He was related to a Titanic hero, and a hero himself in Miami. Dr. James Farrell dies at 99
Seems fitting that Dr. James Farrell is the namesake of his uncle, a man credited as a hero aboard the Titanic.
After all, Farrell, who died at 99 in Ocoee near his retirement Winter Garden home on Aug. 11, could be considered heroic in his own regard.
And this is why:
▪ Farrell was one of the founding physicians of Palmetto General Hospital in Hialeah. Palmetto General opened in time to help save the lives of 75 survivors from the crash of Eastern Airlines Flight 401 that killed 101 people. Flight 401, the subject of many books, films and song, was flying from New York to Miami International Airport when it went down in the Everglades on the night of Dec. 29, 1972.
▪ He was a general practitioner with a specialty in cardiology, “with an amazing talent for diagnosing patients,” and he practiced in Miami from the late 1950s until he closed his Hialeah office in 1998, according to his daughter-in-law, Jodi Mailander Farrell.
▪ Among his patients: He paid a house call at the Kampong to treat Marian Fairchild, the wife of botanist David Fairchild and daughter of inventor Alexander Graham Bell. He treated baseball great Babe Ruth. He treated veterans at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables during the period it was operating as a VA hospital until 1968.
▪ For years, Dr. Farrell did the physicals for Hialeah’s police and fire departments at his office across from Hialeah Hospital. His son Patrick Farrell, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former Miami Herald photographer, said that for the longest time, he would run into people in Miami and when they heard his name, they’d say, “Oh, your dad was my doctor.”
▪ “He drove the Palmetto Expressway to his office in Hialeah every day with his bologna sandwich, sneaking off to bet on the dogs at the dog track on occasion for a thrill,” Mailander Farrell wrote in the family obituary.
The latter’s not heroic akin to his medical career? Ever drive on the Palmetto?
“To my 11 brothers and sisters and me — and the thousands of Miamians he treated as a doctor over 40 years — my father was a hero,” said son Patrick Farrell, who won his 2009 Pulitzer for his images of Hurricane Ike and other lethal storms that caused a humanitarian disaster in Haiti. “He put everything before himself: his family, his patients and his faith. He’s the kind of guy who took a bologna sandwich to work every day while putting his kids through private Catholic schools, colleges, law school and med school.
“We never doubted his unconditional love and support, and his patients received the same kind of care and devotion,” his son said. “Midnight calls, home visits, hospital rounds — he was always the voice of calm and reason. He saw so much in his lifetime, but he kept his sense of humor. That was probably the secret to his resilience. He could diagnose any ailment just by talking to you, but he would always try to make you smile. I can remember saying, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but it hurts when I do this.’ He’d say, ‘Well, stop doing that.’”
The Titanic connection
From an April 22, 2012, Miami Herald story on the 100th anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking, written by former Miami Herald staff writer Jodi Mailander Farrell:
My husband’s great uncle bursts into Titanic legend on a dog-eared page almost midway through [”A Night to Remember,” the 1955 book by American author Walter] Lord’s book, kept on a bookshelf in our Miami living room.
Suddenly steerage passenger Jim Farrell, a strapping Irishman from the girls’ home county, barged up. “Great God, man!” he roared. “Open the gate and let the girls through!” It was a superb demonstration of sheer voice-power. To the girls’ astonishment the sailor meekly complied.
Farrell’s loyalty to his friends saved the girls, who were among the last to board lifeboats at 1:33 a.m. Gilnagh, rescued in lifeboat 16, remembered Farrell’s final act of kindness in a letter home to her father, reported in The Longford Leader on April 27, 1912.
Miss Katie Gilnagh of Killoe, daughter of Mr. Hugh Gilnagh, who was one of the last of the survivors to leave the Titanic and who has come safely through all her terrible experiences, has written home an account of her experience in which she says that James Farrell, of Clonee, who was lost, was one of the last she saw on the ship, and he gave her his cap to cover her head as she was being lowered in the boat and shouted, “Goodbye forever.”
