Y Tomás
August 20, 2022“Somos Rita y Tomás” was the oft-heard greeting on their telephone answering machine.
Both “Rita y Tomás” were longtime Friends of Freadom®️ – the best of Friends.
Each had served on our Board of Directors, each had shared their time, wisdom, financial resources, and personal presence at our events, most notably at our Inaugural Fundraiser in 2019.
This week we mourn and remember Tomás as we have mourned and remembered Rita on our website and Facebook posts for September 26, 2020.
We will no longer hear the voices on that telephone message – as we will miss the incomparable and inseparable couple who recorded it.
Inseparable in life, “Rita y Tomás” were destined to be inseparable to the end as – due to Rita‘s ashes being timely returned from her body having previously been donated to science – services for her coincided with those for Tomás. A poignant service was held for them together this week on Wednesday, August 17, 2022, at their beautiful parish Church – St. Gertrude in Chicago’s Edgewater community.
Y Tomás
Recognized for his constancy in supporting Rita in her founding and developing the unique, free People’s Music School in Chicago’s Uptown community, Tomás brought additional contributions to the people of Uptown and beyond.
He founded the Spanish Speaking Bookstore to provide religious and sophisticated academic books “for parishes, religious institutions, bookstores, libraries, students, and lay people all over the United States and some Latin American countries.” He was a teacher. He was a social activist, having supported César Chávez’s United Farmworkers Union, and participated in various community organizations, including his parish, and Little Brothers – Friends of the Elderly, among others.
In short, Tomás devoted his life to the service of others – Rita, family, community, and country. The Freadom®️Road Foundation is grateful to have shared in the benefits of that devotion.
