Former Westfield City Councilor Charles W. Medeiros died June 16 at the age of 66.
The late Westfield City Councilor Charles W. Medeiros is shown here campaigning for reelection in with fellow Councilor Barbara Russell outside a polling place at Blessed Sacrament Church parish center in 1999.From a back pew at St. Mary’s Church in Westfield on Monday, you could learn important lessons about politics, about loyalty and about friendship.
“Charlie Medeiros was quite a guy,” remarked one man. To his right sat a well-known businessman who’d been a star football player at Westfield High School in the 1940s; on his left was a guy who spent his life working for the municipal utility and probably logged more hours over the years at Medeiros’ side than most. Both agreed.
The funeral cortege for Charles W. Medeiros was nearly a half-hour late arriving for the service; police cordoned off streets, a crowd of municipal workers gathered outside City Hall to pay tribute, refuse trucks halted their routes in respect as the procession wended its way through a mournful city.
From barkeep and janitor to cop and firefighter, from lawyer and accountant to trash man and teacher, for every crisp shirt, tie and suit coat in the church, there were just as many decidedly dressed-down Joes and Janes.
And, every one of them was a friend of Charlie’s. Every one of them had a favorite “Charlie story” to tell.
Medeiros lived out what legendary U.S. House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill said was the secret to success: “All politics in local.” Medeiros had learned lessons from some of Massachusetts’ masters of the art – Gov. Ed King, Governor’s Councilor Edward O’Brien and state Rep. Robert W. McGinn.
In this July 1, 1985 photo, Westfield City Council president Charles W. Medeiros is shown at fire headquarters on Broad Street with then Fire Chief Gerald Fouche, left, and fellow City Councilor John Kane discussing a new ambulance in the background. Medeiros died June 16.
With only an eighth-grade education, Medeiros parlayed street-smarts and a love of people into a lifetime of public service. Listen to people, be loyal and keep your promises were all traits he lived by. Thirty-two years as a city councilor (including eight terms as president) and two six-month stints as mayor are no small potatoes in Westfield or most any town anywhere.
Medeiros was about as common a man as they come; he sold cars for most of his adult working life, before, during and after a job as a welfare fraud investigator for the state. (Even the priest delivering his funeral homily made light of Medeiros’ likely encounter with St. Peter trying to sell him a Chrysler.)
He had his lovers and his haters; not every move might have been the wisest or the best choice, but with Medeiros, you always knew where you stood. He could be loud, brash and sometimes outrageous (like the time in the 1980s when he wanted to “ban the bongs” and keep marijuana-related paraphernalia out of the stores in his downtown ).
In the end, it was probably family that mattered most to him. Many will agree that Medeiros became more grounded with his beloved wife Kathy in his life. They wed in 1998, and it was a kinder, gentler Charlie Medeiros who evolved, a guy who could brag about his grandchildren in one breath, but still call you out in the next.
A congressman, five (current and former) mayors and at least two generations worth of city councilors (including some from out of town) turned out to pay their respects to him. His eulogies were delivered by a niece, by the high sheriff of Hampden County and by one of the city’s former mayors, each of them capturing the passions that composed Medeiros’ life. The man whose friendship had spanned more than 25 years, former Boston Red Sox pitcher Luis Tiant, helped lead Medeiros’ casket to and from the altar. “He’s like my brother,” Tiant once said of his pal.
One commenter to MassLive.com last week, upon reading the news of Medeiros’ passing, remarked that he’d hoped he’d hear more “Charlie stories.” He shared one of his own online, about the time he’d taken an impromptu afternoon cruise with Medeiros, then in his first go-around as acting mayor, in Charlie’s Cadillac with a case of Miller Light.
At Medeiros’ funeral, there were more than enough “Charlie stories” to go around.
While all the other women in his life were nicknamed “Baby,” his niece, Jen Ciollaro, wound up shackled with being called “Traitor” for having been caught as a kid in a front-page newspaper photograph shaking hands with her uncle’s arch-nemesis, former Mayor George Varelas.
How about the time Sheriff Michael Ashe sought his good friend’s blessing for a proposal to locate a new jail in Westfield? Medeiros wouldn’t oppose the plan, he agreed, but he wasn’t going to come out in favor of it either. As Ashe recalled, Medeiros’ response was: “I’m not interested in volunteering to get slaughtered.”
And, then there was Medeiros’ beloved Ward 1 on the city’s North Side. As a brand-new city councilor, Richard K. Sullivan Jr. recounted how he learned quickly not to tread on Medeiros’ turf.
Sullivan’s first-ever motion as a councilor was to propose a stop sign be erected in Ward 1; the meeting was halted when Medeiros called a recess, and the man who would become mayor received his first lecture on just whose ward it was.
My personal favorite is the call I got in April 2008 after he had bypass surgery: “Just let everyone know I’m not dead; I’m just a little weaker,” he reported. “And, contrary to popular opinion, I do have a heart.”
Yes, Charlie Medeiros was quite a guy. Quite a guy, indeed.