This is the story of Thomas Edward Regan. Sadly, I don’t know much about him, but I’ll share everything I’ve been able to piece together.

We’ll start at the beginning: Thomas Edward Regan was born in New Haven, Connecticut, on June 27, 1946. He was his parents’ only child.

He was born two months and a day after his namesake and grandfather died. Thomas Edward Regan was only 44 and had suffered from tuberculosis for years.

Sadly, the grandson wasn’t destined to live a long life either.

Young Thomas grew up on Ferry Street in New Haven. By the time he was in high school, the family of three had moved to Branford.

Here’s a photo of the Class of 1964 from the ’61 yearbook:

By his sophomore year, Thomas was enrolled in a different high school, one that had a special agriculture-science program.

… because Thomas Edward Regan wanted to be a farmer.

Here he is, a member of the Future Farmers of America, in his sophomore year:

Thomas’s new school was Lyman Hall High School. (Extra points if you recognize that name – and why their yearbook was called the Signer.) He was involved in 4-H, Future Farmers, and won awards for dairy farming.

Here’s his senior picture:

After graduation, Thomas entered the military. The Marines.

He survived 13 months as a member of an attack fighter squadron in Vietnam. Four months later, though, he was in an auto accident at the Cherry Point Marine Station in North Carolina.

Thomas Edward Regan died on New Year’s Day, 1967.

There are no words to express how Thomas’s parents, other family members, and friends must have taken this news.

After studying the above obituary and his death certificate, I’ve come to the sad conclusion that the accident rendered Thomas quadriplegic due to spinal injuries. Two months later, on that New Year’s afternoon, he collapsed face forward onto the ground, and his endotracheal area hemorrhaged.

It makes me sick to write this about my second cousin. But it would be worse not to remember him. And it would be worse to miss this opportunity to dedicate to Thomas this poem Mom wrote:

epilogue

in that place the soldiers wait
remembering snow
and muffins from the oven
corn and nutted ones
and at Christmas, cranberry

when they can wash
they think of blue and yellow rooms
mornings to go with them

the hours stay
they long for summer evenings
girls the glow of honey

sometimes
by the light of dream
they come to caverns
where the last men shine:
their courage stokes the stars

~ joan vayo ~ January 18, 1980

Corporal Regan now rests in the Saint Agnes Cemetery in Branford, Connecticut.

Even though I never got to meet Thomas, learning of his death so many years later brings me great sadness. Just think of how he and Farmer Gary would have got on – talking about moo-cows and sharing silage recipes.

We were glad to read that the FFA club at Lyman Hall High School created the Thomas Regan Award for excellence in dairy cattle judging in 1967.

This evening, Gary and I will toast Corporal Regan with a glass of milk. And a promise to remember.

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“epilogue”  © 1980 Joan Cassidy. All rights reserved.

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