Thomas Lamphere Gould, a 34-year resident of Ramsey, New Jersey, died June 17 of respiratory complications from pneumonia in San Antonio, Texas. He was 83.
Born in Westhampton Beach in 1932 to Florence and Frank D. Gould Sr., he contracted polio as a teenager, but recovered and excelled in track and field, played baseball, basketball and varsity football for Westhampton High School and served as lifeguard at the beach. He was recruited by the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut to play football in 1950, but he suffered a broken leg in a game during his freshman year, and around the same time his father died. He left the academy to help run the family hardware store, but completed his service and remained a Coast Guard reserve officer, retiring as a commander.
Mr. Gould earned a Bachelor of Science degree in nuclear engineering in 1958 from Hofstra, while working at night for Brookhaven National Lab, and earned a law degree from LaSalle in 1972. For the Coast Guard, he served in field testing and development in Baltimore and San Diego before reporting for reserve duty at Governors Island. He worked as an engineer for Burns & Roe in New Jersey and White-Westinghouse in New York through the early 1980s. He aided in the cleanup after the Three Mile Island accident in Dauphin, Pennsylvania. Next he worked for the Board of Public Utilities for the State of New Jersey until retiring.
After retiring, he volunteered as an election official and as a tax preparation aid to the elderly in Ramsey. The Goulds left Ramsey in 2006 for Cumberland Crossings in Pennsylvania, and moved to join family in San Antonio in 2013.
Mr. Gould is survived by his wife, Diane C. Gould; daughter Dr. Georgianna Gould; and granddaughter Josephine Schultz.
Funeral arrangements were under the direction of the Porter Loring Mortuary North in San Antonion. Condolences may be left at porterloring.com.
on Jun 23, 2016