Thomas Wagner Findley.
March 22, 1921 – November 1, 2018
“Why could we not just paddle off and keep going?”
Tom was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, lived in a cabin near Borup’s Corners for 25 years and spent his last 5 years with his daughter in Berkeley CA. His ashes are being interred in Dyment on September 21.
Tom married Hilda Knier. They raised three children: Rosemary Muller, Rachel Findley, and Thomas Wagner Findley, Jr. with 7 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren. During the war effort to produce synthetic rubber, he found a process to formulate epoxidized oil, or “epoxy” as it is commonly known. Tom’s name is cited in 64 chemical patents. As a Quaker, he served in the Civil Rights Movement, protested against the Vietnam War, and shared concerns for Environmentalism and Earthcare Witness. In 1969, he moved to Friends World College on Long Island where he taught Chemistry and Ecology.
Tom and students built canoes partly of the epoxy resin he had developed. Over the next 12 years, Tom and various companions paddled 10,000 miles of North American waters from New York City and across Canada and Alaska to the Bering Sea. After a scary brush with hypothermia and starvation on the Seward Peninsula, Tom settled down in a small cabin off the grid on a wood lot near Borup’s Corners, where he stayed 25 years until he was 91½. The Findley Family Forest of 160 acres in Ontario is now under the protection of granddaughter Emily Thurston and remains standing and uncut.
Tom took much joy in the simple pleasures of life: homemade bread, something sweet and good to drink, sharing hugs and stories and meditative silence, feeding the birds every morning, and seeing the wild, beautiful creatures he’d meet as he walked or canoed gently through the natural world. His joy gave him the courage to look deeply into the future, and to do as much as he could to make things better—for the people around him and on a global level—even if he alone didn’t have the power to save the world.
Worship Service at Tom’s Cabin on Melgund Road 8, 11 AM, Saturday, Sept. 21.
Burial at Dyment Cemetery, 2 PM, Saturday Sept 21.
Potluck gathering at Community Hall, Dyment 5 PM Saturday Sept 21
