Earl Robinson kept a watch on Shawn Patilla when they were young because Patilla was keeping his eye on Robinson’s little sister, Renee.
“He lived five houses away and I was always protective of my sister,” Robinson said.
He needn’t have worried. His sister married Patilla and he turned out to be about the best husband and father Robinson could imagine.
Patilla died Oct. 12 while working with a Denver Water crew that was repairing a water-main break near South University Boulevard and East Hampden Avenue. He was 35.
Patilla and other workmen were in a 6-foot-deep hole that flooded and trapped Patilla.
More than 500 people attended services for Patilla on Friday morning at Anchor of Hope Church, 2101 High St., where he married Renee Robinson in 1997.
Earl Robinson told the crowd that he and Patilla considered each other brothers. “Shawn didn’t believe in in-laws.”
Patilla’s death “is painful for the congregation,” the pastor, Ken Roberts, said in an interview. “Last Sunday we grieved together. We prayed with the family and for the church and community and for the water board. They’re hurting too.”
Patilla “was always available to do anything” to help out at the church, Roberts said. He directed the children’s choir, called the Anchor Angels, even though he didn’t have any musical background.
“He was a loving, kind, friendly person, very approachable,” said Roberts, who has led the 250-member church for 37 years.
He told people at the service that Patilla “was a great man of God. We’ll forgive him for being a Dallas Cowboys fan.”
Friend Kevin Patrick said the kids in the Anchor Angels “love him. He would get on his knees to direct them,” so he’d be their height.
“He was a happy guy and a good guy who loved doing daddy stuff,” said Patrick, of Aurora. “He was a guy any mother would be proud of.”
Patilla’s oldest child, 14-year-old Shannon, sang a duet at the service with Felecia Hill. And she sang with a group from the Denver School of the Arts, which she attends.
People were packed in the sanctuary, spilling over into hallways and stairways. Chairs were added to seat 400 and another 100 people sat in the basement watching the service on closed-circuit television. Many employees of Denver Water attended, as well as friends of Renee Patilla, who works at Children’s Hospital.
Each of Patilla’s three children wrote a tribute to their dad that appeared in the funeral program, describing how he and they played and laughed together – and how he wanted their rooms clean and toys picked up.
Earl Robinson told the crowd, “We can take comfort in this: To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.”
Shawn Reynard Patilla was born in Jersey City, N.J., on June 12, 1971, and attended Irvington Tech High School in Irvington, N.J.
He and Renee moved here in 1993.
He is survived by his wife, Renee Patilla; daughters Shannon Patilla, 14, and Shadae Patilla, 5; son Shawn Patilla, 12; his parents, Carl and Maxine Patilla of Newark, N.J.; two brothers, Veles D. Patilla of Gainesville, Fla., and Michael Patilla of Newark; mother-in-law Carrie London of Denver; and two other brothers-in-law, James Robinson of Aurora and John Robinson of Denver.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
