After graduating from Jamaica High School and attending Villanova College for one year, Bill Mulqueen was working as a lifeguard at what was then the Crystal Baths at Long Beach. According to his niece, “There had been 2 guards on duty that day, but due to riptides no one was allowed in the water ... so his fellow guard asked if he could leave for lunch. Bill said, 'sure.' A few minutes later the adult and 3 boys either fell in or jumped in off the jetty. You can imagine what he must have gone through swimming through riptides at the end of a jetty to pull so many people out and  not one of them was injured or died!"

Doctors believed he had not fully recovered from a flu and the strain of the singlehanded rescues further complicated his condition. Most likely he had taken water into his lungs during the rescues and this led to the pneumonia (sometimes termed "athlete's lung") which took his life. 

(Below is a clipping from the Long Beach Chronicle, August 5, 1932 with the text given on the right.)

William Mulqueen, star athlete at Villanova College and one of the finest Life Guards ever employed at Long Beach, was buried Wednesday morning at Saint John's Cemetery. "Bill," who was a lad of eighteen, died Sunday morning after a brief and sudden attack of pneumonia.

Funeral services for the boy were held at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church of the Presentation in Jamaica and were attended [by many. A large number] of Long Beach Life Guards was present to hear the Solemn High Mass for the Dead offered in his honor.

The boy's death came as a sudden and shocking blow to every member of the Long Beach Patrol and to the hundreds of young men and women who knew and loved him while he attended Jamaica High School. Word of his death reach[ed] Long Beach Sunday morning and a perceptible air of sorrow settled over every member of the Patrol.

The gay crowd of youngsters who bathed in the vicinity of the Crystal Baths where Bill had been a guard for two years would not believe that their friend was gone, never to return. All through the day they asked Joseph O'Connor, a schoolmate of Bill's who had been substituting at the Crystal Baths during his brief illness, "Why Bill doesn't come back to give us our swimming lessons?"

In Jamaica, where Bill resided with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Mulqueen of 161-18 84th Road, news of the youth's sudden death brought hundreds of messages of sympathy and condolence from school friends and officials at Jamaica High School. "Bill" graduated in the summer of 1931 and was voted the most popular boy in his class. While attending Jamaica he captained the varsity hockey team which won the interscholastic championship two years in a row. He was the unanimous choice of every sports writer for the position of centre on the All-Scholastic Hockey team. He also played football, was a crack swimmer and member of the golf team.

An excellent student as well as sterling athlete, he was a favorite with the faculty as well as students. Principal Vosburgh and the members of the teaching staff who were in the city at the time of Bill's death all attended the services on Wednesday.

At Villanova College, where he was a pre-medical student, Bill made the varsity Hockey team in his Freshman year and was high goal man on the team. He was the team's representative at the dinner given in Atlantic City to the collegiate high scorers in the Middle Atlantic States Colleges. He was also a member of the college golf team and one of the ten ranking students in his class for excellent scholarship.



Dr. Fred Butler, chief of the Long Beach Patrol, issued the following statement when he learned of the boy's death:

"Like myself, the members of the Patrol are overcome and bewildered by the news of Bill Mulqueen's death. He was everything a young man should be. Kind, courteous, patient, brave and modest, he was the model for every member of the LOng Beach Patrol. He was always willing to help the other fellow, even though it meant personal discomfort and even personal danger.

Although he is dead in the flesh he will always be alive to us who knew and loved him. Though a mere lad, his personality and strength and character were so strong that he exerted a profound influence over boys much older than himself. Bill was all that was good and fine in youth.

His parents and his sister to whom he was devotedly attached have my heartfelt sympathy and the sympathy of every youth on the Long Beach Patrol.

(Information, picture and clipping courtesy of Bill's niece, Mary Howard, and Kathy Gerardi, July 2007.)