Thomas H. Gaumer

The Gaumer grin. That’s what family, friends, and co-workers remember about Thomas H. Gaumer, 80, who died on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, 2024. He experienced sudden cardiac arrest days earlier.

Tom was born in Columbus, Ohio on December 12, 1943, to F. T. Gaumer and Elizabeth Huffman Gaumer. He grew up in Marysville, Ohio.

He is survived by his wife, Judith Fox Gaumer, daughters Sharon Gaumer Metivier (Michael) and Deb Gaumer, siblings William Gaumer (Jackie), Carol Gaumer Kientz (Tom), and Martha Gaumer Miller (Jim), and grandchildren Emmett Metivier (Elias Decker), Alex Metivier, and Aidan Hurtig. Judy and Tom would have been married 60 years on December 19, 2024.

Tom, an Army Vietnam veteran, would have been smiling to know he made it to one of his favorite holidays, but upset that he missed his free hamburger at Red Robin.

You wouldn’t call him cheap, but he loved a good deal. He would always buy cheap beer and cheap beater cars, naming one old Chevy “Lurch”. He never liked to acknowledge his veteran status until he learned veterans often get discounted food at restaurants. From that day forward, he wore a big “Vietnam Veteran” baseball cap every time he went out to eat.

Burial was private and a memorial will be scheduled early next year at Strongsville United Church of Christ, where he was a member and past member of the Board of Trustees.

Tom was a retired Plain Dealer reporter and editor. He worked there 36 years and earned the praise of nearly every colleague. One friend remembered Tom as a thoughtful, patient and kind editor, one who asked solid questions and had an excellent sense of humor. “I always think of him with a smile on his face” said Judith Haynes, a former Sunday magazine editor.

Conversely, another colleague recalled his panic when he accidentally sent a detailed complaint about Gaumer to Gaumer himself, instead of to a senior editor with similar initials.

He started at the Plain Dealer police beat in 1970 and retired as Computer Assisted Reporting Editor in 2006.

Colleagues and family alike describe Tom as “helpful.”  While working the police beat, he got to know a beat reporter from the competing paper, the Cleveland Press. One night when the Press reporter was too under the weather to write, he wrote the story for her.

Gaumer covered the chaos of the Cleveland school desegregation from 1976 to 1979, traveling to other cities with similar issues. He was named Suburban Editor in September 1988, which put him in charge of all suburban reporting.

In 1990 Gaumer became Business editor and later that year he became Computer Assisted Reporting Editor, bringing The Plain Dealer staff into the computer age, training employees to use laptops and desktop computers. He also trained staff to use sophisticated databases and computer assisted reporting for many stories, which earned statewide and national awards.

Gaumer was truly a family man and loved making kids happy. When his girls were grown and he was retired, Tom volunteered with his grandchildren as an elf on the Polar Express, run by the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad. His love of loud, motion-activated, endlessly singing Christmas decorations was a source of some frustration to his wife and daughters. (His grandchildren, however, were delighted.)

Gaumer got a BS in Journalism in 1965 and graduate degree in Political Science in 1967 at the Ohio State University, where his father was a journalism professor. Some new reporters would tell Tom they had his father, also named Tom, as a professor. As a ROTC member, he was later assigned to Heidelberg, Germany, where as an officer Judy could go with him. “We always hoped the war would be over, but no such luck,” Judy said. He was a Public Information Officer in Vietnam. While in Vietnam he created a magazine and that allowed him trips to Japan for the publication.

After retirement, Tom volunteered as a Docent at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. He won a national award from ProSeniors for his efforts traveling around the state and talking about Medicare fraud. He was a yellow-jacketed Airport Ambassador at Cleveland Hopkins Airport answering visitor questions.

At the end of his life, he experienced mobility problems, but his kindness persisted. Recently when neighborhood kids had a lemonade stand, Tom couldn’t walk to get there. Instead, he hopped on his riding lawn mower and drove it down the street to be their first customer.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be sent to Strongsville United Church of Christ (www.strongsvilleucc.com) or Golden Retrievers in Need (www.grinrescue.org).

Tom is gone, but we’ll never forget that grin.

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