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Thomas Livingston Hall ’53

Thomas Livingston Hall photo

Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Tom was the first of four children of Livingston Hall and Elizabeth Blodgett Hall. Livingston was the vice-dean at Harvard Law School, and Elizabeth was the only child of the president of the American Chicle [chewing gum] Company. When she became the headmistress of Concord Academy. She later gave 200 acres of family land and a $3 million grant to found Simon’s Rock College (now Bard College at Simon’s Rock), serving as its first president.

Tom spent two years at Reed, where he was president of his sophomore class. He missed the small classes when he transferred to Harvard, where he received a BA in history, and later returned to receive both an MD and MPH. He subsequently received a Doctor of Public Health in International Health degree from Johns Hopkins University, where he was on the faculty until 1971.

He lived eight years in Puerto Rico and South America, and was on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where his health-related career involved providing clinical services in rural Puerto Rico, national health workforce planning studies via the World Health Organization, directing a population studies center at UNC, directing a health care planning office in Seattle, and several years of health planning in New Zealand. In 1986, he came to San Francisco, and from 1988 to 1996 he directed a postdoctoral training program in HIV/AIDS prevention research at UC San Francisco. After retirement, he volunteered to teach and mentor in global health, and until his death, he worked with the Consortium of Universities for Global Health.

Tom married a medical school classmate, Francoise Puvrez Hall, and they raised their three children during their stays in Puerto Rico, Peru, Chile, and the U.S. He was divorced in 1976, and afterwards was married for several years to Mary Moore. In 1983, he met Elizabeth McLoughlin and they sailed for 131 days to New Zealand in a 38-foot cutter. After many adventures and a thorough checkout, they married in 1990.

Tom was adventurous—a member of the Explorers Club and the Cruising Club of America—endlessly curious, and an avid reader. He loved whitewater canoeing with his sons, hiking with his daughter and friends, long-distance biking with his wife, and sailing with family and friends. He also enjoyed small-airplane exploring and camping. In his last two years, while coping with acute myeloid leukemia, he became a junior philanthropist focused on four areas of special interest: peace and security, the environment, social justice, and global health and population.

Tom died the way he lived—with exquisite timing, with care for the feelings of others, bold in the face of adversity, with his mind and heart squarely on things that mattered most. He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth McLoughlin; his siblings, Margaret Whitfield, Elizabeth Richardson, and John Hall; and his children, Eric, Tefel, and Rachel Ames.

Appeared in Reed magazine: December 2017