“He was extremely likeable”
Townships community mourns Tom Cavanagh
Tom Cavanagh, former Academic Dean of Champlain College in Lennoxville and longtime columnist for The Record, died on Tuesday at the age of 87. Although Cavanagh and his wife Rosemary have been living in a retirement home in Brockville, Ontario, for the last several years, the news still hit hard for several longtime colleagues and friends living in the Eastern Townships.
“He ranks number one of all the people I have ever known,” shared Jim Brodie, who worked alongside Cavanagh as Dean for close to 20 years. “He was fantastic.”
Brodie recalled his fellow dean as a renaissance man with an interest in everything
“He was curious, intellectual, and athletic,” he said “I can’t say enough about him, he was kind, he was humble; he put himself last, and he tried to do a good job.
The former dean was one of several The Record spoke with who noted Cavanagh’s habit of trying to look at all sides of an issue.
“I’ve never heard of anybody who didn’t like him,” said Don Atkinson. “He was extremely likeable because he was so open and interested in people.”
At Champlain, Atkinson said that he and Cavanagh were often on the opposite sides of discussions.
“Throughout it all, no matter how much disagreement there was between us in the workplace he was incredibly likable and we always got along very well,” he said. “There was never any dislike in our disagreements.”
A testament to that is the fact that Atkinson said, outside of work, he and Cavanagh would get together regularly to play music.
“We played a lot together, probably even three or four times a month,” Atkinson said, adding, “we spent probably as much if not more time talking than we did actually playing and singing.”
The retired teacher recalled many occasions playing alongside Cavanagh at family Christmas parties and for Saint-patrick’s Day at the Argyle Pavilion.
Ultimately Atkinson turned back to his former boss’s innate likeability is his most defining trait.
“He was very interested in other people and a very good listener,” he said. “He was quite open minded about things too. You could talk to him about anything.”
“You could have a very energetic conversation with Tom and know it was just that,” reflected Jan Draper. “There was no venom attached to that.”
Draper described Cavanagh as an almost uniquely engaged dean.
“He was very interested in education,” she said. “He had a depth of knowledge which came in very handy when you were discussing issues and coming up with solutions.”
The former teacher fondly recalled a time when Cavanagh offered to come in and lead a workshop in one of her creative writing classes that ended up lasting nearly an hour and a half.
“There are a lot of colleges whose dean would never even think about doing something like that,” Draper said.
Mary Purkey worked with Cavanagh at the college but said that he, his wife Rosemary, and their five children became almost like a second family to her own.
“As a friend, I have so many good memories of times with Tom and Rosemary,” she shared. “Tom could be quite bombastic and unorthodox. He read voraciously and liked to argue over dinner and a bottle of wine about whatever issues were in the news, sometimes deliberately taking a contrary opinion. He could also do a great Elvis rendition of “It’l be a Blue Christmas”, playing his guitar and singing – with hip moves thrown in. We laughed a lot!”
Both Purkey and Draper noted an interesting contrast between Cavanagh’s open minded ways and the fact that one of his personal heroes was Clint Eastwood.
“He cherished some romanticized memories of Pierre Trudeau and John Kennedy and was prepared to forgive them all their sins, but his real hero – or at least one of them – was Clint Eastwood, whose gun-slinging style and categorical “solutions” to problems, although quite contrary to Tom’s gentle nature, appealed to his desire to “fix” what was wrong in the world – now,” Purkey said.
Mary and her husband Robert also highlighted Cavanagh’s work internationally.
“Tom had a kind of wanderlust that led him not to tourist destinations but to places such as Malawi and Ghana and then later to Bolivia, Colombia, Sri Lanka and the Ukraine to do education and social justice work,” Mary said. “Here in Canada, he joined the protests at the Burnt Church First Nation and became interested in the situations at Quebec’s Mohawk reservations at a time when it was not particularly fashionable, at least for College Deans.”
“Tom went to Africa and Eastern Europe to do teaching projects, both with and without Rosemary. He went partly for the adventure but also because he thought he could and did offer something to benefit others’ lives,” Robert added. “Above all, Tom was a kind man. He listened with sympathy to other people even when he didn’t share their viewpoint. He always tried to be, and was, a good person and I and those fortunate enough to have known him miss him greatly.”
Each of those who knew and worked with him closely also strongly underlined Cavanagh’s great pride in his children and devoted love for his wife.
Looking to Cavanagh’s time as a columnist at The Record, former editor Daniel Coulombe described the man as thoughtful, extremely intelligent and respectful of others.
“I liked him very much, there was a fatherly air to him,” Coulombe said. “When he wrote for The Record. There was always much thought given to his subject but at the same time, joy in the process of creating the story.”
The former editor said that Cavanagh always had a way of making him feel at ease.
“My life was made better for knowing him in the few short years I interacted with him,” Coulombe said, adding that his wife used to joke that he was in awe of the columnist. “He could talk about anything and never make you feel like you were not an integral part of the discussion.”