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Thomas Hughes Obituary
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Memories and Condolences
for Thomas Hughes
Anthony Wellman
September 12, 2007
At long last I post my own farewell to my good friend, Tom Hughes, on this site. The months which have passed since his death in April have served only to confirm what I and so many others expected: that it will take some time to fill the hole he left behind in the lives of many people.
On the other hand, the pain of feeling his absence only confirms the joy which he gave through his presence. And I, for one, am glad to pay that price. The longer we have something we treasure, the harder it is to let go. And so it is with the loss of "Old Thomas" as my father used to affectionately refer to him. Tom truly was a great friend, not only to me but to my father as well. He demonstrated that friendship many times over the years in ways too numerous to count. And while I was greatly honored to speak a eulogy to him at his funeral, I cannot reproduce it exactly here because it was spoken at the Church from notes as well as extemporaneously, from my heart.
Much of my message in the eulogy was also contained in the obituary I wrote for Tom which was published in area newspapers at the time under the headline, "The Quintessential Good Neighbor". For that's what Tom was. He was truly a gentleman who lived by The Golden Rule. (You will find this obit on the legacy.com web site. It is the longer of the two obituaries featured. See "Hughes, Thomas Franklin--Fairfield")
The one thing not contained in the obituary I wrote and which I included in my eulogy was a poem well known to many of Tom's former tenants at Machamux. I wrote it in the Spring of 1988 while I was also a part-time tenant there. Its few lines recall the humor, camaraderie, happy eccentricity, joy and love that existed in that place and time. Tom enjoyed it, distributing copies of it to friends and family over the years. And I enjoyed reciting it for him. And so, I print it here, as another recitation for him and for any and all who may find a smile or fond memory in its lines.
(A word of explanation of some of the references in the poem for those who may not be familiar with them . "Squalor By The Sea" was how Tom sometimes humorously referred to his home, "Machamux" in Greens Farms, Connecticut--a gracious 18th century colonial located near Long Island Sound. (From an old local Indian name meaning, "Beautiful Land".) Though greatly loved, Machamux's size and extensive grounds were really beyond Tom's capacity to maintain. Let us say, it "needed a little work". Also, Tom was well-known as one of those people who never throws anything away. So the house became somewhat congested with a mixture of more furniture than it needed, some fine antiques, bric-a-brac, magazines and the like. It was also full of tenants who took rooms in the old servants' quarters on the third floor. Most of them younger people, they added to the vibrancy and personality of the household. The cat referred to was "Pele" a well-loved feline of mostly Maine Coon lineage, who was known for his prowess at reducing the resident rodent population rather effectively. His hunting exploits were legendary around the house. Pele was frequently the center of attention and greatly loved. The "gin" reference honors cocktail hour--well known to all those who resided at Machamux. It was a time of relaxation, conversation and humor. And it usually began with a flourish as Tom mixed his first martini. And finally, raisin toast is included because it is one of the scents I recalled predominating in Tom's kitchen.)
Squalor By The Sea
by Anthony Wellman
In old Greens Farms at Machamux, where raisin toast is king,
A hungry cat roams o'er the lawn, consuming everything.
The driveway's full of autos, the house is full within,
And if you're there at five o'clock, the landlord's full of gin.
The third floor's for the tenants, the second for the Hughes,
The first floor must have everything that anyone could use.
Why not give away some magazines, or throw some stuff away?
For God's sake have a tag sale, or we'll self-combust someday!
But there is a special something in this "squalor by the sea",
And it's awfully hard to find the words to say what it could be.
For although it needs some mending, 'cause this house is sagging low,
There ain't so many other joints where I'd prefer to go.
###
Farewell Thomas, you were the very definition of the word "friend". You will be greatly missed. But all those you leave behind take comfort in knowing that, while the grief will pass, the wonderful memories will live on.
God bless you.
