Thomas Scott Appleby

Thomas Scott Appleby was born in Spokane, Washington, on August 17, 1959, the youngest of the three children of Mary (Campbell) and Addison Appleby. From an early age he loved the outdoors, sports, and family. His happiest childhood memories were of riding bicycles, playing tennis and ping pong, running long distances, fly fishing in Montana, and visiting his grandparents in Texas and Los Angeles. The Appleby family moved to La Jolla in 1971, where Scott attended Muirlands Junior High and La Jolla High School.

Scott, AKA "Red", was a friend to all and made the most of his high school years. He was president of his La Jolla High senior class, won multiple state and national tennis titles, three CIF championships and set several California state long-distance track records. As a teenager, he spent most of his time playing tennis at the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club with his brother, John, his doubles partner and lifetime friend Jack Kruger, and their Vikings teammates. Early jobs included delivering newspapers in La Jolla Shores and working at the old Burns Drugstore on Girard. Recruited to play tennis at Dartmouth College, he was a member of the Class of 1982 and a brother of Psi Upsilon fraternity.

In 1983, Scott met Susan Falcone of Lake Forest, Illinois, a member of the Wheaton College (MA) Class of 1985. The couple married in La Jolla in 1987 and settled in Palo Alto, where Scott worked as a stockbroker for Dean Witter and Kidder Peabody and where they welcomed their son William.

In 1991, the couple moved south to San Diego, and their son Andrew joined the family in 1994. After several years in La Jolla and Del Mar, in the early 2000s they found their forever home in Rancho Santa Fe, where they built their life for the past 25 years.

In the early 1990s, Scott embarked on a highly successful residential real estate career, honored in recent years with the prestigious McNaught-Davis/Knox Award, which recognized his personal integrity and his salesmanship. Over more than 30 years, he partnered with several members of the Appleby family: his mother, Mary; his sister, Kerry; and most recently his son, Andrew. He proudly hung his real estate license at Willis Allen Real Estate for more than 20 years.

Scott saw every new day as an opportunity to create a world of fun and adventure for his growing family. Summers were spent at Hayden Lake, Idaho, with the Appleby family, where his sons learned to fish and to play golf. At the Rancho Santa Fe Tennis Club he was Men's Club Champion and Board President, and at the RSF Golf Club he enjoyed friendly competition. He continued to play both tennis and golf well into the final months of his life, and he especially treasured the rounds he shared with his father, his sister, his sons, and his wife.

In recent years, Scott and Susan celebrated the marriages of both sons and welcomed five grandchildren into the Appleby family. Living near family, and sharing life with his adult children and grandchildren as well as his parents and siblings, was the joy of Scott's life. He will be remembered for his kindness to others, his witty sense of humor, and for always putting his family first. He was an even-tempered but tenacious competitor, and a logical, quantitative thinker on the tennis court and in business alike.

The entire Appleby family is deeply grateful for the remarkable care Scott received over the past nine years at Scripps Cancer Center and at MD Anderson in Houston. As a patient in a clinical trial there, he beat the odds and overcame his initial diagnosis of anaplastic thyroid cancer; he and Susan made the trip to Houston dozens of times over the course of his illness. It was a stubborn secondary cancer that eventually took his life. Through those nine years he fought hard, with courage and grace. Even on his hardest days, Scott showed kindness and gratitude, considering himself a blessed man. His final days were spent surrounded by family, watching golf, listening to music, and filling out his March Madness bracket, giving Susan a thumbs-up for each team he chose. Scott passed peacefully at home in the early hours of St. Patrick's Day, with his wife and sons at his bedside.

He was preceded in death by his mother, Mary, in 2023. He is survived by his wife, Susan; their sons, Andrew and his wife, AJ, and William and his wife, Megan; his grandsons, Hayden and Brady; his granddaughters, Campbell, Palmer, and Scottie; his father, Addison; his brother, John, and sister-in-law, Sally; and his sister, Kerry, and brother-in-law, John Payne.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that gifts in Scott's memory be directed to MD Anderson Cancer Center (Endocrine Cancer Research) or the Scripps Hospital Foundation (Head & Neck Cancer).

A memorial service for Scott was held on May 9 at The Village Community Presbyterian Church in Rancho Santa Fe, followed by a private celebration, with bagpipes, at the Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club.