Tributes

Robert T. “Thom” Frost, 84, died peacefully on Sunday at Bryn Mawr Hospital after a brief illness. He and his wife, Carol Reisinger Frost, had celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in June 2008. Born in Towson, Md., he was son of the late Kathleen and E. Murray Frost. Thom spent 3 years in WWII as a radio operator in the Merchant Marines, where he was known as “Sparks.” After the war, he courted Carol in his war-surplus-aluminum canoe. After putting himself through Johns Hopkins University where he earned a PhD, he began his career as a nuclear physicist for General Electric at the company’s KAPL division in Schenectady, N.Y., where he worked until 1961. Then he moved his family, which by then included five children, to Berwyn, Pa. where he worked at GE’s Missile & Space Division in King of Prussia until his retirement in 1986. He and Carol then lived in Accomac, Va., until moving to Narberth, Pa in 2006. His Accomac home was near Cedar Island, an uninhabited barrier island around which he’d had some of his best canoeing and camping adventures with his wife and children in the 1960s. In 1978 his adventures began to include helping son Tom Jr. float tons of lumber to Cedar Island to rickshaw a mile up the beach and build a cottage. Thom was an all weather skier, an Extra Class ham radio operator and an irrepressible scholar. While living in Virginia he founded a science and philosophy seminar with Father Daniel Kelly that continues today. His many papers include a unique theory of electricity. He and Carol enjoyed extensive travel over the years, Italy being a favorite destination. At the time of his death he was planning a trip to Egypt with Tom Jr., having studied it extensively since his adventures there in his “Sparks” days. He had also been a member of the Explorers Club. The 1945 canoe, which he paddled as recently as 2008 with Tom Jr., still graces the back yard at the Frost Farm near Lenoxville, Pa. Thom bought the farm in 1967, as a place for the family to stay while skiing, maintaining it with pride together with his family for the rest of his life. As recently as his 80th birthday Thom was lifting fifty-pound hay bales, and he shoveled coal for the farm’s furnace during his final visit in January. He was preceded in death by a brother, Mike, and by a sister, Sally. Surviving are wife Carol, of Narberth and Lenoxville; son Tom Jr., of Lenoxville; and four daughters, Kathleen Springsteed, of Glendale Calif., Susan Todhunter, of Pittsburgh; Christine Red, of Narberth; Amy Frost Baumgarten, of Arlington, Va.; and seven grandchildren, Hans, Erika, Ian, Audrey, Emily, Jackson and Sarah. A memorial service will be held on Friday Feb. 13 at 10 am at St. Margaret’s Church in Narberth, Pa., with burial at Arlington National Cemetery. Memorial donations in lieu of flowers may be made to Christian Foundation for Children and Aging.

Tributes

Robert Thompson Frost

September 14, 1924 - February 8, 2009