Name: Funeral Mass for Thomas Henry "Tom" Krupa
Start: 2024-08-31T10:00:00.000Z
End: 2024-08-31T11:00:00.000Z
Location: Our Lady of the Lakes Church

Uncasville - Thomas "Tom" Henry Krupa, 75, passed away Aug. 21, 2024. Tom was born Sept. 24, 1948, in Middletown. He first met Laura Ponte in dance class at age 13. Ultimately, it wasn't her quick feet that caught his attention, but her lasagna. So, when fate found them working at the same grocery store - she, the brilliant cashier who could do calculations quickly in her head, and he, the lowly bagger - he took a chance and asked her out. He was never hungry again. On a rainy Friday evening, June 26, 1970, he married Laura.

He served his country in the Vietnam conflict as a member of the U.S. Air Force, working as an airplane mechanic. His military decorations include the National Defense Service Medal, Air Force Good Conduct Medal, Vietnam Service Medal with two bronze service stars, Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal, Air Force Commendation Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, and Special Operations Group. He took great pride in being a Vietnam veteran. After his discharge in 1972, he began his career in nuclear energy, first as a technician at Millstone Nuclear Power Plant and later helping decommission and dispose of buildings and materials at Yankee Rowe and Connecticut Yankee. It was hard but gratifying work. Everyone in the family agreed that when he returned home at the end of the day, he glowed.

Tom was a passionate outdoorsman and spent much of his free time hunting, fishing and taking long walks through the woods - sometimes alone, sometimes with the hunting dogs he trained, but more often than not with friends and family. However, the woods of Connecticut were not enough for him. So, once a year, he and his best friend, Tom Kelley, would travel to the provincial parks of Canada, bringing home pictures of the things he'd seen and a sense of peace, as well as a full beard and the smell of someone who had been bathing in lakes full of fish for the last two weeks. As he grew older, he exchanged his hunting rifles for compound bows and his bird dogs for lap dogs.

Tom was supportive of his children and their accomplishments, frequently telling them axioms like, "If you can find a job you enjoy, you'll never work a day in your life." He willingly attended and supported them through hundreds of concerts, debates, cross country meets and the like, even when work had him doing night shifts or traveling long hours to support his family. He was a master craftsman, and with his wife, Laura, knew all the ins and outs of home building, as evidenced by the lovely home they painstakingly built together over the latter half of their 54 years of marriage. He enjoyed his retirement and was frequently at Gardner Lake at the Socha marina for 20 years. He sincerely delighted in spending time with his grandchildren and taught them to fish, shoot bows, build campfires, and make s'mores.

Tom will be deeply missed by his siblings, Joseph (Sue) and Monica (Tony); as well as his many nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by his brother Kevin. Tom also leaves behind his wife Laura; his children, Kelly (Frank), Thomas Jr. (BethAnne), and Sarah; and his grandchildren, Aiden and Declan.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be held with calling hours from 8:45 to 9:45 a.m. in the church, followed by a 10 a.m. Mass for Thomas Krupa Saturday, Aug. 31, at Our Lady of the Lakes Church, 752 Norwich-Salem Turnpike, Oakdale. In lieu of flowers, Pepper (Tom and Laura's emotional support dog) asks that donations be made in Tom's name to the Connecticut Humane Society. Gifts can be sent to 701 Russell Road, Newington, CT 06111 or via cthumane.org/donate.

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by The Day on Aug. 26, 2024.

Memories and Condolences
for Thomas Krupa

Sponsored by Montville Funeral Home of Church & Allen.

17 Entries

Nathan Krupa

September 8, 2024

May God rest his soul! Love Nathan, Mary, David Jude, Joseph, Catherine, Jonathan, And Veronica Krupa

Jason Krupa

September 2, 2024

Lots of memories with Uncle Tom.

Joe Krupa

September 2, 2024

The Krupa gang to honor Tom and support Laura--Condolences to all

Joe Krupa

September 1, 2024

Dear Laura, Kelly, Tom, Sarah, my sister Monica, my daughter Cassie, and all Tom´s nieces, nephews, family, and friends,

Today I realized that you not only have lost your husband, father, uncle, and friend, but you have also lost the wonderful stories he could tell you about his youth. When we were young, Tom and I were very close. As the oldest in the family, Tom was my younger brother by only two years, so we shared many fun times together. I´ve jotted down a few memories of the wonderful times Tom and I enjoyed.

