Tom returned to the University of Illinois, joined the ATO Fraternity, and met Barbara (Bobbie) Byrnes who thought his first kiss was sloppy. This is what sparked Tom's interest in the medical field. You didn't really need to know that, but it was removed by his old family doctor from Nahant who sensed that Tom was interested in medicine and invited him to observe a couple of his surgeries. After the Navy, Tom had a pilonidal cyst removed. He loved music and played the piano with friends at a few night clubs, including his favorite, Joe's Rathskeller. This sometimes meant taking patients & their nurses out to musicals to boost morale. Albans Hospital in New York City, where he cared for veterans at the end of World War II. He scored high on the exit exam, so was able to select a corpsman position at St. After boot camp, he was sent to Hospital Corps Training School in San Diego. He attended for one semester, then enlisted in the Navy just before he turned 18 that spring. Tom graduated from Lyons Township High School in 1945, then continued his education at the University of Illinois.

Other jobs he had during those years included farmhand, caddy, janitor, beer distributor, and post office clerk over the holidays, right above the railway station, which inducted him into the sooty nostrils club. He only broke one window in the time he had the route. He often talked about how good he was at throwing the papers from the middle of the road, in either direction, and having them land right on the doorstep. His first job there was as a paper boy, which required him to show up at the paper depot at 4 a.m., fold all the newspapers for his route, and deliver them by bicycle, no matter how cold or stormy it was. When Tom was in middle school, his father accepted a position with the Society of American Florists, which required a move to the Chicago area, so Tom went to middle school and high school in La Grange, Illinois. His parents were Eugenia 'Genie' and Robert 'Bob' Roland, and he had two siblings, Roberta and Sidney. Among his memories were running across the greenhouse roofs at his grandfather's orchid business, learning to play boogie-woogie on the piano at his grandparents' house down the street, and having his tonsils removed upstairs in his bedroom by the family doctor. Tom was born on April 15, 1927, in Lynn, Massachusetts, which is just across the causeway from Nahant where he spent the first half of his childhood.

A wonderful person by the name of Thomas Roland died on June 24, 2022.

Lyons township high school obituary