Thomas J. Shire Jr., 89

Thomas J. Shire Jr., 89, a long-time resident of Marion, MA, died peacefully in his sleep on October 2, 2026 following a brief hospitalization.

Tom lived a full life professionally and personally, taking immense pride in the accomplishments of his children and grandchildren. He was never short of stories from his own life, especially tales from his years as a movie theater owner and operator and from a lifelong love of film.

He was a lover of strawberries, ice cream, and rootbeer floats. He had an incorrigible sweet tooth, seldom passing a bakery that failed to tempt him inside. His children recall epic and impractical cake designs that Tom would order from New Bedford bakeries in celebration of their birthdays.

He was proud of his Arab heritage and of his Lebanese parents’ immigrant journey to the American dream. That history remained important to him throughout his life and helped inform his strong advocacy for human dignity, human rights and building bridges between the United States and the Arab World. He was an active member of the National Association of Arab Americans and civic organizations including the Roxbury Boys and Girls Club. He was also elected to roles in his local community of Marion, including the school board.

 Movies were both Tom’s profession and one of his great passions. In the 1960s, he owned the Strand Theatre in Dorchester, a grand movie palace in the old tradition, with some 2,000 seats and where he met his wife Alice. He later owned the State Cinema in New Bedford, now the Zeiterion Performing Arts Center, another of the great old-style movie houses whose preservation he helped initiate in the mid- 1980s. For his three children, the theater was a combination playground, film laboratory and after-school employment. In its heyday, the theater was packed with Bruce Lee movie fans enjoying weekend matinees and freshly made popcorn. Special showings of classics like Fantasia brought in crowds eager to experience these films on a large screen, in the manner for which they were designed. Tom was known for grand and generous gestures, seldom saying no to his children, and proudly regaling new friends with stories about “shaking the hand that shook the hands of Cary Grant, John Wayne, Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart and Walt Disney.”

He enjoyed a post-theater retirement career as a teacher in Boston Public Schools, advocating for at-risk youth, teaching them Latin, the fundamentals of investing, and life lessons.

Tom was an inveterate Bostonian, with an encyclopedic knowledge of the city’s back streets, shortcuts and hidden parking spaces. Roxbury, where he spent his childhood, remained vivid to him. He could navigate its streets decades later by memory and instinct. He loved sharing tales of growing up as both a street-smart, wise-cracking teen and enthusiastic attendee of the Eliot Congregational Church’s youth group, which he credits with teaching him chess and keeping him in school.

Tom graduated from Northeastern University. He was the youngest of four children born to Tom Shire and Nellie (Maloof). He is survived by his wife Alice (Ohannessian), brother David, daughters, Jacqueline (Andrew) and Lisa (George) and son, Tom Shire III (Justine), former wife Lydia Shire, as well as grandchildren, Vivien (Eliot), Clara, Nicholas and Georgia. He is predeceased by his brother Donald and sister Barbara.

In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to the Thomas J. and Nellie M. Shire Scholarship Fund at Boston University. Boston University, Gifts and Records, Suite 700, 595 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215.

A memorial service celebrating Tom’s life will be held in the spring. Details will be announced at a later date.

Arrangements are by Chapman Funerals & Cremations – WAREHAM, 2599 Cranberry Hwy., Wareham.