John Joseph Novak

John Joseph Novak, Jr., age 68, a longtime Fairfield resident, alumnus of Fairfield University and Columbia Law School, and beloved husband of Karen Rose Novak died Saturday, June 20, 2015, while visiting family in Charleston, South Carolina. Mr. Novak was born the first son of John Joseph Novak and Anne O'Driscoll in the Astoria neighborhood of the New York City borough of Queens on February 27, 1947. He attended Regis High School on Manhattan's Upper East Side prior to graduating from Fairfield University with a B.A. in European Intellectual History in 1968. After graduating from Columbia Law School, where he served as an Editor of the Columbia Law Review, Mr. Novak practiced law at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, LLP, and Spengler, Carlson, Gubar, Brodsky & Frischling in New York City and as in-house counsel with Lep Profit Freight Systems in Atlanta, Georgia, before returning to be near his beloved alma mater in Fairfield, Connecticut. Mr. Novak is survived by his wife of 44 years, his sons, John Joseph Novak, III, and his wife Carly of Deerfield, Illinois, and Justin Paul Novak and his wife Sara of Charleston, South Carolina, and his three grandchildren, Will Spencer Novak, Reese Stella Novak, and Keegan Ellis Novak. He is also survived by his sister Cathy Novak Viviano and her husband Charles of Scarsdale, New York, and brother Paul Christopher Novak of Danvers, Massachusetts. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated in his remembrance at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, June 27, 2015, in St. Anthony of Padua Church, 149 South Pine Creek Road, Fairfield, with interment to follow at Gate of Heaven Cemetery, 10 West Stevens Avenue, Hawthorne, NY, where he will be laid to rest next to his parents. Friends and family may attend a visitation on Friday, June 26, 2015, from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Spear-Miller Funeral Home, 39 South Benson Road, Fairfield. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that a donation be made in John's memory to Fairfield University, 1073 North Benson Road, Fairfield, CT 06824.