Obituary of Louis Serrano
MENDHAM, NJ — Obituary provided by Bailey Funeral Home:
Louis J. Serrano, Jr., 89, passed away on February 19, 2018 in Mendham.
Lou was born in Brooklyn, New York on October 1, 1928 to Louis Sr. and Rose Lorenz Serrano.
After attending Fort Hamilton High School in Brooklyn, he entered the U.S. Coast Guard at the age of 17 in October 1945. From 1949 to 1952, he served as a Sergeant First Class in the U.S. Army, escorting Korean War dead.
Lou attended Brooklyn College for two years and then served as a mounted patrolman in the New York Police Department for 9 years, starting in 1954. From 1956 to 1959, he was in the Army Reserves.
In 1951, Lou met and fell deeply in love with his future wife Patricia Hills at a dance at the Brooklyn Army Base. They married on August 7, 1954 and would eventually have seven children.
Injured in the line of duty on the police force, he went into construction sales, management and consulting. Lou became national vice president of sales for Apache Foam. He sold tower cranes and hoists across the world, and materials for some of the largest commercial roofing projects in New Jersey. In 1995, he served as the president of the Construction Specifications Institute of New Jersey.
Throughout his life, Lou served as a volunteer in various charitable organizations, including teaching gymnastics to developmentally disabled children as a Boy Scout leader, ministering to the ill and infirm, and counseling prison inmates as a board member of the Community Corrections Council of Morris County. He also served as a volunteer first responder in lower Manhattan immediately following the terror attacks of 9/11.
Thereafter, Lou also played a prominent role with his wife Pat as a family counselor and national advocate for survivors of clergy sexual abuse and was featured in news stories in the New York Post, the Star-Ledger of Newark and The New York Times, and in broadcast programs on ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, NBC and Oprah.
He lived a full life, raised a large family, served the nation and his community with pride, enjoyed a successful business career, traveled the world, and met with presidents, governors, and even one future saint, Mother Theresa.
Lou was preceded in death by his parents, his two brothers, Robert and George, and a daughter Linda, who died of an illness at the age of three in 1952.
Lou is survived by his loving wife of 63 years and his children Richard, Kenneth, Ellen, Christine, Mark, Matthew, and Paul, as well as 15 grandchildren; his brother-in-law John and his wife Lynn, sister-in-law Frances, as well as four daughters-in-law, Dena, Roberta, Stacy, Kelly, and his son-in-law Michael.
The family welcomes the community to a visitation at Bailey Funeral Home, 8 Hilltop Road, Mendham, New Jersey on Saturday, March 3 from 10:00 am to 12:00 noon, followed by a brief memorial program starting at 12:00 noon.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial donations be made to one of the following charities:
Mendham Fire Department, https://mendhamfd.org/donate/
Mendham First Aid Squad, http://www.mendhamfirstaid.org/donate.html
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, https://snap.nationbuilder.com/donate
For more information or to leave a condolences go to www.baileyfuneral.com.
Showing 1 comment