When an old timer dies on Smith Hill, friends who have moved away come home to pay respects. They returned recently for the funeral rites of 82-year-old Russell J. Boyle. By all accounts, he was a good neighbor. A mortician by trade in his eponymous Smith Street business, Boyle was a World War II veteran of the OSS (precursor to the CIA); a 22-year member and past president of the Providence City Council; and a politician extraordinaire and power broker. He was true to his Irish roots and to all neighbors regardless of ethnicity. Boyle was, as the priest who eulogized him said, "forever a helping hand and loyal friend." People on Smith Hill often said, "Before there was welfare there was Russell Boyle."

He was a politician who stayed among his people, not needing TV to get elected. He helped four mayors and no fewer than eight governors win office and was a confidante to most. Boyle's politics was built on patronage, neighborhood, and helping to extend the security of a city or state job to an aspiring, mostly uneducated population. Offering cash to cover the rent and food baskets to lend holiday cheer, this system also made it possible for children to go to college. The kindness of Boyle, who handled the funerals of early AIDS victims when most funeral parlors were unwilling to do likewise, was legendary.

Movies were made about men like Russell J. Boyle. He really was The Last Hurrah, a real-life version of the Frank Skeffington character in Edwin O'Connor's novel (and the subsequent movie), which chronicled the urban political experience of the 20th-century.

The mourners who came to the church or his own funeral home included Mayor Cianci, the cream of Irish political power in the state, former and present office holders, august clerics, plus hundreds of others, many who waited two hours to get to the bier as the line snaked down the street. They wore fancy suits and dresses and some came in working clothes.

As the soloist rendered "Danny Boy," they led Boyle's coffin out of the church to the waiting hearse as a bagpiper and honor guard made up of the high and the mighty greeted him and a squad of police officers snapped to salute. The old Irish would say it was "grand" when they came home to celebrate the life and accomplishments of "himself."

Issue Date: March 22 - 28, 2002