Thomas Laughlin Meek's Obituary
Thomas Laughlin Meek, 78, died August 28, 2025, at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. Born March 5, 1947, in Ames, Iowa, to Homer Virgil and Katherine Leeper Meek, he grew up on the west side of Cincinnati, graduating in 1965 from Wyoming High School. He went on to earn a degree in Physics at Oberlin College, where he met his future wife and life-partner Phyllis Jones in 1972. They forged a strong bond, remaining inseparable for the next 53 years.
Tom worked in a variety of capacities for the Physics Department and Student Support Services at Oberlin College, helping innumerable first-generation and international students overcome barriers to their educational dreams.
From an early age, music was one of his great loves. An accomplished organist, choir director, sensitive accompanist, piano teacher, and all-purpose classical musician for many years, he maintained throughout his life an abiding interest in the intersections of music, mathematics, and art.
As a lifelong courageous advocate for human rights and dignity, he held the integrity of the individual as a value to be cherished and fiercely defended. He was a firm believer in the scientific basis of knowledge, as well as the transcendent power of the arts, particularly music, and nature. Endowed with a generous spirit, his expectations of others never exceeded the high standards he set for himself.
Manifesting an insatiable intellectual curiosity, he read widely and deeply on many topics, ranging from music to philosophy, social and political history, poetry, and nature study. He loved sharing good food, irreverent humor, and nature walks with his wife through his beloved Ohio landscape. A true friend to nature in all its expressions, from the microscopic to the telescopic, he was nowhere more at home than in the marshes of the Killbuck Valley, on the shores of Lake Erie, or in his backyard garden.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by his son, David Meek of Chicago; grandsons, Daniel, Jordan, and Eli Meek; sisters, Deborah (Gary) Eichhorn of Racine, WI, and Rebecca (Bill) Hilbert of Erie, PA; nephew, Stephen Eichhorn, and niece, Megan White, both of Chicago; as well as dear friends, Daniel Kiss of Chicago, and Esmeralda Martinez-Tapia of Oberlin.
We are profoundly grateful for the care provided by Lisa Thrasher's team in the infusion center at the Cleveland Clinic Amherst Family Health Center; by Dr. Aaron Gerds and his team at the Cleveland Clinic main campus; and by the many deeply compassionate and professional caregivers at the Clinic's hospitals in Avon and on the main campus. We cannot thank them enough.
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