When Brian Sullivan called the other day to let me know that his uncle Dr. Daniel Sullivan had died, I immediately thought of the pleasant visit to his Dover optometry office for a Veterans Day feature I did in 2012.

Offering condolences, I hung up and went to find Dr. Sullivan’s obituary – in part to reminisce and in part to make sure it found its way to The Telegraph’s obituary desk.

When I read that Sullivan had died "after a yearlong struggle with cancer, a challenge he met with grace and optimism," I thought, yep, that’s the Dr. Sullivan I remember.

The death in late December of Daniel "Dixie" Sullivan, who was 90, completes the final chapter in the long, impressive legacy of one Nashua family that lent not one, or two, or four, but six of its sons to Uncle Sam when he needed them most.

"Nashua’s Fighting Sullivans" – that’s what The Nashua Telegraph called the six brothers who enlisted, one by one, in one branch or another as World War II ramped up and ultimately came to America’s shores.

Come the early 1940s, I wrote in 2012, Dennis and Mary Sullivan suddenly realized all six of their sons were somewhere overseas fighting for their country.

I remember "Dixie" Sullivan (what I don’t remember is if he told me the origin of the nickname) telling me how grateful he and his brothers, but especially their parents, were that all six came home alive and well.

Oddly, some years later the family would be beset by a terrible tragedy right here in Nashua: Patricia, the Fighting Sullivans’ only sister and youngest sibling, was killed along with her family when their truck was struck by a train at the Hills Ferry Road crossing in 1960.

Daniel Sullivan was the youngest of the boys; Roger was the eldest. In between were Thomas, who went by "Eddy," John, Bill and Dennis.

Longtime Nashuans will recognize the name Dennis Sullivan as the city’s 51st mayor, while Eddy founded Sullivan Moving and Storage Co. Eddy died young, just 49, of injuries sustained in a highway crash during a snowstorm in 1974.

Dixie Sullivan was 86 when I visited him, and I distinctly recall him excusing himself now and then to assist a colleague or answer a patient’s questions.

"He still goes to work every day. He loves it," Brian Sullivan told me at the time.

And he’d keep doing so up to just a year or so before his death.

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears Saturdays in The Telegraph. He can be reached at 594-1256, dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com or @Telegraph_DeanS.