final arrangements. In lieu of flowers, please direct gifts in memory of Alphonsus J. Mitchell to the Wallingford Public Library Assoc., benefiting an institution where he volunteered. To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Alphonsus Joseph Mitchell, please visit our floral store.