In Remembrance: Tom Adams ’66 Died on September 18 2023

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Tom Adams passed away September 18, 2023.

Growing up in the small town of Stafford Springs, Connecticut, Yale was an adjustment and a revelation. It was also the first of many adventures.

Having received a scholarship to Yale, one of his jobs was assisting as a projectionist for the audio visual department—often showing slides, mostly for art historian Professor Vincent Scully. Tom left Yale with an appreciation for art and an awareness of the relationship between truth and beauty, which he maintained throughout his life.

Upon graduation he applied for and received a commission to Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island.  His training and career in the Navy eventually provided new adventures. He racked up life experience while on the USS Coral Sea as a bombardier/navigator flying A6 Intruders, traveling throughout Asia and eventually back to the US, where he was a part of a ferry squadron VRF32 that brought him to the place he would eventually call home: Coronado, California. 

After Tom’s obligations as a flight officer were over, he enrolled in dental school at UCSF, courtesy of the US Navy. His four years of dental school became four years as a Naval dental officer, first at the Naval Training Center San Diego, then on the USS Constellation. This tour brought him to the Persian Gulf during the Iran Hostage Crisis. Shortly thereafter, he retired to the Naval Reserves. In between active duty and while in the reserves, he went back to San Francisco and UCSF to complete a two-year specialty program in orthodontics.

Tom had a thriving orthodontics practice in San Diego for over 25 years, loving what he did. What he enjoyed the most was happy patients with newly found confidence after finishing treatment. Throughout the years and into retirement, he would run into former patients who always remembered Dr. Adams. Sometimes their names escaped him, but he would say he could always remember their teeth! 

Tom and his wife Leslie moved to sunny Coronado in 1989; their son Grant  joined them in 1993. Tom loved his life  in Coronado, where he played singles tennis several times a week, golfed, ran on the beach, rode his bike, watched birds, and soaked up the sun, sights, and sounds of his lovely verdant yard. 

In December 2019, Tom got the terrible diagnosis of cancer. Having never been ill, no health issues, nothing had indicated that a very healthy 76-year-old  would be presented with his mortality. After the initial shock, Tom would say that he’d had had a wonderful, full life, with many adventures, opportunities, the love of friends and  family.  Most of all he was grateful for the life he had with his beloved wife and son. He faced his fate with his typical philosophical outlook, and his ever-present sense of humor.

—Submitted by the family.