Thomas A. Crawford, Jr.

Thomas  A. Crawford, Jr. died on November 28, 2021, at Sprenger Health Care in Port Royal, South Carolina. He was born in Whitinsville, MA. on November 17, 1932. He was the son of Thomas A. Crawford, Sr. and Gertrude (Mantell) of Whitinsville, MA.

He was predeceased by his first wife, Maria Hofauer of Wilbraham, MA; his second wife Phyllis Pitzer of Hilton Head, S.C.; his son Thomas A. Crawford, of Wilbraham; a brother Robert J. Crawford, formerly of Groton, CT (& Whitinsville). He is survived by his daughter Rebecca Dorsey and her husband James and a grandson Jamie Dorsey, all of Wilbraham, MA.  A younger brother, John H. Crawford and his wife Paula are from Whitinsville, MA. along with several nieces.

Tom was raised in the Whitinsville section of Northbridge. He began his news career with the Worcester (Mass.) Telegram after graduation from Westminster College in New Wilmington, PA. He also completed the 48 – week course in Ukrainian at the Army Language Institute in Monterey, CA. and served with the Counterintelligence Corps in Germany. He separated from the Army service there and studied history and Slavic languages at the University of Munich.

He joined United Press International in December of 1960 and served with the news agency in Springfield, MA., Boston, London, England and as bureau manager of the Belgrade office in the former Yugoslavia.

His UPI gig took him to the London and Belgrade bureaus of the news agency. In reflection on his time in London. He returned from Europe and settled with his family in Springfield, where he served as copy editor, wire editor and news editor at “The Morning Union” and “Springfield Sunday Republican.”

He returned to the Balkans in 1989 to observe the 600th anniversary observances of the Battle of Kosovo which eventually escalated into the most recent Balkan War. He retired in 1996 and moved permanently to Hilton Head, S.C. in 2007. There he served as moderator of the Island Writer's Network, which facilitated his publication of three works, “Foibles”, a collection of humorous self-depreciating vignettes, “Goli Otok” (Naked Island) a Balkans novel and “Resurrections of an Obituary Writer.”

A Graveside Service will be held on Thursday, December 9, 2021 at 11:00 AM in Pine Grove Cemetery, Linwood Ave, Whitinsville. 

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