I’d like to tell you something about my Dad, Tom Riley as I’m doing this epic ride in his memory.
Thomas W. Riley grew up in Ithica, New York State in the twenty’s and thirty’s with his Mother and Grandma Gussie. He had many stories to tell of this era, too many to re-tell here, but I will just tell you my favourite one.
When he was a young boy, along with his pals, he would play baseball in the street outside his house in Ithica. The local police frowned upon this and would take a dim view if they caught the lads in the act. So Gussie would sit in the upstairs window listening in to her crystal set which was tuned into the police band. When a complaint came through which would result in an officer coming out to disperse the children, Gussie would shout a warning down to them so they could lay low somewhere until the coast was clear.
I don’t know why, but this particular story evoked wonderful pictures in my head of the scene. Dad told us many more.
By all accounts, Tom’s childhood was not an easy one, but he worked hard at school and went on through High School and then to University to study Chemical Engineering. One of the lecturers at the University put in for special dispensation for his class of engineers so that they were not called up to the army when WW2 broke out. Good thing too, or this story may have been quite different!
It was at this time he took a room in my Mothers parent’s house and over the years he lodged there they fell in love and were married when he was 23 and she just 18. They went on to have 9 children, live over two continents and remained married for 57 years.
Tom worked for over 40 years for The Lummus Company (as it was then called). His travelled around the world project managing the building of oil refinery’s. He worked hard to look after his family in the best way he could.
Although Tom lived to work it seemed, he did touch on other interests; track and field and the newspaper at school, flying light aircraft, squash, DIY, men in the kitchen cooking class, among others. Photography was a big hobby for him, and it’s no surprise most of his offspring are keen photographers too, despite the times when were we children that he would get us in a group – again- for a family shot. We’ve all got copies now though. When we last got together as a family two days were spent going through his slide collection to share some out, so poor Mike and Sue didn’t have to store quite so much in their garage!
Tom would have really liked to have been a journalist, but his mother convinced him this was not a ‘proper’ job and so he studied engineering. Writing never left him though, he wrote for the school/collage newspaper, he wrote lengthy letters of complaint or praise when the occasion arose. And for many years he wrote a weekly newsletter that kept us all in touch with what was going on across the world in all our family units. It was quite a task, but it did keep us all up-to-date.
Today with the internet we still keep in touch, but not nearly as regularly as when he wrote the newsletter. Unfortunately in his latter years he contracted Alzheimers, which slowly gave him memory loss which he would never recover from. The newsletters continued to be sent to family and friends alike. It would take him all day to write one, with help when he would take it, and they mostly made little or no sense. But at the end of every one, he would tell us how much we meant to him and that he loved us. That sentiment was never lost.
It was very hard to watch dementia take over my Dad’s life. While my Mother was still alive I know she found it very difficult to cope with too. You slowly lose the person you know and love to another world entirely, until they have lost all sense of time and space and do not know who those around are any more. I hope to raise money to help the Alzheimers Society research and raise awareness of this condition so that other families may have more time with their loved ones. Maybe even get closer to finding a cause and cure.
I think Thomas W Riley would have enjoyed this blog, and I’m sure he would have wanted to contribute!
Hopefully you have enjoyed this tiny incite to Tom’s life, please don’t forget to help the cause if you can. www.justgiving.com/beth-le2jog
Lands End 2 John O'Groats Blog 
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