Sylvester Joseph Testa died March 1, 2019 from complications due to a heart attack.  He was born of Italian immigrants, who upon landing on Ellis Island, New York took the first work available and moved to McAlester, Oklahoma to work in the coal mines. Sy began his life with humble beginnings.  He was always incredibly proud of his mother Sara.  She was the quintessential Italian woman, who won multiple awards for her prolific culinary capabilities, including making homemade bread and cheese from scratch.  Sy graduated from the University of Oklahoma with degrees in Journalism and Psychology.  After college, Sy joined the Navy where he earned the Armed Forces Expeditionary medal while serving as a Lieutenant aboard the aircraft carrier USS Bon Homme Richard.  Sy’s Navy portfolio picture resembles an exact replica of Richard Gere in an Officer and a Gentleman, except maybe better looking.  He worked in the Navy as a speech writer for the Admiral and always had a love affair with words.  Sy enjoyed a successful career in real estate and technology working for great companies like Cushman & Wakefield, IBM and Oracle.  As an avid etymologist, he loved using the perfect word for a given situation. He owned no less than seven dictionaries to prove it.  A gifted writer and wordsmith, Sy loved the English language so much, he wrote his own vocabulary book.  Before he became a published author, he would drive his sons around town listening to ‘Words on Tape’ and it was almost assuredly the first and only time teenagers in 1982 were actively calling for Barry Manilow. Sy was an amazing dad. Despite losing his father at an early age, he always knew how to give fatherly advice. Kind, patient, gentle and loving he knew how to express his love with a knowing look, friendly smile, and an easy laugh.  Sy was an amazing sounding board, full of wisdom and good counsel.  He was worldly and wise.  His advice was not just pragmatic and sensible, it was spot on.  Sy was famous for his love of golf, donuts, coffee and cigarettes.  No man is an island, but Sy did own a palm tree.  Sy was a good golfer but a professional grade putter.  He could roll his golf ball like no other.  He called himself the world’s greatest second putter, but we think he was just the world’s greatest.  Sy was an exceptionally slow driver except when coaxed by his sons to take the “Wee Hill” at capricious speeds.  His sons remember the fun of coercing him to push past safe speeds when jumping the ‘Wee Hill’, but the true joy came when Sy finally gunned it like his boys had begged him to do for years.  The slow motion feeling of catching air in a Cadillac DeVille for a few precious seconds before bottoming out with a thud and accompanying sparks: all the while with brothers bouncing about the front seat in hysterical laughter…it’s just impossible to forget the magic of that moment with dad and sons.

Sy is survived by his three brothers, Albert, Bill and Lawrence, his sister Phyllis, three sons Michael, Troy and Jim, and grandchildren Edie, Leo, Piper, Gianni, Annabel, Danni Rae, Ely and Madison.

Sy will be remembered as a good man, a great father and he will be missed.

A funeral service will held at 2:00 p.m., Tuesday, March 5, 2019 at Our Lady of Angels Catholic Church, 1914 Ridgeview Drive, Allen TX 75013.