-Tony
Elizabeth (Beth) Hughes Murphy
May 16, 2007
I first met Dad when I was 4 years old. He and my Mother met, fell in love and were married. As Dad described it, it was sort of a package deal, two, instead of the usual one.
The wedding was in Florida and I flew with Dad’s parents, Mud and Gandy, to their house in New York to wait while Mom and Dad had their honeymoon drive back up north. They collected me after a few days and we went on to Greens Farms and the big old house where Dad was living. At that time Machamux belonged to Dad’s employer Bert Day, who in his usual eccentric way, had gone to visit his sister and was away 5 years. The house was mostly quiet and unused, large and museum like. The downstairs was partly filled with many big cardboard moving barrels of my Mother’s things.
Dad, in a thoughtful way, which I think we all came to realize was always his way, had been planning for the arrival of a very small child into this new place. Before he had left he had gotten a wonderful stuffed animal – the chimpanzee J. Fred Muggs - and set up the monkey at the back door of Machamux where we came in. A note was attached to the monkey welcoming me and inviting me to follow the string that was tied next to him, up to what was to be my room. I picked up J. Fred and the string led me back and forth around barrels taller than I was, and through many rooms and halls with the new smell of old furniture until we reached the final door handle to which the string was anchored. That little room at the end of the hall was mine for several years until our growing family transitioned from Machamux to Southport and then back again.
Over the years the rooms of Machamux have sheltered many souls at different times, but all were welcomed in by Dad, maybe not by way of a monkey and a string, but in his own inimitable way. By these measures Dad has a very large family indeed. I have always felt very special and loved to have been “chosen” along with my Mom, to be the first to be referred to as his “little pip-squeak”.
So, Dad, wherever you are out there, “nighty-night” if you are sleeping, and if not, let me say, “See you later Alligator…” and I know I can hear you answering “….after a while Crocodile.”
Laurie Hughes
May 10, 2007
PLEASE NOTE:
THIS GUEST BOOK WILL BE ONLINE FOR A YEAR! IT HAS BEEN SPONSORED BY THE FAMILY, WHO LIKES TO SAVE THINGS, AND YOU CAN ACCESS IT THROUGH SPEARMILLERFUNERALHOME.COM, SO PLEASE DO! IT IS VERY SPECIAL FOR US.
Laurie Hughes
April 25, 2007
Laurie’s Eulogy
My father has always meant everything to me. There is certainly not time enough for me to enumerate the ways I have loved him, or he me. His love was like the water I swam in, never noticing or questioning it. I have been so used to knowing I am loved, that I don’t think I could make that feeling go away, even were he to die a thousand times. But among the lessons I have learned from a more than fifty-year association with this wonderful man, here are a few…
THINGS I LEARNED FROM MY DAD:
BE KIND.
Growing up with my Dad driving the family around, we never passed a stranded motorist, and rocked many a stranger’s car out of being stuck in the snow. As Anne has said, one of the nurses on 9 North at St. Vincent’s Medical Center said, “He’s the only one who’s ever asked how I am.” He truly radiated kindness, and although he avoided calling any attention to his acts of kindness, he took great pleasure in them.
BE COURTEOUS.
He went by the old story: The young thing says to the man, “Oh you don’t have to hold the door for me because I’m a lady…” and the man says, “I’m not holding the door for you because you’re a lady, I’m holding the door for you because I’m a gentleman.”
He treated everyone, no matter how fleeting their contact might prove to have been, with the same unfailing politeness and courtesy.
TAKE YOUR TIME.
Most of us have some sort of bad back or neck these days, if for no other reason than we rush things. But my Dad never really had any serious back problems, not even through the many years during which he was heaving batteries on and off of boats, or more recently when lifting his friend Tom’s wheelchair in and out of the car, spurning the poorly designed (he said) lift with which the car was equipped.
THINK IT THROUGH.
