Thomas Charles Lawson, age 80, died on Thursday in the NJ Veteran's Memorial Home at Menlo Park, where he resided for the past three years. Born in Highland, PA, Tom served in the Air Force during the Korean Conflict before settling in New Jersey to build his life. That life included 52 years of marriage to Eileen Noggle Lawson of Drums, PA. They resided primarily in Edison, Metuchen, and Somerset where they raised their daughter, Lynn, and were active members of the Reformed Church of Metuchen, teaching Sunday school and serving on committees. Tom's sense of humor and laid-back personality made him an easy to be friend. If you needed help with anything, you didn't have to ask twice. He was there.

Tom worked most of his career for Elastic Stop Nut/Harvard Industries of Union where he started out as a stock handler and ended his career as an engineer. He truly loved his work. A life-long Yankee fan and fisherman, he rarely brought any fish home. It was discovered (quite by accident) that this was because he used to talk to the fish he caught and explain to them that if they'd just hold still he'd have the hook out of their mouth and get them back in the water right away.

Tom was predeceased, by one year, by his wife Eileen, his parents, Thomas and Margaret (Wilkinson) Lawson of Highland, PA, his brother and sister-in-law, James and Helen, his sister and brother-in-law, Helen and Phil Kaminski all of Freeland, PA, his sister and brother-in-law, Beatrice and Ed Keiper of White Haven, PA and his sisters, Violet Ziemba of Hagerstown, MD, and Marie Lannan of Iselin, NJ.

Tom is survived by his daughter, Lynn of Somerset, many nieces and nephews, great, and great-great nieces and nephews and his good friend and fishing buddy, Harold Wilcox of Edison.