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In Memory

Thomas Chase
 
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12/03/19 01:05 PM #1    

Stephen Golder

I did not know Tom well at Oberlin though he roomed across the hall and we both were interested in motorcycles at Noah, Bike Alley. He had a cool 250 Ducati with which he always tinkered and I drove once. Tom left Obie to go to sea and had many adventures. I met him decades later in the public library in Falmouth, where he had returned to his family home and I also live. We had a long talk there and determined to meet for coffee but, like his father had, he died suddenly in his sleep before we could meet. He had an unbelievably massive crowd at his funeral as he was well known and greatly liked in town. A master roofer, he had donated his time to roof a terrifyingly high and  many gabled complex roof on a beautiful mansion in gross disrepair that the town purchased to save from destruction. Highfield Hall is now a center for music, culinary, and educational classes and I think of Tom every time I go there.


08/15/20 05:27 PM #2    

Lawrence Schell

I met Tom at Logan airport on the way to Oberlin for the first time.  Our fathers had worked together in Woods Hole, Mass, so we began a friendship.  I liked Tom from the start.  He was a down to earth guy (who apparently was not afraid of heights as a roofer, according to Steve Golder). I appreciated his no-posing, be-who-you-are approach. I was disappointed when he decided not to return to Oberlin. After grad school I swore I would get back to Woods Hole but never did.  I wish I had seen him one more time. His early death is such a loss. Steve Golder says many turned out at his funeral so I guess my appreciation of Tom was felt by many others.


03/28/22 01:53 AM #3    

David Howe

Tom was my roommate for two years, we clicked because we were both sailors from southern New England. I would head on over to Woods Hole every weekend in the summer of '68 and hung out with all his humongous group of wildass friends, sailing races every Sunday. He visited me in Eugene and we kept up a sporadic correspondence. I, like Steve Golder, was planning to meet him for coffee at the Cap'n Kidd in Woods Hole, but I heard that he passed away shortly before we visited the Cape.

Tom made a big impression on me and influenced my outlook on life quite a bit. Heluva guy!


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