Thomas Miller Willoughby

Please click here to view Live Stream

Thomas Miller Willoughby, 85 years old of College Park, Maryland, passed away on March 13, 2021.

Thomas was born in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, on May 1, 1935. At seven years old, he helped move his family out of the country and up to the Nation's Capital, where he would live with them in various neighborhoods of Washington, DC, for the better part of the next decade.

Tom was always a self-starter with an inquisitive mind, even from a younger age. He attended and graduated from Stuart Jr. High and Eastern High School in northeast DC. He was the captain of the Debate Team and the WMUC Program Director as well as Station Manager during his time at the University of Maryland in College Park. He enlisted in the Marine Reserves then went onto Officer Candidate School in the U.S. Army rising to the rank of First Lieutenant at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina where he met and married Irene Jerry Willoughby, a First Lieutenant Registered Nurse in the U.S Army Nurse Corps in 1962. While in South Carolina, they gave birth to their daughter, Shellie Rae, a year later.

When they moved back to the MD/DC area, Tom had many sales jobs including selling advertising for the Yellow Pages. Together Tom and Jerry established and directed the All Day Child Care Center, a nursery school for infants through preschool age with a Before and After School Program for school age children which was open for nearly 30 years.  Tom launched Abbey Limousine Service in the late 1970s with which he was able to serve the needs of local and national figures in the DC/NY area into the 1990s. As their life together continued, Tom and Jerry welcomed their second child, a son, Thomas Merrell, born in 1978.

Tom was preceded in death by his loving wife, Irene Jerry Willoughby. Jerry passed away on April 2, 2016.

Tom was a loving, caring and helpful father and grandfather and is survived by his daughter Shellie Rae (Mike) Wilson and son Thomas Merrell Willoughby and granddaughters Suzanne Claire Wilson (David Titus) and Mary Beth Wilson.

There will be a private service at Beall Funeral Home on Friday, March 26^th at 1:00pm with visitation hours on Thursday, March 25^th from 6pm-8pm.  Burial service will be at Crownsville Veterans Cemetery on Wednesday, March 31^st at 2:30pm.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions can be made to WMUC – University of Maryland at College Park Radio Station (http://www.wmuc.umd.edu/node/761) or to the Pregnancy Clinic Ministry (https://helphopeandhealing.org/give/)