Remembering the Victims Thomas E. Spencer

Spencer | Jackson | Lyons | McGuirk | Brotherton | Lucey

LINDA BOCK
Telegram & Gazette Staff
Republished with permission

Fire Lt. Thomas E. “Tommy” Spencer never was one to shy away from anything in life, his wife recalls.

“Most of all, he was a good person,” Kathy Spencer said. “He would never hesitate to stop to help.”

That unyielding willingness to assist others, she said, was readily apparent in the tragedy Friday night at the Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse Co. building.

“That is just what happened,” she said, her voice growing noticeably louder and more intense.

Mrs. Spencer said her husband did everything in life with dedication and spirit, and was a loving husband and devoted father of their children Patrick, 16; Casey, 15; and Daniel, 13.

Lt. Spencer, 42, assigned to Ladder Company 2, was a member of one of the teams of firefighters sent into the warehouse to search for two other firefighters who had radioed for help.

Mrs. Spencer said she and her children were doing as well as possible under the circumstances.

“Like myself, they have not absorbed it,” Mrs. Spencer said of her three children.

She described her family as incredibly close and very religious.

Mrs. Spencer is a eucharistic minister at St. Charles Borromeo Church on June Street, where her husband was active on the Revised Christian Initiation of Adults team.

The Rev. Henry G. Bowen, pastor at the church, recalled that the Spencers moved into that Worcester neighborhood about 10 years ago. They quickly became beloved members of the church family, he said.

“How else can I describe them but as truly beautiful people?” the priest said. Lt. Spencer, he added, was “certainly a wonderful father. ... I know his children will treasure him forever.

“This is an obvious tragedy, and when all the excitement dies, it will be very hard for them. ... We will always be here for all of them,” Rev. Bowen said.

Many of Lt. Spencer's fellow firefighters, including his brother Michael, who also is a Worcester firefighter, said that they will remember him foremost as “Kathy's husband,” but also as a man who truly loved firefighting, his friends, neighbors, enjoying good times, the Boston Red Sox and tailgate parties at College of the Holy Cross football games.

“Tommy had a nice personality,” Lt. David B. Ford said of the 22-year veteran of the Worcester Fire Department. “He and his wife ... were always the most upbeat people you'd know.

“The two of them were always smiling, always laughing together,” Lt. Ford continued. “He was a true family man. All of them always did things together as a family.

“Oh, and he was big into baseball,” Lt. Ford added with a laugh.

He said that Lt. Spencer loved to travel. He was a fellow always “on the move,” his friend recalled, noting that Lt. and Mrs. Spencer recently traveled to Arizona and had visited England.

“The sad thing is he had just bought a boat to go fishing with his father,” he said.

Lt. Ford was emotional as he talked about his friend's many years as a firefighter. He said Lt. Spencer was promoted to lieutenant four or five years ago, and that Mrs. Spencer's father is a retired firefighter.

Firefighter Michael Spencer and Firefighter Kenneth A. Godbout arrived at the burning warehouse together at about 8:15 Friday night, both having been called into work on their day off.

“There's really no words that can say enough about Tommy,” Firefighter Godbout said. “There is no precedent for this situation in any of our lives. Our hearts are breaking for these guys.”

Firefighter Godbout said Lt. Spencer and the other firefighters killed in the blaze were heroes who died trying to save others.

The six, he said, were all men who were “willing to do anything for you.”