Springfield, MA – Tom Lewis once spent two nights sleeping in a converted camel stable outside the Cairo airport. It wasn’t a punishment-his young daughter’s vaccination card was two days short of the required waiting period. The health inspector, a doctor, explained that detention was the least complicated option. So, Tom ordered cold beer delivered by truck from the airport restaurant, watched television with English subtitles, and swapped stories with other stranded travelers, including dissidents who were being deported. By the time the doctor finally stamped their papers, he was giving Tom’s family a personal tour of Cairo on the way to their hotel. Tom never dwelled on the camel stable-or even the bribe he’d unsuccessfully tried to offer. He remembered the doctor’s kindness instead. It became one of the stories he loved to tell. That was Tom: unhurried by disruption, endlessly curious about people, and convinced that the best part of any trip was whatever happened after the plans fell apart.
He was born on July 30, 1931, in Jersey City, New Jersey, to Stephen and Dorothy (Phillips) Lewis, and grew up to graduate from Classical High School in Springfield, Massachusetts. He studied hotel administration at Cornell, earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts, and would later add an MBA from Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines.
On September 5, 1953, he married Elizabeth Jane “Bette” Munson, beginning a partnership that would span more than fifty years and several continents. Their first stops were Fort Knox, where Tom served in the U.S. Army, and Los Angeles, where he taught at Mark Twain Middle School in Venice, worked at Sears in Santa Monica, and took evening classes at UCLA while they welcomed their first daughter, Stephanie.
In 1958, the family traveled to Manila to explore the possibility of building a life overseas. Tom’s father, Stephen, was already leading Exquisite Form, a textile manufacturing company that would grow to employ more than 2,300 workers producing undergarments for export to the United States. Within two years, the move became permanent, and Tom joined the company as general manager and executive vice president under his father. It was the start of a career that never stayed in one place for long. Estoril, Portugal, in 1971, managing a plant outside Lisbon. Miami the following year, selling real estate and cattle to investors. Mexico City by 1976, as director of marketing for Exquisite Form. Manila again in 1981, for four more years. But Tom remembered the places because of the people. There was Serafin, the devoted house manager in Portugal who watched over the family as if it were his own. A stranger at a Manila dice table who helped him win enough money to pay a hospital bill. Waiters, doctors, taxi drivers, and seatmates who became, however briefly, friends.
By 1985, Tom and Bette had settled for good in Greenfield, Massachusetts, on Mohawk Trail. He tried retail first-a discount kitchen shop called Necessary Extras-before landing at Greenfield Community College’s professional development office, where he spent nearly two decades building adult education programs before retiring in 2000. He continued teaching business classes there until about a year after Bette’s death in 2005. Retirement, predictably, only gave him more time to do what he loved. He mentored small business owners through SCORE. He showed up for the Greenfield Kiwanis Club and Rotary Club, helping support Energy Park, school reading programs, bike helmet giveaways, and countless other community efforts. And he kept traveling-to see family scattered across the globe, to discover someplace new-always convinced that the people he met along the way were more interesting than wherever he was headed. He wrote it all down. Notebooks filled with the small, telling details-a waiter’s kindness, a grandchild’s antics, an airport misadventure-later became the essays he left behind, a record less of where he’d been than of who he’d met there.
To friends and family, Tom was Greenfield’s unofficial mayor. Whether at the grocery store, a community event, or simply walking down the street, he seemed to know everyone-or quickly did. He had an easy laugh, an infectious smile, and a gift for a story that grew a little more colorful with each telling. He never met a stranger who couldn’t become a friend. But nothing came before family. He was the first call when life got complicated for his children, and he had a way of listening without judgment until the path forward seemed a little clearer. Every visit to see a child, grandchild, or great-grandchild was reason enough to pack another suitcase. No matter how far he traveled, family was always home.
Tom was predeceased by his wife of over fifty years, Elizabeth (Munson) Lewis; his daughter, Stephanie Lewis DeAyala, who passed away on April 6, 2026; and his sisters, Joan Dolden and Linda Watson.
He leaves his four devoted children: Thomasine Lewis Tilden and her husband, Peter, of Pacific Palisades, California; Greggory Lewis and his wife, Kathryn, of Wilbraham; Jeffrey Lewis and his wife, Kim, of Querétaro, Mexico; and Mitchell Lewis and his wife, Johanna, of Munich, Germany. He is also survived by his son-in-law, Ralph DeAyala, of Milford, Nebraska; and his nine treasured grandchildren: Brendan Lewis and his wife, Lauren; Meaghan Wong and her husband, Andrew; Robert Tilden; Shannon Lewis and her husband, Nikki; Isabel DeAyala Olson and her husband, Alec; Briana Lewis; Aidan Lewis; Constantin Lewis; and Nathaniel Lewis. He was also the proud great-grandfather of four: Ralph, Elizabeth, Molly, and Marian, who were the delight of his later years.
Family and friends are invited to gather Tuesday, July 28, 2026, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon at the Byron Keenan Funeral Home & Cremation Tribute Center, 1858 Allen Street, Springfield, Massachusetts, with a service to follow at noon. Burial will be private the next day at Calvary Cemetery in Greenfield. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to Reeds Landing at Loomis Communities, Springfield, Massachusetts.
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