Roy William Tilsley, Sr. – Pa, to family and friends – passed away January 7, 2026, at the age of 87.

Roy was born in Boston and grew up in Belmont, Massachusetts, where he attended Belmont Public Schools and Newman Prep. He graduated from Boston College in 1962 with a B.S. in Accounting and a lifelong love of the Boston College Eagles hockey team – a love he would pass down to his kids and grandkids.

After graduation, Roy worked as an accountant and controller for numerous companies in the Boston area, computerizing manual accounting systems at a time when computers were still brand new to businesses. A lifelong entrepreneur, he went on to start a number of businesses in everything from dry cleaning to property management to selling sailboats. Even in retirement, he pursued creative business ideas, including finding lost treasures (mostly knives) at TSA auctions and refurbishing and selling the best ones (after outfitting the whole family, of course).

Roy loved adventure, and he was particularly drawn to the sea. He owned many sailboats over the years, starting with a small catamaran and eventually living and sailing on his 43-foot Slocum sloop called Celebration. His favorite hobby was buying old sailboats and restoring them back to seaworthiness so he could cruise the shores of New England.

But he also traveled far beyond the New England coast. He was an intrepid and spontaneous traveler, whose journeys included Mexico, Costa Rica, the Caribbean, Peru, the Amazon, Switzerland, Greece, Italy, and Japan. His house was full of art, coins, and other keepsakes from his trips, and each item came with a story. He also kept an old globe in his house and he could tell you about just about any country on it, whether a firsthand account or a tale drawn from one of the thousands of magazines or books he read. Roy loved learning about the natural world – especially the ocean and astronomy – and about history, and had perhaps one of the largest collections of National Geographic magazines and coffee table books.

Closer to home, Roy loved to spend time with his family, especially his kids, Roy and Laura, and his grandkids, Alex and Jacob. Pa, as the grandkids, and eventually everyone, called him, would go out of his way to make his grandkids happy, from accompanying two-year-old Jacob to mom-and-tot gymnastics and throwing him in the foam pit, terrifying the instructor (Jacob went on to do gymnastics for another 20 years) or cooking the sandy, off-colored mussels Alex found in the lake outside his house and eating them like they were a delicacy (they assuredly were not). Pa's house was always a fun place to be, and you could bet he'd have a new computer game, some homemade contraption to play with, and a good joke or two (even if the joke did involve him trying to steal your fries).

Roy loved hockey – he played and coached well into his 50s – cooking new dishes for his family, and finding great deals at Building 19. He was a lifelong optimist and always quick with a joke, even in his later years, when he became a beloved regular at Sun Shui in Bedford, always making the staff laugh as he sipped a Shirley Temple.

In his final years, Roy was a beloved member of the Bedford Hills nursing home community where he always tried to put a smile on the faces of patients and staff.  He surely would have won many patient of the month awards if such an award existed.

He is pre-deceased by his grandmother Anne Robinson, and his mother Margaret Tilsley and leaves his son, Roy Tilsley Jr. of Manchester, NH, his daughter Laura Garcia (Velma) of Williamsburg, MA, his granddaughter Alexandra Tilsley (David) of Concord, NH, his grandson Jacob Tilsley (Xavi) of Chicago, IL, his brother David Tilsley of Sarasota, FL and many nieces and nephews.

A memorial gathering is planned for the spring. In lieu of flowers, we invite you to honor Roy's love of science and of children with a donation in his name to the SEE Science Center in Manchester, NH.