American Magazine November 2014

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FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER TONI TOMASEK, CAS/MA ’02, SAW THE WHOLE WORLD AS HER NEIGHBORHOOD, BUT HER DEATH HIT HARDEST AT HOME. BY MIKE UNGER
THE TOMASEKS BOUGHT THESE CHAIRS, MADE OF TAMARIND WOOD, IN INDONESIA IN 2010. THEY NOW SIT IN THE LIVING ROOM OF THE FAMILY’S WASHINGTON HOME. Chipa, the 14-year-old, dark-brown-andblack-striped Maine Coon cat, is lounging on the coffee table next to the red recliner in which Marilyn Beaumont sits. “He just closed his eyes,” she tells me on the phone. “They got him just before their wedding a long time ago. His name means ‘cornbread’ in Guarani. When they went off to Indonesia they couldn’t take him, and he’s been with me ever since. To me, he’s a part of Toni.” Reminders of her daughter, Antoinette Beaumont Tomasek, are everywhere. In her home and others on both coasts and between. In countries around the world. In the hearts of hundreds she touched. Etched onto memorials at the State Department and Ronald Reagan Building in Washington. “It’s one thing when you tell things to your kids, it’s another when they give you advice and you remember it,” Beaumont says from her home in Manhattan Beach, California, where Toni grew up and her memory still purrs. “Before her wedding I was upset about something that someone had said, and her comment to me was, ‘Mom, you can be like a sponge or you can be like a duck and let it run right off you.’ I chose to be like a duck. I’ve always remembered that.” A pause. Muffled tears. And then, in a cracking voice, she continues. “You would have liked her.” More than a year has passed since Tomasek, CAS/MA ’02, died at the age of 41 following a car accident in Haiti, where she was working as a USAID Foreign Service Officer. It was her latest—and last—stop in a globe-trotting career dedicated to helping wherever she saw need. Fluent in five languages, Tomasek was a woman with big ideas and the moxie to see them through. No one has moved on. As her husband Adam says, they’ve moved through. Photos of her line the walls and fill the bookshelves of the Northwest Washington home where he and their two children now live. The family hanging from vines at the beach in Indonesia. Christmas in Jakarta—no sweaters necessary. Here’s a photo of Adam and Toni at Machu Picchu, there they are in Yosemite, here’s one from . . . Adam can’t remember where. In the last, mysterious picture, as in all of them, broad smiles beam from the prints, spreading a warmth that’s almost palpable. It’s a feeling that endures in the Tomaseks today. As I walk toward their AU Park house on a lovely July day, I hop over sudsy puddles of water in the street. Their 10-year-old son, Alex, is washing the family SUV. When I knock on the screen door, 8-year-old Amelie races around the corner to open it. “Dad, the journalist is here,” she simultaneously screams and giggles. Traditional jazz plays softly on the wireless speaker in the living room. Adam greets me and we take seats at the reclaimed teak wood dining room table, where I’m surprised to see Amelie join us. I’ve been a bit uneasy about asking a man to discuss his recently departed wife and his children to talk about the loss of their mom, but any reservations I have are washed away as quickly as Alex took care of the grime on that Nissan Xterra out front. “The thing that’s kind of surprising to most people is how open we are in terms of handling this, the kids included,” Adam says. “It’s very much been an unfortunate reality, but we’re doing what we can to talk about it openly, about how we feel, about what we like and don’t like.” I ask Adam to recall his first impressions of Toni. “Her smile!” Amelie interrupts, her own lighting up the already bright room. We all laugh, I exhale, and continue. Marilyn Beaumont was just 19 when she left her hometown of Columbus, Ohio, for sunny California. Her wanderlust bypassed her first two children, but it certainly burrowed in her youngest, Toni. “She was a super-smart kid, and if we wanted somebody to call the waitress or go ask a question, she was the one the other two kids sent to do it,” Beaumont says. “She was fearless.” Tomasek skipped fourth grade, and in high school she learned to speak Portuguese so she could spend a summer in Brazil. Despite breaking a tooth, she found living abroad intoxicating. She earned her undergraduate degree in environmental engineering before joining the Peace Corps and flying off to Paraguay, one of South America’s poorest countries. FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 17
Page 1 and 2: 41 YEARS OF LOVE, LAUGHTER, SERVICE
Page 4 and 5: As a second-grader in Brooklyn, Ayo
Page 6 and 7: commentary EDITORIAL CARTOONIST NAT
Page 8 and 9: Vision scientist Arthur Shapiro is
Page 10 and 11: syllabus PUBLIC HEALTH 115 Why Aren
Page 12 and 13: play Jen Dumiak has to be one of co
Page 14 and 15: service FRESHMAN SERVICE EXPERIENCE
Page 16 and 17: Stephanie Massaro CAS/BA ’07, CAS
Page 20 and 21: 1. THE TOMASEKS WITH TONI’S BROTH
Page 22 and 23: hallowed(coffee)grounds Constantine
Page 24 and 25: 22 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2014
Page 32 and 33: Mother, Daughter, Doll (2010) see p
Page 34 and 35: What If? (2008) This was one of the
Page 36 and 37: clockwise from top left Sitara, Rad
Page 38 and 39: 1960s Nancy Hall Burkett, SIS/BA
Page 40 and 41: Our impact and influence throughout
Page 42 and 43: class notes -1999- TIME CAPSULES TO
Page 44 and 45: class notes 2010s Julia Young, SIS/
Page 46 and 47: GROUND ZERO FOR THE BEST DEEP-DISH
Page 48 and 49: vision + planning = legacy LILLIAN
Page 50 and 51: must haves 1 9 12 6 13 2 5 4 7 10 1
Page 52: NON-PROFIT ORG US POSTAGE PAID BURL

American Magazine November 2014

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