Conversations in the family room at Machamux eddied and swirled, not particularly around world or national events, but more likely about why and how someone’s car or boat wasn’t working smoothly, and these conversations led to his fantastic ability for troubleshooting.
HAVE FUN.
Although it was started by Tim, Rob and Danny, Dad embraced the idiocy of the clothespin tricks people played on each other at Machamux, and Dad himself actually started the Thank-you tricks, ultimately investing all sorts of objects and words with a reminder of him – tongs, tanks, tanksuits, thongs, etc.
ENJOY GIVING.
From plastic grocery bags for Barbara Barbara, to celery sticks filled with Roka cheese spread for Mariana, Gretchen, Marisol, Betty, and others at 3030, and crossword puzzles for Junior, his mechanic, along with innumerable Hershey’s kisses handed out as he made his way around town, he loved to give little gifts, valuable and meaningful only in being symbols of his affection for others, which was boundless.
LOVE WORDS.
From playing countless games of Charades to using his favorite Spoonerisms (peeping sleacefully) to getting right a quote from Shakespeare (“Let the gall’d mare wince; my withers are unwrung.”) to enjoying the story of Jane and Karen and the “scissor,” to great appreciation of Ogden Nash’s poem as recited by Mills (“See the ketchup in the bottle. None comes out, and then a lot’ll.”) to his ongoing affectionate brangling with Tony about the scanning of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s
“My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night,
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends,
It gives a lovely light,”
he was a great appreciator of a neatly turned phrase.
HAM IT UP.
From his early experiences on WJZ radio’s “Great Moments in History” where he played Alexander Hamilton’s son (“Goodbye, father, goodbye.”) and Silas McCormick’s little brother, to his singing “The Tatoo'd Lady” at open mike night at Onion Alley or his news broadcasting experience at Disney’s Universal Studios, to his recent reply to the hospital doctor’s question, “And how do you sleep?” (“Well, first you close your eyes…”) he was always happy to respond to a cue.
TOLERATE BEING SEEN AS ECCENTRIC.
From wearing a sweater with an unraveling collar to driving around with a car full to the window line with tools and other paraphernalia, although a true gentleman, he never really bothered about how people saw him. I looked out my bedroom window early one morning at Machamux and saw him down by the garage, shaking an unusual weed tree, which had sprouted in the middle of the driveway and grown taller than he was, and then stomping on the ground around it. I thought he had finally lost his mind, until I figured out that he was shaking ants off the tree and killing them, apparently looking after the well-being of the sapling which was growing where it never should have been in the first place.
TAKE PLEASURE IN MUSIC.
Loving the old show tunes and popular songs from yesteryear, Dad enjoyed nothing more than to bring up a tune form the recesses of his memory, and play it on the piano, especially if it contained the name of the young woman for whom he was playing it. It’s possible that we have no recording of his playing, most likely because he played so often that we got to hear the real thing, live, and never missed having him on tape.
BE UNABASHEDLY SENTIMENTAL.
“Send in the Clowns,” even played haltingly by me on the piano, would bring him quietly into the room to listen, and invariably elicit a choked “Yeah, that’s a good one, isn’t it?” from him upon its completion. He never made it through reciting the poem “Jenny Kissed Me” without a break in his voice, nor through a reading of “Gunga Din” without the same.
DON’T BE OVERAWED BY AUTHORITY OR POSITION.
From calling 88-year-old Sister Victoria an old goat (to her face), to playing Yah-tze with an aging George Goebel, to helping Rip Torn dig for sassafras roots in the yard, to working on the sailboat of a local America’s Cup contestant, Dad treated everyone as a friend and equal.
BE THOROUGH.
Every package he sent contained an additional copy of the address inside; every knot that would need to be untied, could be; every sandwich had its mayo spread evenly edge to edge. And every time he helped me load a truck to move somewhere he got everything in, and engineered in a beautiful fashion.
GET SATISFACTION FROM NIFTY SOLUTIONS.
