Sadly, the Piqua community lost a member that solved more problems while you got your watch fixed…than generations of politicians and public figures before him. One of Piqua’s most beloved has died.
For the record, I still called Joe Thoma my brother-in-law, even though he’d been divorced from my wife’s sister for three decades.
In return he would laugh and say, “You’re the family member who won’t go away.”
That’s how special a person he was, and how much his friendship meant to me.
And I’m not alone.
You want to know what friendship, or a relationship like that really means? It’s not like Joe and I were together every weekend, or even every holiday. Or any holiday!
“You know why oysters don’t donate to chariites?,” he’d say. “They’re shellfish.”
But when were together at the store on Main Street, or a chance meeting at the post office, it was like I hadn’t missed a thing. In a matter of a few words Joe would make you feel up-to-date, and welcomed to the moment. Rarely in my life have I met anyone like Joe Thoma, or one who was better at making perfect strangers feel perfectly at ease. Someone once said, “He had the knack of liking everyone he met. And even if he didn’t like them, you never knew it.”
It was Joe who introduced me to my wife, Mindy.
It was Joe who custom-made the rings for our wedding.
And because we were poor as church mice when we got married, it was Joe who arranged for financing…interest-free, and whenever you get a little bit ahead.
In his seventy-plus years of being in the Piqua community, I cannot think of another ordinary individual, and businessman, who did more to serve people, while asking absolutely nothing in return. Not even a thank you!
Remarkably, Joe was that rare person who never kept score of people who owed him a favor, or even…a cup of coffee. He just amused you with one of his terrible puns or Henny Youngman jokes.
“What’s a cow’s favorite beer?” he’d say.
I don’t know…what?
“Blue M-o-o-o-o-o-oon.”
He was the fifth generation of Thoma men to run the familiar jewelry store on Main Street, where you could buy a battery for a totally worthless watch…or a three-carat diamond from the special selection that Joe kept locked away somewhere. You never really knew. For years men would line up at the counter on Christmas Eve to buy that special ring, necklace, or you name it, while toasting the holiday with whatever libation it took to make you patiently wait.
It’s where all the ‘characters’ in town hung out. Larry Hart, Hal Cain, and Harlen Smoot, to name three. And the beer in the refrigerator was always Blatz, to give you an idea of his humility.
It’s where Joe sat tirelessly at an engraving machine all those years, making plaques and trophies for every occasion…from the Top 100 Club, to the Grand Champion rabbit at the county fair. It was where he worked out his frustrations, and what little disappointments he was willing to admit. He sat there all day while re-runs of Bonanza blared on a tired television in the background.
Patient to a fault, he would take the time personally to gift wrap a purchase for a total stranger…and do it no charge. “Come back sometime when you think about it,” he’d say.
He was involved – a member of the Elks Club, the Noon Optimists, a township trustee, and volunteer for endless functions at Saint Boniface Church. He did it to be among his friends, and for his friends – the people of Piqua.
He was ‘honored’ to play taps on a trumpet for military funerals on zero days, fahrenheit.
Thoma Jewelers was a fixture for three generations of Thomas in downtown Piqua.
He continually underwrote people, from family, to those who couldn’t afford a ticket for the Kiwanis Pancake breakfast. Joe had a pocket full of ’em, a responsibility to those, he felt, who were less blessed than he…a trait he surely inherited from his late father, Joe Senior.
He lived quietly at home with his wife Peggy, and he lived habitually. For years he walked across the street to the cigar store at noon to buy a can of pop. And every day at 2 he went home for a restful nap. But always back at the store in time to close.
By now you get it, that no one ever had a better friend than Joe Thoma. If you had a problem he’d listen and say he understood, even if he didn’t. And in the fifty years that I knew him I never once heard him say an unkind word…about anyone. Which, I’m sure, is why he had so many friends.
The news of his passing Sunday night hit a lot of people hard. Perhaps not as celebrated as community leaders past – Bob Hance, Ray Loffer, and Knobby Cruse – he was as celebrated as any of them for the way he treated people in Piqua. Personally, it brought a lump to my throat – tears to my eyes.
I last saw Joe two weeks ago at his home on Maplewood Drive.
“You know why oysters don’t donate to charities?” he asked.
I don’t know, Joe…why?
“They’re shellfish,” he said.
That, and Joe, will be missed. He was our friend.
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