Thomas Lee Bach, 87, passed gently in the early hours of 29 July, 2026. Tom---never Thomas---stayed honest with Life, and would not have called his death “natural causes”; he’d smile and say, “it’s old age”. He’d even laugh if he thought anyone would argue with him on that. As he wished, Tom stayed comfortably in his own home until the very end. He filled that space with his larger-than-life tales and laughter, and he will be missed in the now-deafening silence. 

Tom is preceded in death by his parents, his wife, Diane, and their infant son, forever known as “Little B.C.”, and four brothers. He is survived by his three children: daughters Bobbie and Trinity and son Vance (Alicia), grandchildren Kaden and Hannah Bach, and Tom’s brother Jerry of Klamath Falls, Oregon. Across this big country he loved and defended, Tom has many nieces, nephews, cousins, and in-laws, all of whom join an even larger family of adopted kin and good, close friends. 

Tom was born in Fort Benton, Montana, on 10 September, 1938, to Bernard (Ben) and Dorothy (Bobbie) Bach of Shonkin. The Shonkin Mountains waited patiently for young Tom to finally show up and run around among them, pausing only to go reluctantly to school in the one-room school near his home. Fearless and clever, Tom would go outside and play after his chores were done, always with the warning from his mother: “don’t hurt the bears!” After stashing a harmless but intimidating bull snake in his teacher’s desk and rolling boulders down the hill in an attempt to flatten the schoolhouse, Tom relied on his stamina to lead the pack of those who would try to catch him. “I wasn’t the fastest runner”, Tom repeated over the years; “But I could run a long time!” While he might not have admitted it, Tom managed to get away with almost anything. If his legs couldn’t carry him to unreachable distances, his smile and (mostly) innocent nature got people quickly past their disagreements with him. Ultimately, he found himself in a race he could not win, but he ran for 87 years in a long and sometimes hard competition, holding his own and earning Time’s respect and a well-deserved rest. 

Despite the move to Fort Benton in 1951, he still spent much of his weekends and Summers in the mountains with the family who bought the ranch: the Evers/Kurth family. The joy and freedom Tom enjoyed in those mountains were tempered with the solemnity of helping care for his mother in Fort Benton, who developed debilitating cancer and needed to be closer to medical attention. The kid with boundless energy was redirected to caring for his mother, and Tom learned that he didn’t choose his priorities; they chose him. His sudden growth and maturity led him after high school to the newly created U.S. Air Force. Basic Training and Technical School completed, he went East to Savannah, Georgia, and the Hunter Army Air Field there. Having grown with an innate sense of surroundings and a calculating, creative mind, Tom moved naturally into being designated Crew Chief of the KC-97 aircraft, a cargo and refueling behemoth which offered no challenges that Tom and his crew could not address. Whether in the military or the mountains, life was an adventure for Tom, and adventures meant stories he would tell for decades afterward. 

There was the time a fairly large (really large!) bomb fell off the bomb cart and rolled across the tarmac, and almost everyone else ran as far and as fast as they could away from it. Not Tom, though: he chased after it and rolled the bomb back to the cart it escaped from. More than a few people noted his quick thinking and bravery, and many asked him if he worried the bomb would explode. That was nothing to worry about for Tom: he would answer practically, “I guess I wouldn’t feel anything, now would I?” Then one day, the watermelon truck was somehow mystically and magically stolen. Tom and the others sold the watermelons for a quarter each, then returned the now-empty truck to where they’d stolen it. And as if that wasn’t enough, Tom found a little alligator and threw it into the guard shack! The base commander, a patient man and maybe once a prankster himself, knew the perpetrator of the amphibian act and sent the military police to bring Tom back from wherever he thought he would not be discovered, to go get the alligator out of the shack. Whether Tom knew it or not, he was born to work hard, play harder, and care for his family; his natural talent to make people laugh when they were worrying, running scared, or crying for the imminent death of a beloved mother brought life to Life for 87 years on this big, blue marble in the universe. 

While in Savannah, Tom met Diane Bowen, a carhop at a local drive-in diner. They never really parted after she fell from the tall stool she was sitting on, Tom racing over to help her back up again, and they dated for three months before they married. The bomb fell off the bomb cart, the girl fell off the stool, and nothing was ever the same-----or boring-----again for anyone. Tom would laugh that Diane fell at his feet for him, and she never disagreed, laughing along but with rosy cheeks and a smile. Diane was as enthusiastic as Tom for a move to Montana, and in a couple of years, they landed back where Tom started. To support his family, Tom worked jobs where his natural abilities and talents led the way for a good career as a welder, law enforcement dispatcher, truck driver, and finally to diesel mechanic and school bus driver. One can only imagine the tight smile on Tom’s face as he sat at the wheel of the big, yellow buses, watching the kids in the mirror above the driver’s seat, plotting and planning some dastardly deed as if for the first time in History: “Sure, Kid; keep trying, but I’ll tell ya right now, you won’t get away with it! I barely did!” 

Tom did get away with a great long life in the center of a group of great people, all of whom are better for having known and loved, and been loved by, Tom---never Thomas---Bach. Thank you, Tom, for your love of family and country, and for just being a boy who grew into a man who never knew a day without laughter and adventure. The snakes, bears, and alligators thank you; theirs were certainly not boring lives, and neither were ours, for knowing you.