Tommy Jobek lives in Troy, MI, in a home that holds many fond memories. He was a Navy man, had a happy marriage for more than 50 years, raised three daughters, has three grandchildren (and a great-grandchild), worked hard at several jobs (including an early stint as a butcher, his main career with the Big Three, and a later switch into real estate) and traveled extensively. As he reflected on his life, he had many stories to tell; some were stories of hardship and some of triumph, and put together they have the makings of quite a life lived.

Tommy was born October 9, 1925 in a house in Cleveland, Ohio on the north side of Cleveland Flats. His grandfather came from Poland and his name was spelled Dzobeck, but when they phonetically pronounced it “Jo-Bek, the English people didn’t know that in the Polish language “dz” sounds like an “juh,” so consequently the name got changed, as happened to many immigrants coming to the U.S.

The only constant in Tommy Jobek’s early life was change. Being a son of a broken marriage, and having a father who suffered from alcoholism, Tommy learned to be independent and responsible at an early age. He met each challenge without complaint, saying simply, “You got to do, what you got to do, to make it through each day.” This includes being self-supporting at 16 years of age, working a job and completing his education through his high school graduation.

Divorce in the 1920’s wasn’t very common, and when Tommy’s parents split up when he was four, his mother had a hard time, including having to leave the Catholic church, which didn’t recognize divorce. She did what she had to do, including sending Tommy to her sister’s near Buffalo, New York, when she couldn’t afford to keep him. “During the following years I attended five different elementary schools. I found a job at 14 and was able to support myself. My mother married a man in Detroit in March when I was in the 11th grade. I packed up my toys, books and clothes to go live with them, but unfortunately she had married a man who didn’t want me, I discovered upon my arrival. Eventually she broke up with the man, and later I did go back to live with her. But first I packed up again and moved back to Cleveland and found a job as a butcher. Back then, you could be a butcher at 16.”

With his mother and her new husband in Detroit, and a father whose
location was unknown, Tommy needed a place to live. He remembered a boarding house that he had seen while riding the streetcar on the way to school in earlier days. Since he was 6 '1" and 180 pounds, the woman who ran the boarding house didn’t realize he was a student at first. Tommy assured her that he was working, so he lived in the boarding house, signed his own report cards, took care of his own needs without parents, and finished 12th grade in Cleveland.

There were times when work was interfering with Tommy’s schooling. Working after school from 2 p.m. until 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday, late on Friday, and all day Saturday left little time to complete homework. Although eventually, he caught up with required homework and his grades improved.

His only problem area was Physics. “I was kicked off the high school football team because my physics grade wasn’t high enough. However, I did continue to play football with a group in Detroit called the Demolay Masonic group that played every Sunday,” he said.
One Sunday, after winning a game, there was a victory dance, dinner and some socializing for the team. “I went through the whole night without realizing I had broken my collar bone. I was hurting the next morning and went to the hospital. They had to set my collar bone. Then the hospital called up my grandmother, whose house was near the hospital. She contacted my father who lived with my grandmother. He was surprised to hear I was in the hospital. A 17 year-old had to take care of himself.”

“Because of that incident, I got reacquainted with my father. I hadn’t seen much of him throughout the years, and I got him into the boarding house. He got my prize room. This was a corner room where I was able to see my classmates get off the streetcar. I now lived in a room with an elderly gentleman and two single beds. When it came time for graduation I gave my father $100 to get a suit, a haircut, shave and tie to get dressed up for my graduation. At graduation my mother came from Detroit, my aunts and uncles were there, but no father. So I am looking around for him and he didn’t show up. Two days later he showed up at the boarding house, same suit, no shave, no hair cut. He had spent my money on booze. There was little contact between us for several years after that.”

After high school graduation, Tommy went to Detroit and was inducted into the Navy on December 6, 1943. Having a strong religious background, Tommy grew up with a belief that killing is wrong. He announced his convictions to the induction board that day. Only a few months later he found himself drafted into the Navy, and sent to Newport, Rhode Island for eight weeks of boot camp. From there, Tommy applied to Electrical School. After completing the program, he was assigned to a minesweeper. At age 18 he had no idea what to expect. He was in for a few surprises. When he was still 18, he briefly met a fellow sailor who told him about his wife and family. That man was killed minutes later when a mine exploded. Tommy knows that he narrowly escaped the same fate because he was standing directly beside the man not five minutes before it happened. He helped carry the man’s body off the ship.

Tommy thought a lot about why his life was spared. He thought it might have been because he was destined to meet his wife and start a family. Or perhaps it was for the high purpose of contacting the family of the shipmate whose life had been taken, which helped to provide closure and comfort to the family. This came about when, “Years later, 59 years to be exact, my daughter said, ‘It would be nice if you contacted the family since you were the last one to see him alive.” After a diligent search on the internet and several false starts and dead-ends, he located Ernest G. Custard’s family in Pennsylvania. Sadly, Hazel Custard, Ernest’s wife, was in a nursing home in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in the late stages of Alzheimer’s disease, unable to communicate.

Hazel had received a Purple Heart for her husband when he lost his life.
But the only information the family ever received was that her husband was killed and his body was buried in Toulon, France. Tommy was able to give them all the missing information that he knew. He liked to think that Hazel received closure even though her memory was gone and she wasn’t able to speak. The family was thankful to receive the information, and Tommy felt that his efforts to find the family were worth it.

During his 2 1/2 years of service, Tommy Jobek earned four Battle Stars: two for the Euro-Atlantic and two in the Pacific. His tour of duty extended as far east as Bezerti, Africa and as far west as Shanghai, Japan. And at no time was he required to participate in combat duty. They had honored his request to “serve, but not participate in killing.”

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