Thomas Joseph Maitre of San Leandro, loving husband and father and proud Air Force veteran, died June 16 at St. Rose Hospital in Hayward. He was 88.

Thomas was born Feb. 17, 1933, in Chicago, to Albert and Lillian Page. His mother died shortly after Thomas was born, and he was raised by his grandparents in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, where his grandparents ran a bar and managed a small apartment building.

Even as young as 6, Thomas was a hard worker. He would cut limes in the mornings to stock the bar, then go to the movies with the money he earned. He also had a newspaper route and used his earnings to help make ends meet for the family.

He graduated from Sacred Heart High School in San Francisco in 1950, and later enlismted in the Air Force. He was stationed at Chaumont-Semoutiers Air Base in Chaumont, France, where he worked as a radio operator. He was extremely proud of his military service and told great stories about all the friends he made, the beer gardens he visited, and the beautiful women he fell in love with—many of them at beer gardens.

After his military service, Thomas returned to San Francisco and worked at Southern Pacific railroad, retiring after 40 years with the company. In his youth, he also taught acting and was a model in San Francisco.

Thomas and his first wife, Sharon, lived in San Jose for many years, where Thomas was an active member of the Saint Francis Cabrini parish. He served as a lectern at the 9:30 a.m. Sunday mass for nearly a decade, rarely missing a Mass. He also directed several fundraising plays at the parish, enlisting priests and parishioners as the leading men and women. One showing of Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Indians” went memorably off the rails when the cast filled the prop decanters with real booze and several players consequently forgot their lines.

Sharon died of complications from lung cancer in 1991. Later that year, Thomas returned to Southern Pacific to attend a retirement party when, by chance, he bumped into an old girlfriend, Geraldine Sumner, in a stairwell. They married in 1993 and spent many happy years at the Mission Bay Mobile Home Community in San Leandro, in between frequent visits to Las Vegas. Geraldine died in 2020, and Thomas relocated to Pacifica Senior Living in San Leandro.

Thomas was active until his death, playing bridge every Monday until the pandemic ended all activities, and doing the crossword puzzles in the daily newspapers each day. He was extremely grateful to the many doctors who kept him in good health over the years, including Dr. Susan Eile of San Leandro and Dr. Michael Nickas of Castro Valley.

He is survived by his son and son-in-law, Jacques Francis Maitre and Johnathon Atwood of Bloomfield, NJ; daughter Michelle Noel Maitre of Concord; half-sister Roberta Hembree and half-brother Ernie Page, both of Indiana; and numerous nieces and a nephew. 

He will be buried with military honors on June 28 at Sacramento Valley National Cemetery in Dixon. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in his name to your local community theater or to the Wounded Warrior Project.