Thomas Michael Stewart, a former reporter and government spokesman, passed away Dec. 11, 2020 in Sulphur Springs, Texas, where he had made his home since his retirement 24 years ago. He was 87.
A memorial service will be held in the spring to allow his many out-of-state family and friends to attend.
Tom began his reporting career in 1956 as a Hartford Courant “obit man.” After two years of writing up the details of people’s lives, he joined the New Haven, Conn. bureau of the Associated Press. His principal beat for the AP was the Connecticut Legislature. When the AP closed its New Haven bureau in the mid-1960s, Tom transferred to its Washington D.C. bureau. He covered the Treasury Department as well as major events in the city, such as the riots following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.
Tom changed jobs once again in 1969 when he joined the British wire service Reuters. For the next 10 years, he had two beats: the United States Department of Justice and the United States Supreme Court. He covered the Justice Department throughout the Watergate scandal, and as the dean of the pressroom, he was the leadoff questioner at the press conference after the Saturday Night Massacre.
At the end of the 1970s, Tom switched sides. He became a spokesman for one of the very government departments he had covered – the Department of Justice. He finished his career in the 1990s at the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Born in Chicago Jan. 28, 1933, he later moved with his family to Lakewood, Ohio before graduating from high school in Kansas City, Mo.
He received a journalism degree from the University of Kansas, where he became a lifelong Jayhawk basketball fan. He graduated in 1954 and immediately married fellow KU graduate Anne Hyde. Almost immediately after that, he was drafted into the United States Army.
Tom’s first wife Anne passed away in 1991. In 1996, he married Carolyn Frailey Keys in Sulphur Springs, Texas and immediately immersed himself in the Northeast Texas community, becoming a master gardener and an avid supporter of the Sulphur Springs Symphony League and the Meal-A-Day program, as well as serving as past president and board member of the Elberta Lake Club.
He is survived by his wife, Carolyn; his three daughters from his first marriage: Elizabeth Jane Stewart (Joseph Pignatello) of Hamden, Conn.; Alice Freeman Stewart (Kevin Swanson) of Thetford Center, Vt.; and Kathleen Anne Stewart (Barry Wood) of Centreville, Va.; and two grandchildren: Clare Swanson and Connor Pignatello. He is also survived by his stepdaughter Betsy Levenson (Kenny) of Houston, Texas; his stepson Scott Keys (Amy) of Sulphur Springs; six step-grandchildren: Kelly Keys, Blake Irving, Grant Levenson, Katie Levenson, Bailee Keys, and Hunter Coleman; and one great-grandson, Trenton Irving. Other survivors include his brother, Robert Bruce Stewart of Cincinnati, Ohio; and numerous nieces and nephews.
The family wishes to thank all of the nurses and therapists who helped Tom during the last few months of his life. Donations may be made to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club or the Sulphur Springs Symphony League.
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