by ALLAN APPEL and THOMAS BREEN The new haven independent
Raymond Wallace led by example, showing young New Haveners that they too could turn away from violence and towards a life of self-respect and love for their community.
He organized book giveaways and street cleanups and basketball tournaments, ran for alder, and mentored countless youth along the way through his nonprofit Guns Down, Books Up.
Last Friday, Wallace died at the age of 58.
Wallace had been living at the time with one of his sons in North Haven. His mother and sisters said that he was in good health, and that the cause of death is still being determined.
On Tuesday afternoon, family and friends celebrated Wallace’s life during a small gathering at his mom Margaret Brooks’ home in the Quinnipiac Meadows neighborhood.
ALLAN APPEL PHOTO
Wallace’s sister Hope Howard, mom Margaret Brooks, sister Kelly McCrae, and sister-in-law Nina Wallace on Tuesday.
State Rep. Robyn Porter and incarceration reform advocate Barbara Fair joined family members in remembering a man who was, in sister-in-law Nina Wallace’s phrase, a “beam of light” everywhere he went in the city.
And he went everywhere, organizing basketball games, taking city kids on excursions, mentoring, tutoring, providing bow ties to the kids in his groups to promote self-respect and responsibility.
And he worked with other groups of New Haveners as well, providing lawn cutting for elderly folks (usually at no fee) and much looked-forward-to holiday meals at the Bella Vista senior complex. His long-time friend Darryl Pervis called him a “magnet in our community, a force for collaboration. And everything he did, he did on the basis of love.”
Having spent two years in jail (where he earned his G.E.D.), he realized, said his supportive family, that he had precisely that anchoring love that fellow inmates often did not. “He’d share the food, candies, books,” that we provided, recalled his mom.
That realization — how he possessed this basic grounding and support system that others in the community were in need of — is what launched a kind of one-man philanthropic, behind-the-scenes campaign to do good in town, giving often out of his own pocket, and with a sense of urgency and drive, and with little concern for getting any kind of credit.
“He took the pain in his life and turned it into power,” said Porter. “We learn through following role models, but Ray wasn’t in a role. He was the real thing,” she added.
“You know how people have a turnaround story in life? He was true,” said Nina Wallace about her late brother-in-law. Reaching out to children, “that was his mission. .… It mattered to him to help turn kids around.”
Newhallville/Prospect Hill Alder Troy Streater, who knew Wallace for 30 years and whose cousin was Wallace’s sister-in-law, mourned the loss of “someone who was really devoted to helping the community.”
The family is scheduling what they called a “balloon release” for April 18, 6 p.m., at Jocelyn Park. Funeral will be the following day at Mt. Zion Seventh Day Adventist Church, 335 Putnam Ave, Hamden, with viewing from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., and service immediately afterwards.