Katie Mullen later told her daughter Peggy that she last saw Farrell “kneeling beside his suitcase saying the rosary.” Nine days later, his body was recovered from the sea still clutching the beads.
Paying tribute to a hero
A hundred years later, in April 2012, a tiny rural parish in the middle of Ireland paid tribute to the Titanic’s James Farrell and reached out to his relatives in Miami, inviting them to attend a ceremony in his honor.
In County Longford, 18 family members arrived from the United States for the unveiling of a monument dedicated to James Farrell, who was 26 when he lost his life in the sinking. Among them, his namesake, then 90-year-old Dr. James Farrell, the oldest living relative of Titanic ticket holder No. 367232.
According to the Miami Herald feature, Farrell spent hours meeting Longford residents who had known his ancestors. He stood with schoolchildren who wanted to be photographed with him. He clasped hands with the niece of the woman his uncle had saved.
Dr. Farrell was overwhelmed by the parish’s welcome.
“I never expected anything like this,” he said at the end of an emotion-filled day.
Born Lucky #7
Born Lucky #7 in a family of 11 children on Nov. 15, 1921, Farrell grew up playing stickball in the streets of Brooklyn and running brown-bag deliveries for his father’s business. After Prohibition ended in 1933, his father, Michael Farrell, opened Farrell’s Bar, which became a favorite haunt of New York writers including Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill, as well as police, firefighters and neighborhood regulars, according to the family’s prepared obituary.
Farrell’s Bar still stands on the corner of 16th Street and 9th Avenue in Windsor Terrace.
Farrell lost his mother and father in a six-year period before he turned 15. His families’ stories sustained him.
An honor student, Farrell played fullback and linebacker on his high school’s JV football team, graduated from St. Francis College and from New York University’s Medical School in an accelerated, three-year program.
He was drafted into the Army during World War II, but allowed to continue his education. When he graduated in 1945, he was commissioned as an officer and fell in love with Peggie Barker, a nurse he met during his residency at French Hospital in Manhattan.
They danced to the Glenn Miller Orchestra at New York’s Pennsylvania Hotel, shared their first kiss on the Brooklyn Bridge and, when they were married in 1948, walked over to French Hospital to wave goodbye to all the nuns leaning out the windows to send them off, Mailander Farrell wrote in Farrell’s obituary.
Life in Miami
Farrell worked at a U.S. Army chemical weapons base in Utah during the Korean War, set up private practice in upstate New York and moved to Miami in 1956, where their family grew to 12 children.
“Jim drove the station wagon on vacations, read EKGs at home, lined all the kids up to deliver vaccination shots to their bare butts at the foot of the bed — and put them through Catholic schools and colleges, including Our Lady of Lourdes Academy and Christopher Columbus High School in Miami,” according to the family obit.
Farrell was one of the founding physicians of Palmetto General Hospital in Hialeah, which opened in 1971 — in time to help save the lives of 75 survivors from the crash of Eastern Airlines Flight 401 four days after Christmas in 1972.
Dr. Farrell practiced until 1998. During retirement, he enrolled at Miami Dade College to take a computer class and a golf class.
According to his family, his morning routine for almost the next 20 years consisted of the rosary and Mass, followed by an hour-long workout on a treadmill and stationary bike while watching reruns of old Notre Dame games — “only the victories, of course.
“And that’s how his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will remember their Jim Farrell — as a hero — for his work ethic, his dedication to his family, and his faith in God.”
Survivors, donations
Farrell’s survivors include his children Cathi Grummer, Larry Farrell, Peter Farrell, Peggie Jackson, Patrick Farrell, Mary Esther Romano, Danny Farrell, Ronald Farrell, Alice Rosemann and Tom Farrell; 21 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by his wife, Peggie Farrell, and two children, Aileen and Jim Farrell.
Services were held. Donations in Farrell’s memory can be made to Christopher Columbus High School, 3000 SW 87th Ave., Miami, Florida, 33165. Or Resurrection Catholic Church, 1211 Winter Garden Vineland Rd., Winter Garden, Florida, 34787.
This story was originally published September 2, 2021 at 11:56 AM.
