In Memoriam: Thomas Nishan Toumajan (1938-2014)

Thomas Nishan Toumajan (1938-201Thomas Nishan Toumajan was born at Harvard University Hospital in Cambridge, Mass., on Sept. 26, 1938. He was the oldest of three sons of Armenian immigrants, Nishan Thomas Toumajan and Louise Adjemian Toumajan. He graduated from the highly regarded New Lincoln High School in New York City. Tom, or Tommy, as he was popularly called, pursued an education in broadcasting at Emerson College in Boston, graduating as the Outstanding Broadcaster of his 1960 graduating class. He returned to New York to work at WOR Radio and at the New York Herald Tribune. Tommy landed a marketing and public relations job with Jack Wodell Associates, a position which took him from New York to Los Angeles, where he encountered famous writers and actors, and finally to San Francisco, where he would eventually depart from the entertainment world and assume a less “taxing” position as a taxi driver. It was in the City by the Bay that he shared a home for decades with JoAnn Green and brought up a son, Jerry Green. After JoAnn’s premature passing, Tommy moved to Central Florida to live with his younger brother Bartev. He worked there as a courtesy driver for Jack Yeoman’s Ford dealership. After Bartev’s untimely death, Tommy joined his youngest brother Dickran and sister-in-law Anahit in Detroit, where he lived the last three years of his life before his passing on Oct. 21, 2014, only seven weeks after being diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. His remains have been transferred to San Francisco, a city he loved with a passion, as well as to Eugene, Ore., where his son resides.