The father of three SAW alumni, Tom Springmann, passed away last May following a brief illness. Tom and his wife, Joyce, were major supporters of the String Academy while their sons Philip, Daniel and John were students. Tom was a pianist who gave untold hours of his time serving as a SAW accompanist over many years. Therefore, we find it fitting to publish a tribute to Tom in this issue of the Quarter Note. We recently asked Joyce for some details about Tom which we could share with all of you. The following is what she submitted: “Tom taught high school Latin and reading for 14 years in the Racine Unified School District. He then joined Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, formerly Aid Association for Lutherans, as a financial associate and worked there for nearly 24 years.
At SAW Tom played for various Saturday group classes. He always enjoyed accompanying the groups and also playing for the individual children when they played solos in group class. Tom also played for solo recitals and accompanied all three of our own sons when they were chosen to perform.
Our family all worked together on the annual Flower Sale. As it became increasingly difficult for us to fit all the flowers for our orders in the car when we picked them up in Milwaukee, we eventually decided to try to sell enough of them to have the flowers delivered to our house in Racine. We asked the boys to compose a letter which we sent to our prospective buyers. Sorting and delivering the orders was time consuming,but fun, and we were always relieved when the flowers and the orders matched!”
We remember with fondness Tom’s dry sense of humor and recall many happy memories from the years he and his family were involved at the String Academy of Wisconsin. Tom definitely left his mark on our program. He will be missed by the SAW community.
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