When we moved to Berlin, our house was not yet in the neighborhood. Only a few houses were built and spread quite far apart. One day I took Tom´s hand, and we went up into the woods to play. My Mom had no idea where we were. I was four and Tom was two-years-old. Mom had to ask a neighbor to watch Monica, who was still a baby. As Mom walked up the street to look for us, we came out of the woods. Wow! Mom was sure glad to see us!!

Our neighborhood was great for foraging, and a nice patch of high-bush blueberries that had grown on a peat bog. Mom carried Monica, pulled Tom in a wagon, and I walked alongside. We climbed up the hill and picked blackcaps, blackberries, and blueberries. Yum!! They were delicious!
It was a different era. Tom and I spent many fond days in the woods by ourselves. We always enjoyed riding our bikes on a logging road at the top of the hill.

When Tom was 7-years-old and I was 9, we bought a paper route. Tom had to cross US 5 and Route 72 to reach his customers. This was a lot of responsibility as we had to collect money, keep customer accounts, and pay the paper company once a month. We were going out in all sorts of weather, including rain, snow, freezing rain, and tropical storms. One good thing is that it got us to talk to adults regularly at a very young age. We also shoveled snow for some of our elderly customers.

In August of 1954, Connecticut was hit by Hurricane Carol, with winds up to 100 mph. Mom and Dad were out shopping so Tom, Monica and I got to go outside in the wind and rain. There was no real danger, as there were no large trees near the house, but the wind and rain were furious! We got soaking wet and had great fun!

The 50´s were a great time to be a kid. On Halloween, we went out in groups to visit our neighbors. We collected candy in pillowcases. Mom allowed us one candy bar when we got home - everything was full-sized, no snack-sized candy bars then. Then, Mom froze the rest of the haul and gave us candy bars with our lunch all winter.

One year, Dad had made a picket fence for our house. He had some pickets left over and gave them to Tom and me. We also had a can of bent nails and an anvil. We hammered the nails straight on the anvil and used them to decorate the pickets to make boats. That was a fun summer!

Another year, the Farmington River flooded, and Dad took Tom and me over to a hardware store with great sales because some of the goods had taken on a bit of water. At the time, we were helping Dad to build our garage and breezeway, so Tom and I bought hammers. His was a shiny Japanese one that didn´t last very long. I bought a Stanley nail master steel hammer that I still have to this day. We also bought fishing gear. It was our first experience with spinning reels.

Tom and I used to get up early in the morning in the summer, grab our fishing gear, and bike a couple of miles to the brick ponds at the end of Lower Lane in Berlin. The town used to stock them with trout at the beginning of the season. We´d stay out until the sun was down, so we knew it was time for us to do our paper routes.

One time, Dad found out that there was a great blueberry patch near Middletown. The city had cut through a forest for the power lines, and the hillside was covered with blueberry bushes. My whole family picked gallons of huge blueberries.

Winter was also a great time. We´d bought a big Flexible Flyer sled. Tom and I would pile on top of Mom and sled down the hill. It was great fun! When we were older, Tom and I would go sledding down some of the hillier parts of the pasture.

Winter was also a time for skating. Tom and I skated on frozen swamps and a pond a local farmer used for his cattle. He was kind enough to put up a shed so you could warm up if the wind kicked up!

When we moved into Berlin, one of the first things my dad did was plant fruit trees and start a garden. We had two five-kind apple trees, peach trees, blueberries, apricots, and Queen Anne cherries. For a while, we had strawberries and later Dad planted red raspberries. We had a perennial row of horseradish and Egyptian onions. We grew tomatoes, peppers, yellow and zucchini squash, acorn squash, pumpkins, peas, snap beans, wax beans, and onions. We enjoyed taking a saltshaker out and eating fresh tomatoes right off the vine.

I remember Mom canning and freezing lots of vegetables. At the end of the year, Tom and I would clear out the plants that dried up after the first frost, and we´d put them in our compost pile. In the spring, we would hand-fork the garden and rake it out to prepare it for planting.

Mom was from Nebraska. We made trips out to visit in 1954, 1960, and 1963. In 1960 we also visited our Aunt Kate in Green River, WY, and traveled to Jackson Hole and Yellowstone. We returned to Greeley through Caspar, Wyoming, and the Black Hills of South Dakota. We stopped and toured a calcite mine in the Black Hills. Yellowstone was really cool! They´d had an early snow piled 6 feet high on either side of the highway! It was 30 degrees F at night in August!

As you can see, the adventurous Tom you knew had roots in his youth full of fun in the great outdoors. Some of the happiest days of my life were spent with my brother Tom. He will be forever in my heart, and I am grateful that I will see him again.

