June 04, 1928 – November 22, 2018
at the age of 90 years

Open House, Saturday, April 6, 2019, 2:00 p.m., Fischer’s Funeral Services, Salmon Arm

Tom was born on June 4th, 1928 in Port Alberni, BC. Tom was the oldest of several siblings. Marion was born in 1929, Ted was born in 1930, Rosalie was born in 1931, Connie 1932, Everett 1933 and Sylvia 1939.
Life for the Easton family was hard with seven children, food was sometimes scarce which led Tom to begin working in logging at age 14. When his mother moved to Vancouver, Tom lived on his own in a little cabin on Vancouver Island. At some point, Tom settled in Vancouver and took up work as a lumber delivery driver and hog fuel delivery driver.
Around 1953, when Tom was 25 years old, he met and fell in love with Marg Hartwick. From that marriage, 3 children were born. Darlene was first born in 1954, Gary was born in 1956 and Denise was born in 1960. Tom was a busy father at the time and was working as a driver for Snowboy Company. Sadly in 1963 Tom and Marg divorced.
Following the divorce, Tom went on to work various construction jobs and highlights included getting to work on the Revelstoke, High Arrows and Mika dam projects being constructed in south eastern BC. An accomplishment during this time was when Tome purchased his own gravel truck and D8 Cat.
These projects allowed Tom a place to live and work until he met his future wife, a skinny nurse named Marie Statham in 1972. Tom was introduced to his wife by his sister Rosalie and in 1974 Tom and Marie were married. She brought her son Kevin into the marriage and Tom remembers sharing many birthday cakes with Kevin as Tom and Kevin’s birthdays were only one day apart. Tom, Marie and Kevin moved to Fernie, BC in 1976 where Tom started his career as a coal miner and began working at Keiser mine. He was able to operate the world’s largest haul truck which at the time was a Terex 350. Tom’s next job was BC Coal and then he finished his career in the coal industry at the West Star mine in 1991 when the company declared bankruptcy.
In 1980, while Tom and Marie were enjoying their recreation time, they bought their first motor home which became part of a series of motor homes. In 1982, they purchased their first motor boat and were able to learn how to ski and boogie board. In 1991 upon Tom’s retirement, they decided to move to a half-acre lot near Enderby, BC where Tom and Marie took up gardening. Tom decided to build large gardens for the two but Marie was stuck doing all the weeding, picking, canning and freezing. Tom and Marie’s gardens also included, fruit and nut trees as well as flower beds. On top of all the gardening, the two were still able to enjoy their time on the boat and had many happy hours on Okanagan and Kalamalka Lakes.
Sadly, as Tom aged his health started to deteriorate and the garden beds became smaller, luckily the smaller garden bed allowed Tom the time to rekindle his relationship with his half-brother and half-sister. In 2016 the decision was made that they had to move into Salmon Arm. Sadly, Tom realized his new home wouldn’t offer the room required to store all his stuff and he knew he had to downsize and part with almost all his tools. In 2017, Tom and Marie made the move from Enderby into Salmon Arm.
Tom’s health continued to decline after moving and he suffered from multiple falls as well as nose bleeds. On November 22, 2018, Tom passed away peacefully at the age of 90.

God Saw You
God saw you getting tired,
When a cure was not to be.
So he wrapped his arms around you,
And whispered, “Come with me”.
You didn’t deserve what you went through,
So he gave you rest.
God’s garden must be beautiful,
He only takes the best.
And when I saw you sleeping,
So peaceful and free of pain
I could not wish you back
To suffer that again.