HARTLAND — As a special educator at the Wilder School, Jamison O’Neil found his place.
In the classroom, just as he was outside of it, O’Neil, 35, was “fun, he was playful, he was funny,” former Wilder School Principal Doug Heavisides said.
Away from school, O’Neil loved to spend time with the many children in his extended family and he was excitedly preparing for the arrival of his first child with his wife, Katie Walsh.
“He’s Uncle Jamison to everybody’s kids as well, even non-related people,” O’Neil’s father, John, said in an interview on Wednesday.
On Saturday, just minutes from his Hartland home, Jamison O’Neil died tragically in a head-on collision on Route 12. He was making a quick trip to nearby Mike’s Store and Deli where he was a regular, his father said.
In a cruel twist, Walsh gave birth the following day to their daughter, Charlie O’Neil.
As she grows up, Charlie will be supported by practically the “whole village” of White River Junction where her father was born and raised, John O’Neil said.
The occupants of the second vehicle involved in the collision, Joseph Petrone, 77, and Angela Petrone, 76, of Cos Cob, Conn., were transported to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in serious but stable condition, according to a release from the Vermont State Police.
As of Thursday, the Petrones had both been discharged from DHMC, Dartmouth Health spokesperson Cassidy Smith said.
An investigation into the incident is active and ongoing. State police ask those who may have witnessed the crash or who have information relating to the crash to call the Royalton Barracks at 802-234-9933.
Growing up in Hartford
The youngest of three boys, Jamison O’Neil liked to compete with his older siblings and was always trying to keep up, his parents said.
“They couldn’t be closer,” John said.
“They’re very loving brothers, but they were not always loving to each other,” he added, recalling childhood arguments and accusations of cheating and roughhousing.
In his efforts to keep up with the older boys, O’Neil could be “a bit of a wild man and the hell-raiser” in his youth, which “resulted in many injuries,” John said.
“We used to say he had his own reserved room up at the emergency room. He was stitched, stapled and glued together,” John said.
“So many times, trying to keep up with everybody else,” O’Neil’s mom, Carey, added.
And his wild boyhood personality stuck around in some ways as O’Neil grew up.
He “loved to dress up for Halloween” and one year, “infamously” while Walsh went as the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland, O’Neil, at 6 feet and 4 inches tall, opted to portray the rabbit in a pink leotard, John said.
O’Neil was a dedicated athlete and played basketball and football at Hartford High School, where he graduated in 2008. O’Neil was a defensive lineman for the Hurricanes and went on to play at Nichols College in Dudley, Mass., for a year before transitioning to rugby, a sport that “fit his personality perfectly,” John said.
“He could be a little obnoxious. He was very competitive; loud and it was him,” John O’Neil said.
Over time, his son’s competitive nature evolved into a strong work ethic.
“He was always a very hard worker, but he also made work entertaining, every place he worked he turned it into a family atmosphere,” John said.
Walsh and O’Neil met through mutual friends while in college in 2011. When he graduated with a degree in business in 2012, O’Neil “followed” Walsh to Burlington where she attended the University of Vermont.
The two moved back to the Upper Valley, where they both grew up, and O’Neil continued down a winding path of jobs before finding his calling in teaching, John O’Neil said.
One of those many jobs was with Cura Property Management of White River Junction, where O’Neil worked for a few years before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When you have a group of employees and you look at your list and you always have one or two people that you know you can call no matter what to come in… Jamison was one of those two,” Tony Gove, who owned Cura with his wife for nearly 30 years, said Wednesday.
When O’Neil left Cura, the two stayed in touch. Gove last saw O’Neil a few weeks ago and “he said that he found exactly where he was supposed to be, working with these kids.”
A New Calling
For the last few years, O’Neil worked at The Wilder School alongside Walsh. He had completed his first year as a special educator in the autism program last year after starting as a paraeducator.
It was no surprise to the O’Neils when their son transitioned to education.
“Jamison has always been very loving to the kids, all kids,” his mother said. “Because he was so big, everyone would hang off Jamison, play with Jamison and he was just so good with kids.”
He also was good at getting everyone into mischief, she said.
In the classroom, O’Neil was “easy to relate to” and a “natural educator,” Principal Heavisides said. After one year as a paraeducator, a special educator position opened up and O’Neil took Heavisides’ advice to pursue the job.
Heavisides was O’Neil’s own english teacher at Hartford High School and said he was “super bright but worked incredibly hard to do well,” as a young student.
As an adult, O’Neil’s own struggles in school made him a better educator. He was not always focused on following a lesson plan or taking an “authoritative” approach. Instead, he was dedicated to “creating a sense of belonging.”
“If a child was just coming in and sat down and was shutting down, Jamison would sit with them, be present, not talk and then the child would eventually come around.”
Vitally, O’Neil “led with empathy, led with compassion; led with love,” Heavisides said. “That wasn’t just how he taught. It’s how he thought. It’s how he viewed all aspects of relationships with others. He was a grower. He just wanted to grow.”
‘There for whoever needed it’
Outside of work, O’Neil played with the Colchester, Vt.-based Shell Shock paintball team. He met Shawn Combs when he started in 2021, and the two became close friends on and off the field.
Despite living an hour and a half from Colchester, O’Neil regularly made the drive to practice or just to “come to my house and hang out with us for a few hours,” Combs said in an interview.
“He just wanted to be there for whoever needed it and he showed up,” Combs said. “You could always count on him. He was that type of dude.”
This season, O’Neil took time off to save money for his family. But, Combs said he stepped up and volunteered to coach.
As a coach and a competitor, O’Neil “had your back,” but he was also honest, “hilarious” and “wasn’t afraid to ruffle some feathers.”
“He made the call and they were the right calls,” Combs said of O’Neil’s coaching. “He spoke up, he spoke loud and he made sure everybody was where they were supposed to be doing their job on the field and in the pits and helping each other out.”
If there’s one thing everyone can agree on, it’s that O’Neil could not have been more excited to be a father.
“I cannot wait for her to arrive,” O’Neil wrote about Charlie in his last text to Heavisides.
Although he was one of three boys, “he would’ve been the best girl-dad ever,” his father said.
An athlete to his core, O’Neil was already scheming about all of the ways he could be involved in Charlie’s life, including learning how to coach her on future sports teams, Carey said.
He also was considering not going back to work at the Wilder School after Charlie was born and instead working nights to spend more time with her, John said.
“He had this fear of missing out on something important.”