Former resident, conservation commissioner, Little League coach
Tom Mears. (Courtesy photo)
Dorsey Thomas Mears Jr. (Tom) died July 3, 2024. He was born Nov. 27, 1935, on Staten Island, New York. There, he developed a lifelong love of the sea, a dedication to service, and a fondness for oatmeal raisin cookies and Lorna Doones. His youth was spent in Cranford, New Jersey, where he played high school hockey, becoming captain of the team, and was a member of the Dance Club. After graduating from Penn State with a degree in forestry, he served in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Gearing. As a midshipman, Tom twice toured the Mediterranean, making ports of call in North Africa and sailing through the Suez Canal, eventually meeting his future wife, Jane Edmunds, when the Gearing was docked in Charleston, South Carolina.
Tom spent his career in the paper industry as a salesman, a job that took him from Atlanta, Georgia, to Thibodaux, Louisiana, and then to Harvard, where he was a member of the Conservation Commission, a Little League baseball and basketball coach, and a gardener of vegetables. He lived in Harvard for 43 years until, after Jane’s death in 2017, he moved to York, Maine, to live near the sea once again.
Tom was devoted to his family, committed to his faith, and retained his sense of wonder about the natural world throughout his life. He loved traveling across the country and around the world, and walks in the woods and along the coast. Knowing that his children grew to be happy and independent adults was among his greatest joys.
Tom is survived by his daughter, Julia Yager (Greg); and son, Dorsey (Paula Drouin). He will be buried next to his wife in Ridgeway, South Carolina.