A can-do guy’s last good deed at trade center

William F. Fallon Jr., longtime Rocky Hill resident and former borough councilman, was a victim of last week’s terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

By: Steve Rauscher
   ROCKY HILL — Knowing Bill, he was probably helping somebody.
   That is what friends and family of William F. Fallon Jr. — longtime Rocky Hill resident, former borough councilman and one of the victims of last week’s terrorist attack on the World Trade Center — have been saying since Saturday evening when his death was confirmed.
   "It’s our suspicion that he went back to help somebody," neighbor Jane Oakley said. "That’s the kind of guy he was."
   Mr. Fallon worked for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, on the 62nd floor of 1 World Trade Center. He called his wife, Brenda, minutes after the first hijacked jet plowed into the tower, to tell her he was OK.
   "Brenda talked to him after the plane hit, and he seemed very calm and composed," said sister-in-law Suzann Fallon. "He was intent on seeing what they had to do to get everybody out."
   Most of the employees on Mr. Fallon’s floor escaped, said Port Authority officials. Mr. Fallon did not.
   "We were so hopeful, we really were," said his sister-in-law. "He was a very take-charge kind of person. He would have been helping others, and if there was a way to survive, he would have been working on that."
   Mr. Fallon’s survivors — his wife, 18-year-old son Christopher, his mother, three brothers and a sister — are concentrating now not on finding him but on remembering him.
   "Bill had a tremendous sense of humor, and that’s helped us try to keep ours," Ms. Fallon said.
   Born in Yonkers, N.Y., Mr. Fallon grew up in Metuchen. After graduating from Villanova University in 1970, he joined the Navy, serving in the Mediterranean Sea.
   He left the Navy and went to work for international steamship company Farrell Lines in the mid-1970s, around the same time he and Brenda were married. His work as a company representative brought him to West Africa and Australia during the decade he worked at Farrell Lines.
   In 1986, Mr. Fallon’s expertise in maritime shipping landed him a job with the Port Authority, just before the Fallons moved to Rocky Hill.
   "Bill was a big part of this community," said Mayor Brian Nolan, who served with Mr. Fallon on the Borough Council in the late 1980s. "He was always a very caring person. Whenever you needed some help, you could always reach out to Bill."
   Ms. Oakley recalled an incident this July when a tree fell on a vacationing neighbor’s garage.
   "Bill didn’t try to call them to let them know something was wrong or anything," she said. "He just came over and said, ‘Come on, let’s get it down.’ That’s the kind of person he was."
   Mr. Fallon’s kindness was reflected in another story, Ms. Oakley said. During the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, Mr. Fallon and a co-worker carried a man in a wheelchair down more than 60 flights of stairs.
   "He wasn’t one of those people who just ran for their lives," she said.
   For friends and family, it appears Mr. Fallon did not run for his life on Sept. 11, either.
   "He would have been helping someone," Suzann Fallon said. "He was calm, brave and patriotic. He was proud to have been in the Navy, and I think he would have been proud to see all those flags flying."