Thomas W. Rea (1940-2016)

Little Tommy Rea came into this world as the fifth child born to Hugh Edwin and Mary Rea in 1940 in Illinois. One baby brother, Russell, had died as a baby, leaving Tommy in the number four spot. His big sister Mary Anne, five years his senior, took charge of him whenever she was allowed. They remained close all his life. Three more siblings--Bonnie, Jimmie, and Rita, would join him over the next few years.

Tom's father, Hugh, was a military career man in the US Army, and the family lived in many places over the years. Moving every few years can be difficult for school children. His sixth-grade teacher realized Tommy had been promoted from one grade to the next without learning to read. She took it upon herself to ensure that he learned to read that year. Thank goodness for outstanding teachers like her.

The family lived in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Bangkok, Thailand, where they lived during Tommy's high school years. It was there he contracted tuberculosis. He recovered, but it remained dormant in his system for the rest of his life.

At 22, Tom married Julia Ann, another military kid who was friends with his younger sister, Bonnie. Although Tom was studying to be a Catholic priest at the time, he left that life to marry Julia in Hampton, Virginia, in 1962, at Langley Air Force Base. Two children were born to this marriage—Mary Michele (Shelley) and Stephen LaMont. Tom and Julie later divorced but remained friends until his death. They lived in Virginia, Mississippi, Colorado, and Illinois during their marriage and had many adventures together.

During the Vietnam War, Tom served in the Air Force as an Airman First Class in the Aleutian Islands, Alaska. Most of his time was spent fueling airplanes and operating the radios. He enlisted in the Air Force to avoid being funneled by the draft into the Army. He finished his service at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colorado.

Tom's uncle, Gene Rea, encouraged Tom to go to college. He and his wife Millie lived in Mattoon, Illinois, near Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, so he suggested they move there. As a result, Tom went to EIU on the GI Bill, the first in his family to receive a degree in higher education.

The young family lived in a one-bedroom apartment in married housing on campus, with the two small children sleeping on a mattress on the floor. After college, he taught English for one year at Eastern and then at Lake Land College in Mattoon, Illinois, for many years.

After his divorce from Julie, he and his then-partner, Daniel, lived in Mattoon and Champaign, Illinois, and later moved to Boston, Massachusetts, for a time. Then, in 1979, they moved to San Francisco, where Tom worked for AT&T, or Ma Bell as he called it, and later for Levi-Strauss, editing training manuals. He eventually took early retirement and focused on his health.

He loved writing and wrote a small book about dogs and many stories about family history. Tom also wrote newsletters for different groups and neighborhoods he was in over the years, not to mention his extensive correspondence to family and friends, first via mail and in later years via email.

Tom had many varied interests throughout his life. Early in his marriage to Julie, he raised African Violets, cross-pollinating them, attempting to create a new color. His daughter remembers shelves of grow lights and African violets in their small home and African Violet club meetings with many much older people coming to the house and doting on the young children and the violets.

He also raised canaries at one time after the divorce, devoting a whole room to them such that when his children visited on the weekend, they slept in the living room instead of the spare room. Not that they minded this, it just amuses this daughter looking back. In his later years, he and his husband Joe enjoyed their many dogs.

Tom's son remembers that their dad was a passionate "foodie" who loved cooking elaborate meals with his friends. He couldn't wait to try the new restaurants he came across. His fondness for Thai food from his teen years remained throughout his life. His daughter still has a recipe he created for her to make a delicious grilled Red Snapper.

He studied his family history extensively, even going to The Family History Library, a genealogical research facility in Salt Lake City, Nevada, to look up birth records. He passed this hobby down to his daughter, who continues to search for his old username to confirm family files on Ancestry. Tom especially enjoyed the stories he would happen upon in his research. For example, he discovered one relative survived the Battle of Bunker Hill but was so dehydrated that he drank from a stream on the walk home and died of dysentery from the contaminated water.

He loved acting, was part of Mattoon Area Performing Arts Society, and played a leading role in their play, Catch Me If You Can, in 1976. He also helped with a production in San Francisco, California, in 1983, written by his then-fiancé, Charles. His daughter remembers that she and her dad often thought up skits before going into the grocery store and acting them out when they got inside.

Tom loved classical music, and his daughter remembers he listened to it every Sunday morning when she visited.

Tom and Charles married in 1984 in a ceremony in their apartment in San Francisco. Although same-sex marriage wasn't legal in California then, they exchanged rings and considered themselves married. The ceremony featured a performance on the sitar, a classical instrument of India. Tom loved Indian classical music and studied the sitar briefly at the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California. In 1991, Tom and Charles moved to Willamina, Oregon, where they grew a huge garden on their extensive property for a while. They later ended their marriage, and Tom returned to California.

In 1995, Tom met Joseph Lewandowski, the love of his life, and they would remain together for the rest of his days. In 2008, during a brief window when same-sex marriage was legal in California, they married in a beautiful ceremony in Apple Valley, California, with friends, family, and their two Boston Terriers as ring bearers on highly decorated wagons. They had already been together for thirteen years. He and Joe loved to travel, and they bought an RV and went on many trips in their retirement, especially to national parks.

On one of their adventures, only six weeks after Tom had quintuple bypass open heart surgery, the brakes went out in the sport utility vehicle they were driving. After the emergency brake and an attempt at downshifting also failed, they left the road to avoid hitting anyone ahead of them, steering towards a row of young trees they hoped would stop their vehicle. Instead, they went hundreds of feet down the mountainside and landed upside down in a tree. Their cell phones and dogs had all ejected. Tom cut himself free from the seatbelt, fell to the ground, and climbed up the mountain to seek help since no one would have been able to see them where they were. Thankfully, they and their dogs all survived this accident.

Tom was proud to be a grandfather to three grandchildren whom he and Joe loved visiting. He passed on his love of books to them by sending beautifully written and illustrated stories for every Christmas and birthday gift. They still own many of these treasures.

Besides studying Catholicism in his younger years, Tom studied Eastern Philosophy in his later years and was a member of the Vedanta Society of Northern California.

Following a battle with prostate cancer, Thomas, age 76, departed this life on Monday, December 5, 2016, at home in Grass Valley, California, surrounded by loved ones. He is survived by his husband, Joseph Lewandowski, his two children, Mary Michele "Shelley" Crouch (John) of Illinois and Stephen L. of California; and three grandchildren; his brother, Robert "Bob" Rea (Anneliese) of Ohio, sister Mary Anne Perkins (Hank) of California, and brother James "Jimmy" Rea (Barb) of Tennessee, brother-in-law, Bob Bocrie, sister-in-law, Joan Rea. He was preceded in death by his parents, Hugh and Mary Rea, his brothers Russell Rea and Charlie Phil (Joan), and his sisters, Rita Rea and Bonnie Bocrie (Bob).

** One year after his death, his cremains were interred at Indiantown Gap National Cemetery in Annville, Pennsylvania, along with Joe's, who died in 2017, at the home of his niece. ***at the time of publishing this in 2022, all of Tom's siblings have passed.

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