George Thomas Lally Sr.

George Thomas Lally, Sr. died Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at WakeMed Cary after a brief illness. He was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania on July 15, 1932, the fourth of seven children born to Nona Theresa Hines Lally and William Kenneth Lally. He was educated at St. Ann’s High School in Scranton and served in the US Army during the Korean War. After his military service, he went on to earn a B.S. in Business in 1957 and an MBA in 1965, both at the University of Scranton.

In 1957, he married the love of his life, Helen Theresa Martin, with whom he had four children. They raised their children in Pennsylvania and New York until 1973, when his job with IBM brought them to Raleigh, where they stayed until his retirement in 1993. From 1993 to 2005, they lived in Hampstead, NC, where he spent his time golfing, woodworking, volunteering as a firefighter, teaching English as a Second Language at Cape Fear Community College, and taking visiting grandchildren to the beach on Topsail Island. The Lallys returned to the Triangle in 2005 where he continued to golf and spend time with his grandchildren and, eventually, his great-grandchildren.

George was a man of varied interests and hobbies and was never without a large stack of library books next to his chair. He was an avid golfer who played as often as he could and his grandchildren kept him supplied with several lifetimes’ worth of golf balls. He also loved history, especially family history and genealogy, and science, and was well-known for his extended research into these topics that interested him. In recent years, he started writing both fiction and non-fiction based on his research.

He is preceded in death by his parents William and Nona and his siblings Anne, Nona, Beth, William (Bud), and Margaret. He is survived by his wife of 64 years, Helen; a sister, Louise Erlich; his four children, George Lally Jr (Ann), Thomas Lally (Alla), Mary Strickland (Ron), and James Lally (Beth); thirteen grandchildren, Margaret Strickland (Stephen), Elina Pavlukhina (Andrii), Amanda Craig (Chad), Patrick Lally (Erin), Danielle Lally, Meghan Strickland, Joseph Lally, Thomas Strickland, Timothy Lally (Jennifer), Erica Lally, Gabriel Jeudy-Lally, Finn Lally, John Lally; four great-grandchildren, William Lally. Daniel Strickland, Madeline Craig, and John Strickland; and numerous nieces and nephews.

A lifelong Catholic, he was a member of Mother Teresa Catholic Church in Cary. His funeral Mass and visitation will be at Mother Teresa on Friday, April 21st, 2023 at 11:00 AM. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in his memory to Habitat for Humanity of Wake County.

Brown-Wynne Funeral Home and Cremations is honored to be serving the Lally family. Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared within "add a memory".