Father Timothy Toohig

Father Timothy Toohig, a longtime Fermilab employee and lifetime friend of the laboratory died suddenly yesterday evening, September 25, while attending a meeting at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. The cause of death is not yet known.
Father Tim was part of the fabric of Fermilab from its earliest days. In a 1987 essay, “Starting Fermilab: Personal Viewpoints of a Laboratory Director,” Fermilab’s founding director Robert Wilson wrote:
	It was not roses, roses, all the way. Tragedy began to strike as our numbers grew—disease, even death. Nowhere in the annals of physics are such things mentioned, nor had my previous experience prepared me to cope with them. Yet coping was part of the job. I soon found that Tim Toohig, a cracking good physicist at the Lab, as well as a Jesuit priest, would appear on such occasions full of compassionate sympathy and understanding. Despite a difference in our religious beliefs, we became close friends and the difference narrowed as my respect for Tim grew. He became the spiritual counsel for the project.
Tim loved particle physics, and he truly loved Fermilab. His spirit helped create the laboratory we know today. The Fermilab community and the worldwide family of particle physics will miss him greatly.