Tom was born in Cottonwood, Arizona, on July 20, 1947, to Daniel Sheridan Bird and Elsie Joan Mayer Bird. He grew up farming in Pea Green Corner, a tiny community on a mesa in southwest Colorado. Tom graduated with a BA in history from the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he met his wife, Karen, in 1967. They married on June 4th, 1969, and celebrated 50 years together this year. They started a family with a daughter, Kate and then son Morgan in Boulder, before moving to San Francisco and then Palo Alto, where Tom completed a Ph.D. in education at Stanford University in 1989. The family settled in East Lansing, Michigan, where Tom was a professor of teacher education at Michigan State University until his retirement in 2011.
Tom was a lifelong educator, passionate about his life’s work of teaching others to be teachers. He put on his Stanford robes and enthusiastically attended MSU graduation every May and December to show his support. His family is comforted during this difficult time knowing that his legacy will live on in generations of educators who passed through his classrooms and those whom they go on to teach.
Tom was also a lifelong student, a voracious reader, and a lover of history. He interspersed his rapid consumption of Patrick O’Brien novels with a thorough study of each day’s news, which seemed never to discourage him, because he believed so strongly that, despite setbacks, the world is steadily becoming a better place. A week before he passed he said he wasn’t ready to be done yet because he needed to know what would happen next in the news: ”it’s just so damned interesting!”
Tom liked to say that he loved watching other people work, but he was himself an incredibly hard worker with accomplishments including tearing out a kitchen back to the studs and designing and rebuilding by hand. After moving a garden shed across the yard single-handedly using only a few two-by-fours and a couple of rakes, he shared a few photos on Facebook with a quote from Archimedes: “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I can move the earth.” That project was Tom in a nutshell.
Most of all, Tom loved going on adventures with his partner of 50 years, Karen. With their folding bikes in the back of the car, Beethoven in the CD player, and full mugs of coffee, they traveled across the country together, visiting family and friends and exploring locks and canals, museums, historic sites, and coffee shops.
Tom was preceded in death by his father Dan, his mother Joan, his brother Gary, and his sister Diane. He is survived by his wife Karen, daughter Kate (Jeff Parsons), son Morgan (Leah Falon), and sister Penny (Ed Pierce). A memorial service will be planned for next spring. In lieu of flowers, Tom would have appreciated donations in his name to the MSU College of Education Scholarship Fund or to the Democratic party. He’s counting on all of us to continue working to make the world a better place.
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