- Date Of Birth: July 22, 1931
- Date Of Death: August 20, 2019
- State: Michigan
Tom passed away peacefully on Tuesday, August 20, 2019 after a short illness. He was born in South Haven on July 22, 1931, then spent his early childhood in Kalamazoo and Portage. He was Portage Central High School’s first quarterback, and according to him, the school’s worst quarterback. He also played baseball, and basketball. Despite his height, he was an excellent basketball player, except when he was distracted by the perky cheerleader, his future wife, Dorothy Sullivan.
Tom briefly attended WMU, then joined the Air Force in 1951. Later that year, Tom and Dorothy married. A few years later, they returned to Portage, and Tom began working for the Upjohn Company. This led to his career as a chemical operator in the research and development labs. He enjoyed and took great pride in his work. He worked on interesting projects with interesting people. In the 1970s, he earned the company a process patent.
He and Dorothy were two of the founding members of the First Baptist Church of Portage and active in many service activities—from planting trees to leading the finance committee and youth group.
They adopted a son, Mark, in 1958, and a daughter, Susan, in 1960.
Tom was adventurous and loved to travel with his family. They took many cool road trips to California and Florida. Along the way, they stayed in hotels where they enjoyed the pools, and stopped at an occasional shoddy place for a night before heading on to Tom’s (and the rest of the family’s) favorite destination—sunny ocean beaches for swimming, fishing, and shell collecting. Not to mention the theme parks for rollercoasters, and later, Las Vegas casinos.
Upon his final retirement at 68, his life focused on continuing travel with Dorothy, and romping around with his 6 grandchildren—Nicole (1984), Anna (1985), Kara (1986), Sarah (1987), Molly (1992), and Patrick (1994).
Tom’s was a life of devotion to his family, faith in Christ, adventure and fun, and pride in his work. His grandchildren’s favorite memories with “Papa” are of riding rollercoasters with him at the fair, and dancing to Ray Steven’s music videos. Mark and Susan treasure the love and many adventures with Dad, especially Florida. Dorothy will forever treasure their 68 years of love and longs to being reunited with her sweetheart.
Tom is survived by his wife, two children, six grandchildren, and 5 great-grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, donations could be made to the Kalamazoo Animal Rescue or Humane Society.