From the dish soap lid dispenser top on his vermouth bottle to his installing the battery for his van in the passenger seat and running jumper cables under the hood after the battery seat housing rusted away, he took pleasure in his ingenuity.
LOVE CHILDREN.
From before I was born when my dad listened fondly to Gail reading a book upside down to my childhood which was filled with my walking around holding onto one of his fingers, to the numerous more recent children he loved – Molly, Nora, the Brown children and many others, he was truly sweet on children.
STORE UP YOUR TREASURE IN HEAVEN.
My Dad, though he did store up lots of stuff, it actually wasn’t particularly TREASURE he stored up here on earth, but more like flotsam and jetsam. As others have said, his real treasure was in the present moment, in his relationships with people and his enjoyment of nature, especially Long Island Sound, and of music.
LOVE PEOPLE.
He told me of a visit to his female doctor at the VA during an intermittent phase of passing out tiny 1 ½” boxes of Junior Mints instead of Hershey’s kisses, thanks to Julius. He said to Dr. Krishnamurthy and her assistant, “You’ve done so much for me, I’d like to give you each a box of chocolates.” They started to exclaim their pleasure and then saw the size of the boxes as he brought his hand out of his pocket, and laughed at his being such a smart aleck. When I laughed and shook my head, hearing the story, I said to him, “Anything for a laugh, huh?” He said sheepishly, “Yeah…my problem is I like to see people smile.” I thought at the time, “That should be your epitaph, ‘His problem was he like to see people smile.' "
Well my Dad’s body will be cremated, and so we don’t know yet whether he will have a headstone, or have his ashes scattered, but that story fits for me to close my reminiscences today.
As Winston Churchill said, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. It is, perhaps, however, the end of the beginning.” It’s up to us now to carry the torch of his legacy of affection. Bye, Pop.
Anne Hughes
April 16, 2007
Thomas Franklin Hughes
I first met my husband Tim, at Tom’s house, Machamux, at a birthday party for Laurie. Tim came down, from Glastonbury, where he was serving as Youth Ministry Director at Buckingham Congregational Church, after running a junior high retreat at Silver Lake Conference Center. Tim was weary, and Tom was in rare form. It was a guitar, drum and song-fest, the first of many that I would find Tom joining in the choruses or last lines of songs of….. and chiming in with his bawdy sea chanties or 1920’s hit parade.
As I got to know and love and sing with Tim, I got to know and love Tom too. But this was only about 15 years ago…..it was in the early nineties, and Machamux’s glory days were on the wane. Tenants had begun moving out and moving on, most of the house was dark….and I don’t know if there was any correlation with the decaying state of the house: because there was absolutely no more surface areas to sit down on…. Or the gaping holes in the ceiling and walls… the exposed electrical wiring… room after room filled with piles of papers, furniture, boxes, non-working appliances, stacks and stacks of empty olive jars, bottles and cans….with ever-narrowing pathways through the hallways and rooms…. But I suspect there was a correlation. Now I had just moved back to CT from living in Eastern KY….. Appalachia, coal-mining country…cozy, close-knit hollers of squalor there. I was not shocked….I was not appalled…..it was achingly familiar. But because we loved Tom, and wanted to free his spirit of the albatross of worry that the house had become, we began the moving out process, the clearing out and selling of Machamux, which he reluctantly engaged in and ultimately settled into 3030 Park Ave Retirement Community.
When I came to know Tom, Tom was already an Ornery Old Man. And I’m here to recommend, if you don’t already have an Ornery Old Man in your life, to get one. I see a lot of them in the congregation, waiting to be adopted. It’s a win-win proposition. You adopt Other People’s Parents…..multiply adopted by people, and you have a lot of Ornery Old Men out there suddenly getting and putting in their hearing aids, getting birthdays celebrated, changing their clothes, helping us to remember first lines to such immortal rhymes like Four and Twenty Blackbirds…… (it’s “Sing a Song of Sixpence, Pocket Full of Rye”)….. and getting help with the crossword puzzle.
