Walter Kinsella - Obituary

alter J. Kinsella of Perryville, PA, known to three generations of customers simply as "Wally," passed away peacefully on October 14, 2022 at the age of 88. A lifelong resident of Perryville and briefly of Erie, PA, Walter was born January 9, 1934 to the late Francis and Ruth Kinsella, the second of four children. He was predeceased by his brothers Francis Jr. and Raymond, and is survived by his sister Eleanor Kinsella Doyle of Youngstown, OH. As a boy, Walter swept floors and stocked shelves at his father's hardware store on Bridge Street, a building the family would occupy for sixty-one years. From 1953 to 1955, Walter served in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Fremont, and returned home to marry his high school sweetheart, Dorothy Pallante, in the spring of 1956. He took over Kinsella Hardware in 1961 and ran it until closing the doors in 1997, never once, by his own accounting, turning away a customer who had forgotten their wallet. Walter served twenty-two years on the Perryville Borough Council, including six as its president, and was a driving force behind the 1978 restoration of the Bridge Street clock tower. He was a member of the Perryville Volunteer Fire Company for over four decades, a member of St. Anne's Parish, and a fixture at the Tuesday morning coffee table at Dot's Diner, where he held court until the week before his passing. Walter was known for his patience with a stubborn engine, his willingness to lend any tool he owned, and his conviction that most problems could be solved with the correct washer. He loved trout fishing on the Loyalsock, the Pittsburgh Pirates in good years and bad, and Sunday dinners with a full table. In addition to his parents and brothers, Walter was preceded in death by Dorothy, his beloved wife of 58 years, and by his daughter, Susan Kinsella Marek. He leaves behind his son, Thomas (Jeanne) Kinsella of Perryville; his daughter, Carol (Robert) Vance of Pittsburgh; his son-in-law, Peter Marek of Harrisburg; seven grandchildren; and eleven great-grandchildren, all of whom knew him as Pap.