Boston Globe, The (MA) - June 10, 2005 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DAVID A. MCHOUL, 63 WAS CAPE FUNERAL HOME DIRECTOR
David A. McHoul, a Provincetown funeral home director since 1985, died Monday at the Cape End Manor Nursing Home of complications from Lyme disease. He was 63.
The son of a funeral home director, Mr. McHoul grew up in the business. "Whatever the families needed he seemed to be able to accommodate them," said Jim Keefe, office manager at McHoul Funeral Home.
It was important to Mr. McHoul to help people in the difficult times after losing a loved one, but it was not easy work. "Sometimes it would be upsetting working in this business because we buried friends a lot," said Sandy Dobbyn, Mr. McHoul's girlfriend of 16 years, who also works at the funeral home.
Mr. McHoul was born in Boston, the eldest of three sons of Alexander and Mildred (Hennessey) McHoul. He went to Watkinson Preparatory School in Hartford and to college at the New England Institute of Applied Arts and Sciences in Boston.
After college, he served in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War.
Returning from the war, he ran McHoul Services, a funeral livery service in Boston with his brother Douglas from 1962 to 1983.
In 1984, Mr. McHoul left Boston and moved to Provincetown and opened McHoul Funeral Home a year later.
"He was in control of everything and never got flustered," Keefe said.
Mr. McHoul loved Provincetown and met many people whom he befriended and who enjoyed his sense of humor, his girlfriend said. "Oh, he knew everyone," Dobbyn said. "We loved to eat out at all the restaurants, and the staff were our friends."
Mr. McHoul got coffee with "the boys" at Adams Pharmacy every morning and enjoyed riding his bike around town.
He began traveling frequently in the 1990s, visiting 14 Caribbean islands during that decade. Locally, he traveled to Long Point on his boats, Digger I and No Wake. Accompanying him on many boating trips was his Dalmatian, Dune who lived to be 14 years old.
Later in life, his Wheaten terrier, Wheeti, was by his side, helping to pull his wheelchair around town, Dobbyn said.
In addition to his girlfriend and parents, he leaves two daughters, Kelly Doyle of Plymouth and Kary Gatens of Los Angeles; two brothers, Douglas of New York and Puerto Rico, and Donald of North Attleborough; and three grandchildren.
A funeral Mass will be said today at 11 a.m. in St. Peter the Apostle Church Hall in Provincetown. Burial will be in St. Peter's Cemetery.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boston Globe, The (MA) Date: June 10, 2005 Edition: THIRD Page: E15
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