Thomas Herbert McCracken

Thomas McCracken, trusting in Christ his LORD, died suddenly on Thursday 30 July 2026 at the home of his daughter in Wooster, Ohio of an apparent heart attack. He was 91. Tom was born Tuesday 23 July 1935, to Herbert Harrison “Mickey” and Mary Helen (Sidener) McCracken, in Clinton, Indiana. His parents were in the produce business, with fruit markets in west central Indiana and east central Illinois. The family moved a lot throughout this region during his childhood. Despite being around fruit and vegetables from an early age (or perhaps because of it), Tom failed to develop a fondness for “greenery”; especially disliked were peas, beets, broccoli and, without a doubt, asparagus.He met the girl he wound up marrying, Jean Elizabeth Ewart, in the youth group of the First Presbyterian Church in Kankakee, Illinois. Tom regularly walked

Jean home from high school, where her grandmother, Anna Wonderlic, reeled him in with home-made pastries; he raved about her cream puffs and ladyfingers for the better part of a century. He graduated from Kankakee High School in 1952. Tom attended Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, graduating from there in

1956. While at Millikin, he was part of a group of student pastors who filled pulpits in rural, central Illinois, Presbyterian and Methodist churches.Tom and Jean were married by their dear friend Roy Wallace Trueblood on Thursday 4 October 1956, in the Mechanicsburg, Illinois Methodist Church. On the day of their wedding, Roy forgot the key to the church, and had to climb through a window to let them in. It wasn’t long before the kids started

showing up: Daniel in 1957, Rebecca in 1958, Stephen in 1959, Elizabeth in 1967, and finally in 1968, Esther, the only one who was not a surprise.Befriended and mentored by Church of God (Anderson) leaders, including Antonio “Tony” Romano and pastor Eva Garrett, Tom (and Jean) took a stand with the Church of God. Tom went on to pastor Church of God congregations in Hoopeston, Illinois (1957-1960), and Terre Haute, Indiana (1960-1963). While a seminarian at the Anderson College (now University) School of

Theology, he pastored the Christian Congregation Church, located a couple of miles east of Alexandria, Indiana (1963-1967). Tom graduated from seminary in 1967, and later that summer, the family relocated to an island in the southern Caribbean, Trinidad.

Tom and Jean served as Church of God missionaries (1967-1974)

throughout the southern Caribbean (Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Saint Vincent, Barbados, Guyana). In 1974, Tom and Jean (and their 3 youngest children) moved to Brasil, continuing their service as Church of God missionaries.In Brasil, they lived and worked in many parts of the country (Campinas, São Paulo, Curitiba, Natal, Belém, Santarém, Itaituba). In the southern Caribbean, and in Brasil, they were blessed and privileged to work in-team with gifted and

dedicated national church leaders and missionaries from abroad, starting new congregations, raising new church buildings and restoring old ones, training pastors and lay leaders, and discipling believers younger in the faith. Finally, in 2018, because Tom had become infected with the dengue virus and was suffering from associated acute pancreatitis, they were forced to return to the

US from Brasil for the last time.Tom was preceded in death by his wife Jean Elizabeth McCracken (2021),his young daughter Rebecca Lenor McCracken (1960), and his son Stephen Dale McCracken (2026). He is survived by his sisters Mary Lou Winters of Sandford, Indiana, and Judith Ann Lowry of Terre Haute, Indiana; his son Daniel Vernon McCracken and his spouse Tamara Charest of Bremen, Georgia; his daughter Elizabeth Lucile McCracken-Harness and her spouse (Harold) David Harness of Cheverly, Maryland; his daughter Esther Elaine Hawkins and her spouse Paul David Hawkins of Wooster, Ohio; his son Stephen’s spouse María

Milagros Vásquez Aguilar of Tucker, Georgia; grandsons Benjamin, Seth, Samuel, Jonathan, James, Alexander, Ian, and André Tomás; granddaughter (Katherine)Grace; great grandsons Conner and Kaleb, great granddaughters Jordan and Hanna, great-great grandsons Wesley and Riley; great-great granddaughter Amelia; and many, many dear friends.Following a graveside memorial service at 10 am ET on Saturday 8 August 2026, burial will be at Roselawn Cemetery, 7500 N Clinton Street, Terre Haute, Indiana. An online memorial service in English and portuguȇs will be held at a

future date. Arrangements are being handled by Smith-Varns Funeral Home in Sugarcreek, Ohio. The family requests that those wishing to send cards can send them to The McCracken Family, c/o Smith-Varns Funeral Home, 115 Andreas Drive, Sugarcreek, Ohio 44681. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to continuing his (and their) work in Brasil: checks should be made out to “Church

of God Ministries”, with “Latin America Missions-Brazil 42.30994” written on the memo line, and sent to Church of God Ministries, PO Box 46018. Tom and Jean loved God, His Church and all its people, their family, and their neighbor. They could claim the apostle Paul’s words as their own, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the LORD, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day – and not only to me, but also to all who

have longed for His appearing.” (2 Timothy 4:7-8; NIV)