William E. Holland, 63; served in White, Menino administrations
When his wife, Betty, died of cancer after 27 years of marriage, William E. "Bo" Holland looked back over almost four decades spent hip deep in Boston politics and knew where he would return: City Hall.
"It was one of those times when a man is forced to take stock of his life," Mr. Holland told the Globe in 2003.
"I decided I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing something meaningful to me."
Holland, a trusted aide to former mayor Kevin White for 15 years and a former political consultant at O'Neill and Associates, went to work that year as Mayor Thomas Menino's public agency relations director. He later became acting chief information officer and was at his desk until about six weeks ago, when he was sidelined by radiation treatments for cancer . He died June 18 at The Boston Center for Rehabilitative & Subacute Care in Jamaica Plain. He was 63.
"There was no one who understood the intricacies of government better than Bo Holland," Menino said. "He was a class act."
A 1961 graduate of Boston Latin School, Mr. Holland held an idealistic vision of government despite the growing culture of cynicism, and he honed an already encyclopedic knowledge of city politics, friends said.
"People were his mantra," Menino said. "He believed government should be there to help people."
Mr. Holland, the oldest of eight children , grew up mostly in West Roxbury and graduated from the University of Rochester in 1965. He got his nickname from neighborhood pals at Ronan Park who knew he liked singer Bo Diddley, according to his brother James of Quincy .
Described as a "gentle giant," Mr. Holland played guard for Boston Latin's football squad and at college. He loved sports, politics, and rock 'n' roll, friends said.
He could beat most anyone at oldies trivia and amassed a collection of more than 2,000 campaign buttons dating back to a faded one from the 1800s that reads "Make it with McKinley."
Mr. Holland bestowed the entire collection on one of his protégés, Sean Curran, who worked for him for eight years at O'Neill and Associates.
"He was not one to get sentimental about these things. He said, 'I'm getting rid of these, do you want them?' " said Curran. "But it was very deliberate. He wanted it [the collection] to be treasured and passed on, and he knew I was a proud and happy recipient."
As young men, Mr. Holland and his brother Robert, now deceased, became big supporters of White. William Holland campaigned to help White win a bruising 1975 re election campaign and was director of White's Little City Hall program. At O'Neill and Associates, he was senior vice president of government relations, representing clients in the telecommunications and info rmation technology industries. Mr. Holland also worked in the high-tech industry, in sales at Wang Laboratories and Prime Computer Inc.
Tom O'Neill of O'Neill and Associates said his friend "was the biggest, strongest, and toughest of us all," but was never a bully.
"Every generation has its characters, and 20 years from now, the one who will stand out will be Bo. He understood life. He had a compass. He had a personal philosophy about life, and as I discovered, about death as well," O'Neill said. "He was a very special man."
But more than anything else in his life, Mr. Holland adored his son, according to friends and family.
"He loved his family. He was most proud in his life of his son, Peter," said his brother James. Peter is a junior at Trinity College in Hartford. James Holland recalled a rich family tradition of holiday dinners with his brother, including marathon parties on Thanksgiving.
"The noise level was high and he was the loudest," he said. "We all reveled in those days."
Mr. Holland also believed strongly in helping the homeless and was active in Shelter Inc.
"He loved life. He was a true character, an American original," said Jack Connors, retired chairman of the advertising firm Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, who was a friend and golf buddy for decades.
"There used to be an ad, 'Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee.' Well, nobody didn't like Bo. It sounds like a cliché, but in his case, it's really true," Connors said.
In addition to his son and brother James, Mr. Holland leaves two other brothers, Edward J. of Hyde Park and Joseph M. of South Weymouth; and three sisters, Patricia F. Tonra of Dedham, Mary M. of Hull, and Kathryn A. of West Roxbury.
A funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. Saturday in St. John Chrysostom Church in West Roxbury. Burial will follow in Mount Benedict Cemetery. 