With love and many prayers for all,

Tom´s Big Brother Joe

Sue Krupa

August 29, 2024

As the wife of Tom´s big brother Joe and his sister-in-law, I have enjoyed hearing the stories Tom and Joe have shared these last 2 years as they have talked on the phone. Now I realize I´ve had the company of two brilliant men for more than 50 years. It turns out that Tom and Joe worked at two different ends of the very demanding nuclear field-Joe would design the chemical processes, and Tom would help build the nuclear power plants. It was remarkable listening to these two brothers talk about valves, blowing out diaphragms, hydrogen fuel emitting nitrogen oxide, etc. It was as close as I will ever get to listening to Einstein.

Two of Tommy´s most astonishing stories worth sharing include a submarine and an airplane.
In the first story, Tommy was trained as an electronics technician. Like Joe, Tom could see the big picture better than most of his peers, and he had been trained in reading electrical schematic drawings. One year, when Tom was working on a new $2-billion-dollar nuclear submarine being built for Newport News, Tom noticed that the drawings, done by several different engineers, did not meet in the middle.
If the drawings were not corrected, the technicians putting in the wiring would not meet, and the electricity on the sub would not work. Interestingly enough, because the wiring would go in before the interior walls, all those walls would have to be torn out, if not corrected, because the lights would not work in the submarine. It took Tom talking to several managers to get his point across, but finally, someone listened to Tom. The manager said, "Tom, you´re right. These drawings don´t match up. You´ve just saved the American taxpayer $500-$700 million to refit the sub properly. Thanks." They started over on a new design because of Tom Krupa.

Tom´s other remarkable story was classified for 25 years but can finally be told. During the Vietnam War, some American excursions were made into Cambodia. There were lots of angry protests when this hit the press, and President Nixon had just announced that there was no longer ANY U.S. presence in Cambodia. Unfortunately, Tom had just been sent to repair a plane's electrical system inside Cambodia. No military was allowed to enter Cambodia, but Tom´s plane needed repair and was already INSIDE the Cambodian border.
Because of his natural genius, Tom completed a rapid repair that got the plane back into the air. Tom said that the plane took off just as the enemy spotted their location and started shooting at them. Minutes later, no one, including Tom, would have made it out alive. Several of the medals Tommy received from the U.S. government were to honor Tom saving these men´s lives.

Brilliant, hard-working, dependable, patriotic, and an avid hunter and fisherman, Tom Krupa was one of the finest men I have ever known. I am honored to call Tom Krupa my brother-in-law. He will be deeply missed, and his memory will be held in my heart forever. My condolences, warmest wishes, and thoughts are with all his dear family.

With love and prayers,
Sue Krupa

Mary M. Hollo

August 27, 2024

When I worked at Millstone as a guard, I remember going up in a cherry picker so Tom could work on a security camera. He was a wonderful man and always had a kind word for Security. He will be missed.
Mary M. Hollo

Diane Cormier Binder

August 26, 2024

I am so sorry for your loss, Laura. Tom sounded like a really special person. How fortunate for you to have been together for so many years! May your memories sustain you.

Alicia Hutchinson

August 25, 2024

Alicia Hutchinson

August 25, 2024

Alicia Hutchinson

August 25, 2024

Alicia Hutchinson

August 25, 2024

I met Tom when I was a little kid, but we actually got to know him more closely when he came to stay with us in 2018. It was awesome getting to know him better and hear so many stories about the Krupa family and his life that I had never known before. After that we were blessed to get to go fishing and visit many great places in Connecticut when visiting Tom and Laura. Our kids got to learn about the joys of real Polish and Italian food!
One thing that I really love is that our youngest son caught his first fish with Tom and Laura. It's such a great memory and a treasure to me. I'm so grateful that I got the chance to know Tom. He was a wonderful man and he will be missed!
So sorry to the family for your loss.
Love,
Buddy, Alicia, Evan, and Corban

Pat Jaehnig

August 25, 2024

So sorry for your loss, Laura. Tom sounds like a wonderful guy. May you find peace in your good memories of so many years together...
Pat Barr Jaehnig

Frances Alper

August 24, 2024

Laura,Tom, Kelly, Declan and Aiden, I am so sorry for the loss of your Husband, Dad and Grandpa. Holding you all in my heart. I laughed at the part of the obituary that said that he never went hungry again. I've been DD's friend for 54 years. Those Italian women are fabulous cooks! May you all eventually find peace.....Fran Alper.