Photograph — Cactus, University of Texas at Austin, 1966, page
292 S63. A crop of the Delta Tau Delta
member panel, a page whose own caption prints "Thomas Alan Caffey" among
exactly seven names keyed to exactly seven portraits in the second photo row. A
second portrait of him, from the Class of 1968 grid on page 635 of the same
volume, is in the documents below.
Confirmed
Life
Birth1946
Born
7 March 1946, Austin, Travis County, Texas; died
30 December 2016,
Austin, aged 70, “after a lengthy illness”; the obituary gives no cause. A lifelong Austin resident
S31S34Schooling1969
McCallum High School;
B.S. Electrical Engineering, The University of Texas,
1969 S31 the
Cactus lists him with the
Class of 1968 S63, and
both are true:
the yearbook records the class he entered with, the obituary the year the degree
actually came. Career at DuPont Chemical in Nashville, then Texas Instruments in Austin
S31Schooling1961
A sophomore at McCallum High School in 1961–62, “Tommy Caffey” in the 1962 yearbook
S396.
Census1962
In 1962–63, his junior year at McCallum, he was junior-class president, vice-president of the spring Student Council, on the all-A honor roll four times, and
Junior Class Favorite S492. As a varsity halfback he kicked the extra point that beat Killeen, 13–12
S491.
Schooling1964
As a sophomore he was in the McCallum Football Club
S534, and the 1964 yearbook has his
senior portrait S535.
Record2026
History of this card. The notes on this card that carried a “new” mark were added on these days: 11 Oct 2026 (3 notes). The marks and their dates were taken off on 12 Oct 2026, and nothing in the notes was changed. 13 Oct 2026
3 notes on this card ended with the words “added” and a date; they were added on: 24 Sep 2026 (1 note), 25 Sep 2026 (2 notes). The dated endings were taken off, and nothing else in the notes was changed.
Death—
His obituary names the couple outright:
"his daughter Kristin Proeger and
her husband Earl […]" S31.
That sentence welds this record's two halves together from the published side
the link is not an inference from a surname.
Death—
His obituary calls him “an avid Longhorn fan and season ticket holder, attending many football, basketball and baseball games”
S31Burial2017
Memorial service: 11:00 am, Saturday 14 January 2017, at
Triumphant Love Lutheran Church, 9508 Great Hills Trail, Austin
S31 Death2017
A friend’s recollection, not a record. In the obituary’s guest book, Mike Harris wrote on 14 January 2017 that he and “Tommy” grew up on Brentwood Street in Austin and were in student council together at McCallum under its sponsor, Martha Agnor
S31. The yearbook has the student council
S492; Brentwood Street rests on this one memory
This card replaced four sentences of family testimony. Until 13 September 2026 he
was on this page as "Thomas Caffey," with no dates, no parents and a
Family testimony tag — everything the family
had said and nothing more. Every line above now rests on a retrieved document, and every
detail the family originally gave checks out against them: raised in Austin ✓, University
of Texas ✓, died at Austin ✓, wife Lavonne ✓, daughter Kristin ✓.
⚠️
One theoretical gap, stated for completeness. No single government document
names both his parents — his own Texas death certificate would, but Texas records after
2000 are not in any free index and the public Social Security extracts end long before
2016
S33. The census sheet, his obituary and his
sister's obituary name them instead, three times over, which is why this is Confirmed
without it.
Family
Parents1946
His father's middle name is Walton, not William
the Texas Birth Index on his
own 1946 birth record reads
Thomas Walton Caffey
S130, and so does the Austin Memorial Park
gravestone
S34. An index and a stone, neither
derived from the other.
Earl's online Ancestry tree records "William" and is wrong
on this point; this page has read Walton throughout and continues to.
Parents1950
Son of Thomas Walton Caffey Jr. and Lucille Lorine Kretschmar
the
1950 census enumerates him as "son," aged 4, in their Austin household
S32, and his obituary says he was born "to
Lucille and Thomas Caffey"
S31Marriage1969
Married
Clare LaVonne Walker in 1969, Tarrant County, Texas
S127; the marriage was dissolved in
1980 in Travis County
S128.
The state file numbers are withheld. ⚠️
One index disagrees on the wedding day.
The Newspapers.com Marriage Index reads
1969; the Texas Marriage Index
and the Divorce Index both read
7 June. That newspaper collection is
machine-extracted
Ancestry itself stamps it as AI-derived and possibly erroneous —
so
this page takes 7 June, two state indexes against one derived one, and
records the disagreement rather than hiding it
S127Children1972
Two children: Bradley Neal Caffey (b. 1972) and
Kristin
(b. 1975), both named to this couple by the Texas Birth Index
S126 Siblings1948
His sisters:
Sandra Caffey Falkenberg (28 July 1948 – 4 April 2025) and
Donna Caffey Rinn, who is living and whose details are withheld
S31S35