Thomas "Tom" Franklin Birmingham's Obituary
Tom Birmingham, 89, peacefully passed away on May14th, 2026. Tom now knows something you don’t.
Journalist, attorney and wanderer, Tom was always curiously peering around the corner to see what he could find.
After graduating with a major in journalism from his beloved University of Tulsa, Tom became a staff reporter for the Tulsa Tribune. Taking a break from work in 1962 & 1963, Tom traveled to England and while at a youth hostel met other travelers who told tales of distant lands visited on the cheap, a concept Tom took to heart.
Twenty-eight countries and a year and a half later, Tom had visited the Vatican, where he and a few others had a private audience with Pope John XXIII. He spent some time at the Roman Forum and Colosseum, roamed the Parthenon and other temples on the Athenian Acropolis. Tom also worked on a Kibbutz in Israel. He and three others from the Cairo youth hostel climbed and slept the night on Cheops Pyramid in Egypt, visited ancient temples in Luxor, and toured tombs in the Valley of The Kings including that of King Tutankhamen. He took a boat up the Nile to visit the temple of Abu Simbel in its original location.
After hitchhiking through Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya, Tom and friends climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro after which he took steerage class aboard an Indian freighter from Mombasa to Bombay.
Tom traveled through India and Ceylon stopping to wonder at the Taj Mahal and the Sikh Temple at Amritsar. He hitchhiked through the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan and Iran and took a Russian freighter from Iran on the Caspian Sea to Baku in The Soviet Union. Tom then took the rail to Moscow. He travelled through Scandinavia, Germany, Holland and back to London where he worked as a waiter before he returned to The States aboard the original Queen Mary.
Tom returned to Tulsa and talked the Tribune into a second hire where he worked as a City Hall and Courthouse reporter. The Tribune sent him on special assignment to Central America for feature stories where he visited various Maya sites including Tikal.
After a few years he was again bitten by the curiosity bug and enrolled in, and graduated from, The University of Tulsa School of Law. Upon graduating, Tom was employed by The City of Tulsa legal department as an assistant city prosecutor and later worked in the civil division. Tom eventually would go into private practice for many years before retiring and moving to Bella Vista, Arkansas. Tom and his wife Janie returned to Tulsa in 2017 and settled in Brookside.
Tom was predeceased by his wife Janie Birmingham who died in 2022 and parents, Louis and Helen Birmingham.
Tom is survived by daughter Lara Stoltze and her husband Chris, son Ted Birmingham, sister Sandra Kelley and stepchildren Lance Lihou and Dori Galloway. He is also survived by his two granddaughters, Addison and Spencer Goldberg, who undeniably inherited his love of travel and adventure.
A celebration of Tom’s life will be held on Friday, May 29, 2026 at 12:30PM at Floral Havens Funeral Home Chapel in Broken Arrow, OK. Tom will be laid to rest at Floral Haven Memorial Gardens. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to the Reed Community Foundation 210 E Latimer Place, Tulsa OK 74106.
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