So I came into this family, adopting Tom. And what I witnessed and learned from this Elder of the village, was all about creating community. It is something we now make our mission at Silver Lake Conference Center, where Tim and I now serve as Co-Directors. Community-building was Tom’s full-time job. Making and continuing connections with people. All around him. From the Bank, to the Post Office, to the Greens Farm Spirit shop, to the Driftwood Coffee Shop to Southport Automotive, and the Westport Marina…. Where he kept a sailboat…. I say kept, because in those last four years, he didn’t actually sail it, but moved it back and forth every spring and fall in and out of the water…….because it was the seasonal ritual….
But I witnessed Tom… this non-religious man, incredibly faithful to his Ministry of building community…. Which is making people feel like they matter. And in that building, person-by-person, with all of you…. He was willing to have his heart broken, over and over. Because ultimately, when you love people so dearly, so openly, and with such radical acceptance, inevitably, there are good-byes…. Long stretches of busyness, when we don’t stop by, when we don’t get together, when we don’t go to Connelly’s for dinner, and then when we do, it ends. The song is over, the evening winds down, the Onion Alley rooftop performers get called by the Westport Police, no more noise after midnight… and people go home… the time together comes to a close, and there is a little heartbreak at the separation. Yet Tom was always willing to open his heart fresh to a new person, a new gathering…being connected and the cycle of separating over and over, and as that exchange deepened, he shared his Ornery side. And that’s when we had true community. You got to accept him, when he started saving his pieces of teeth, as they broke off, and he got to accept you worrying about cell service carriers, global warming, elections, and stuff, ….and he got to fuss over saving every card, every jar of jam given to him, every symbol of you all, the ones with whom he shared his heart.
We need Ornery Old Men in our lives, and although Tom was one-of-a-kind, I invite you to adopt others with the same devotion as you did Tom. All our lives are richer, and although the hole left behind is deep, remember how Tom would always be ready to make and greet a new friend. As he certainly did even in St. Vincent’s hospital, where one nurse said when he was returned to the ninth floor for the second time, “Oh I love Tom. He’s the only patient who ever asked how I was.”
You will always matter, Tom….. and I know wherever you are…. “I SAID, I KNOW, WHEREVER YOU ARE”…..You are indeed, very well….. AND WE WILL ALL BE TOGETHER AGAIN”
By Anne Meiman Hughes 4/14/07
Suzanne Ford
April 16, 2007
Dear Laurie, Tim and Beth--I truly love your Dad! What a special man. I loved 5:00 at Machamux. I loved how Tom could talk with anyone of any age about any topic. I ran in to him a couple of months ago in Westport and was so happy to see him and I gave him a huge hug. I'll never forget him or the fun times in Green's Farms.
Love,
Suzie Ford
Laura Worrel
April 12, 2007
To the dearest friends and family of Uncle Tom: I hope this poem brings you some peace.
Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep (Mary Elizabeth Frye (1905-2004)
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not here; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.
With deepest sympathy and love,
Chad & Laura Worrel
Gail Hughes
April 12, 2007
"When Great Trees Fall"from Maya Angelou's book called "Celebrations, Rituals of Peace and Prayer". I hope you find this joyful and peaceful as I did.
When Great Trees Fall
When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses, and even elephants
lumber after safety.
When great trees fall,
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
theis senses
eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid, promised walks never taken.
Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us,
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.
My Favorite Uncle Tom will be treasured in our hearts forever, Gail
Ann Franzen
April 11, 2007
To Tom's family and many friends -
We miss your wit and wisdom at The Driftwood in the morning, but there is comfort in knowing that heaven will never be the same.
In deepest sympathy,
Ann and Jack Franzen
The Staff of Spear-Miller Funeral Home
April 11, 2007
Offering our deepest condolences during this time.
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