Teterboro air museum co-founder H.V. Pat Reilly of Oradell dies at 90 November 28, 2014, 7:38 PM Last updated: Friday, November 28, 2014, 7:40 PM
By SHAWN BOBURG
staff writer
The Record
H.V. Pat Reilly of Oradell, a champion of New Jersey’s rich but underappreciated aviation history who spent decades building a first-of-its-kind collection of flight memorabilia and artifacts at a small museum next to Teterboro Airport, died on Friday. He was 90.
Reilly, a World War II veteran known for wearing a fedora covered with dozens of aviation pins, never piloted a plane himself and never showed any interest in doing so, said his wife, Robin Reilly. But growing up in Hackensack, gazing at airplanes flying to or from nearby Teterboro, he developed an abiding appreciation for the history of flight, and he came to recognize that New Jersey — and Teterboro, in particular — played an outsized role in man’s successful battle against gravity.
Reilly also was a familiar face to the homeless community in and around Hackensack, which he and his wife helped through a non-profit foundation established in 2001.
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Sporting that fedora and its aviation pins, “You could always spot him coming,” said Eusebio “Junior” Camacho, who broke out of homelessness and overcame drug and alcohol addiction with the couple’s help through the nonprofit F.A.I.T.H. Foundation. Pat Reilly was president of the foundation.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/teterboro-air-museum-co-founder-h-v-pat-reilly-of-oradell-dies-at-90-1.1143438
