1970s
Joseph Aloysius Eagan, Jr. ’72
Joseph Aloysius Eagan, Jr. ’72, an attorney-at-law, was born on February 17, 1950, in Upper Darby, PA. The eldest son of Joseph A. and Eileen Noonan Eagan, he grew up in the Philadelphia area and was graduated from Malvern Preparatory School. Joe Eagan entered the College from Villanova in 1968 and became a member of Sigma Phi. He served as its house steward in his senior year. Although a neck fracture in his youth prevented his playing contact sports, he was intensely interested in athletics and managed the hockey, soccer, and lacrosse teams while on the Hill. Having majored in English, he earned his diploma in 1972.
Joe Eagan returned to his home area and enrolled in law school at Villanova University, where he became associate editor of the Law Review. After obtaining his J.D. degree in 1975, he went to work as an attorney and contract administrator for J.E. Brenneman, a construction company in Philadelphia. In 1977, he joined his father’s firm, Jaeco Pump Co. in Wayne as an attorney and its president. From 1980 to 1983, he was associate counsel and personnel director for M. G. Industries, an industrial gas products supplier in Malvern. Thereafter he became a litigator for law firms in Philadelphia specializing in insurances cases.
Joe Eagan, who had a lifetime enthusiasm for reading and impressed family and friends with his encyclopedic knowledge of Philadelphia sports history, particularly enjoyed tennis and was especially passionate about squash. With his wife, Virginia “Gingie” Pope-Eagan, whom he first met on a squash court and married in 2003, he played in local squash leagues and competed in regional tournaments.
Joseph P. Eagan, Jr., who had been combating mantle cell lymphoma with “human dignity and hope,” died of the rare disease on April 16, 2010, in Philadelphia. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his former wife, Maryellen Torelli Eagan, now Kody, whom he had married in 1978. Also surviving are their son and daughter, Joseph A. III and Emily G. Eagan, as well as his three sisters and two brothers. Not only as an excellent attorney but also for “his wonderful wit and marvelous, infectious laugh,” Jon Eagan will be long remembered.
Megan Felice Charlop K’74
Megan Felice Charlop K’74, a community activist passionately dedicated to advancing the health and welfare of the residents of the Bronx, NY, was born on May 13, 1952, in Brooklyn. The daughter and eldest child of Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Charlop, her father was a sales representative and her mother a teacher. “Meg” Charlop grew up in Great Neck on Long Island and came to Kirkland College in 1970 from Great Neck South Senior High School. She concentrated in Inter-American Studies and, with the aid of credits earned elsewhere, was graduated in 1973. Devoted to Kirkland and its feminist mission, she subsequently served on the board of directors of the Kirkland Alumnae Association.
Following her graduation, Megan Charlop remained on College Hill for a year as assistant to Kirkland’s director of admission. Thereafter she settled in New York City and joined a community action group concerned with housing problems and tenants’ rights in “Hell’s Kitchen” on Manhattan’s West Side. In 1976, she moved to the Bronx at a time when the South Bronx in particular was being devastated by poverty and its housing blighted by neglect and decay. Working with a grassroots action group called the People’s Development Corp., she helped organize tenants. At age 25, she took charge of efforts to set up tenant committees for community management of abandoned buildings. With their “sweat equity,” assisted by government funds and bank loans, the tenants themselves labored to refurbish the properties.
Clad in baggy bib overalls, and with “a dazzling smile and an energy that seemed to electrify her small body,” Megan Charlop personally pitched in to galvanize tenants in their rehabilitation efforts. She and her husband, Richard Powers, whom she had married in 1981, put in untold hours of free labor on behalf of “healing” sick neighborhoods. She gained recognition from The New York Times for her achievements, which were extensively covered in the local press at the time.
Megan Charlop, who earned a master’s degree in public health from Hunter College, became affiliated with Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx as director of its lead poisoning prevention project. As director of community health for Montefiore’s school health program for the past seven years, she became “a tireless advocate to improve the environments within which children lived, learned and played,” and thus touched the lives for the better of thousands in the community.
Megan Charlop’s concern for children also led her to take into her home poor children from Africa and the Caribbean in need of medical care, some of whom she and her husband adopted. For that she became known as the “Mother Theresa” of her neighborhood. In addition, she championed better nutrition and physical activity for children, and especially bicycle riding. She worked closely with Bike New York’s education program to bring bike safety instruction to Bronx elementary schools and was herself an instructor in Learn to Ride classes.
Megan Charlop, who customarily rode her own bike all over the Bronx, going to work or engaged in her many community endeavors, was on her way to a Bronx neighborhood gardening project on March 17, 2010, when she had to swerve her bike to avoid a carelessly opened car door. It fatally propelled her into the path of a city bus. In addition to her husband and her father, she is survived by four children, Sarah, Zachary, Rachel, and Aaron Charlop-Powers, as well as four foster children and two brothers. Her beaming smile, large heart, and selfless and untiring dedication to her community will long be remembered.
