Tommy James Lee's Obituary
Tommy James Lee was born April 1,1947, in the small, lumber-rich town of McCall Creek, Mississippi. His parents were Rev. William Lee Jr, and Myrtis Emell Kelly. Also present to greet him were his two elder sisters, Betty Jean and Katie. A younger sister, Madie, a.k.a., Shirley would soon follow. Tom claimed it never bothered him being outnumbered by his female siblings. His fondest memories centered more around family fun and boyhood adventures that took him roving between two large family farms owned by his industrious grandparents on both sides. “I never felt poor a day of my life, and if I ever got hungry, all I had to do was go outside and pick fruit from the trees,” he would proudly boast. A positive person most of his life,Tom viewed his family moves from McCall Creek, to Denver, to Detroit, as fun-time-travel adventures, even though his hardworking parents were actually actively searching for good paying jobs and better educational opportunities for their four children.Tom’s high-school ambassadorship to Denmark at fifteen, and his three-year army stint in France and Germany during the Vietnam War also served to whet his appetite for future travel adventures that led him to visit over a dozen different countries, touching every continent except Antarctica. A great lover of sports and very athletic, Tom was often seen hanging out in his Detroit, west-side-neighborhood shooting hoops with his best friend and first cousin Frankie. In mid-life he became a highly competitive tennis player winning several local awards.He also had other interests and talents that included playing the clarinet in the band at Western High School or strumming the guitar during choir practice at Hopewell Baptist church. As a member of the Junior Chamber of Jaycees in Hayward, he became deeply involved in community service, and later he served at the Mount Eden Homeowners Association as president for two years. Tom was always academically successful, and remained on the honor rolls. Voted “boy most likely to succeed” in high school, he graduated magna cum laude. Upon graduation with distinction from Wayne State University, with a major in psychology and a minor in German, he was inducted into the highly esteemed chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. He later earned his masters degree in finance at Saint Mary’s College of California in Moraga, California, and during the next decades of his life, racked up many notable accomplishments as a professional senior, human resource manager. On a beautiful spring day in 1969, while teaching a Sunday school class of young children at his father’s church,Tom ran into Sandra Parks, an old schoolmate who was there visiting with a friend.They had known each other since elementary school but had never dated. This time, however, there was a special spark between the two; and shortly after a whirlwind courtship he proposed. On November 22, 1969, five days before thanksgiving, the two were united in holy matrimony. It was a happy union that would produce three beautiful daughters, Tamica, Ayana, and Halima. Shortly after moving to California in the winter of 1972, Tom and Sandra joined Allen Temple Baptist Church under the pastorship of James Alfred Smith, Sr. This is where they would both serve as junior ushers for a season and also as consecutive presidents of the junior usher board. During the latter years of his life,Tom became an “unofficial” member of the Allen Temple Women’s Missionary Society, simply by being a very involved and supportive attendee with his wife, Sandra. Today, Tom is preceded in death by his parents and elder sister, Katie Jasper. He leaves to mourn him his wife, Sandra; his daughters, Tamica, Ayana, and Halima; his sons-in-law, Adrian, Jamar, and Paul; his grandchildren, Anaya, Caleb, Noah, and Asher; sisters Betty, and Shirley; brothers-in-law, Charlie Moore and Hollis Parks; half-brother, Nolan Lee; sisters-in-law, Freda Parks and Lois Lee; and a host of cousins, nephews, nieces, and lifelong friends.
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