Granby man a survivor; COVID-19 too much

Persevered through polio, rickets, cancer and plenty of personal tragedy

Thomas Scanlon survived polio and rickets, the Great Depression, the death of his parents, a difficult stint in foster care and the Korean War, all before age 25. He later endured the deaths of two of his own children, prostate cancer and repeated bouts of pneumonia.

In the end, however, COVID-19 was more than he could handle.

Scanlon died Dec. 12, as family members stood in the cold and rain outside Jerome Home in New Britain, playing his favorite songs through a crack in his window. He was 89.

“After all he endured and overcame, he lived very much in the moment,” his daughter, Kathy Rawden, said Monday. “He was quite the survivor.”

Scanlon lived a tough but full life, packed with trauma but also love and purpose. He spent 53 years with his wife, Sue, until her death in 2018, raising children together in Granby, and worked decades at CIGNA. A manof deep faith, he served as a deacon for several local parishes, officiating weddings, baptisms, funerals and more, and volunteering extensively.

Scanlon’s children remember him as kind and spirited, fond of goofy pranks and cheesy jokes. Rawden described one time he pranked a neighbor by telling her he’d seen a bear in a tree. The neighbor came running with a camera, nervous but excited, only to find a stuffed animal on a branch.

Then there were the jokes, cute and delightfully corny. Just about everyone who met Scanlon eventually heard his favorite:

“Howdo you make holy water?”