![]() Over and over again, Arlington residents cited Molloy’s willingness to listen as his best quality. “ And he was very civil even if he disagreed with you.” “He was very engaging - he was a wonderful listener,” Keelan added. “Politically we were poles apart, but we had a lot of respect for each other.” And Don Keelan, also a pipe smoker, would sometimes join Molloy on the bench in front of town hall. Browning, who succeeded Molloy in the Statehouse, said she could tell from the aroma of pipe tobacco that Molloy had been past her house on Route 313 on his summer evening walks. Select Board member Dan Jenkins said once, when his son was young and had just learned about fellow pipe smoker Norman Rockwell in school, he mistook Molloy for Rockwell. ![]() Many said Molloy’s ever-present pipe was his calling card. He really was ‘what you saw was what you got.’ … That was why he was so well-liked by all the people who knew him.” “He was the guy everybody knew,” state Rep. ![]() “He made that available to you – he was so open and kind and wanted to hear what you had to say.” “He was a friend of the community,” she added. “I told him you’re the perfect person, because you know everybody here and you know what their needs are. When Molloy decided he was running for the House, Carlson was excited. It helped me to be a better legislator to figure out what laws were most important, what needed changing or what needed to stay the same.” “He helped me know what was important to people in Arlington, if they hadn’t already told me. When Carlson ran for state Senate, she said Molloy was a big help to her. “He was gentle and kind and knew everything that was going on,” said Carlson, who formerly owned the West Mountain Inn and served in the state Senate from 1989-94 – just before his 12 years representing Arlington, Sunderland and Sandgate. His family has done a great deal for the community and we mourn with them, too.”Ĭalling hours were held last Thursday, followed by a Mass of Christian Burial at Sacred Heart Saint Francis de Sales Church.Īn Arlington resident most of his life, Molloy was remembered by residents as a man who knew everyone in town, and whose very best skill was listening. “So we certainly know that he’s done a great deal for the community. “You can see his fingerprints in the laws and ordinances that he wrote, are still on the books today in many cases, and the structures and the institutions that he was involved with are likewise still pillars of the community,” town administrator Nick Zaiac said. “One of the first projects I thought was a necessity was sidewalks.” “It was a situation there where I was interested in the community and things that should be done,” he said. He told the Banner he became interested in town politics by way of his barber shop. He ran for his first two-year Select Board term in 1979. In 1968, he ran for justice of the peace and won. ![]() In 2011, when he stepped down from the Select Board, Molloy told the Bennington Banner he first became active in the Arlington Democratic party in 1958. He understood that one of the things we do in life is to try to make things better for our neighbors, our families, our friends, our town and our state, and he worked at all those different levels.” He was solidly grounded in his Arlington upbringing and his community membership,” Select Board member and former state Rep. Molloy, who spent a lifetime listening to his Arlington neighbors and serving them as a Select Board member and as their representative in Montpelier, died at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center on Sunday, July 17. And then I began to notice he was almost considered Mr. Then I realized that he owned the barber shop right up above the town clerk’s office. He would always say hello when you went in,” Mary Ann Carlson remembered of Molloy. “When I first came here I didn’t quite understand why this man often was sitting out in front of the town clerk’s office.
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