CAMDEN — Thomas Darling Hopps, 91, died Monday, July 5, at Meadowdown, exactly where he wanted to be, and in the presence of his family reading his favorite poems to him.

He was born on October 31, 1929 in Stamford, Connecticut; he was the son of Klara Frances and Lewis Hopps. Raised in Darien, Connecticut, he attended local schools and graduated from high school there. He received the Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Connecticut at Storrs in 1951. He and Margaret Jean Shaw of Putnam Valley, New York were married in 1952; they had four children.

After serving in the U.S. Coast Guard (1951-1953) he started his career in corporate public relations at Union Carbide Corporation in New York City, later moving on to New York Life Insurance Company and then Allied Chemical Corporation headquarters in New York City. In 1966 he was engaged by Wilson, Haight & Welch in Hartford, Connecticut to head the Hartford Insurance Group National public relations account.

Later, one year after accepting to become public relations vice president for Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company, he resigned and moved with his family “back to nature” to their second home in Westminster West, Vermont where he later became public relations vice president for Quechee Lakes Corporation, Quechee, Vermont. As a member of the Public Relations Society of America, he served as director of its Northeast District. 

In Vermont, his 23-year marriage ended in divorce. In 1978, he married Ann Burgess Ford of Rowayton, Connecticut, moving to Mystic, Connecticut the next year. There he terminated his public relations career and studied to become a landscape designer, moving to Camden, Maine in 1986. He consulted and designed residential landscapes in ten states during the balance of this second career. He taught the ABC’s of Landscape Design in adult education programs and founded and conducted The Nature of Land Design seminars for scores of students at the garden house of his home, Meadowdown, in Camden.

Mr. Hopps started Pequot Men’s Garden Club in Connecticut and helped found an alternative school in Vermont.

Since his high school days, he sang in a musical group wherever he lived. With the Westerly (Rhode Island) Chorus, which he served also as president, he and his wife toured England and Scotland singing at Westminster Abbey and Kings College, Cambridge. A lover of classical music, he was passionate in his devotion to the operas of Gilbert & Sullivan and, in college, played the role of the Lord Chancellor in his favorite G&S opera Iolanthe and Lord Mountararat in Iolanthe years later in Westport, Connecticut. He sang with Downeast Singers and for many years in the choir at The First Universalist Church in Rockland (Maine) where he also served as president of the church.

In later years he also served in SAD 28 and SAD 5 school districts as a tutor for special education students.

He delighted in his family and friends, in his books, and in nature (trees, ponds, shrubs, gardens, streams, meadows, garden structures, ground covers, curved planting beds, sweet autumn clematis) and gloried in outdoor physical work. He was inspired by his Unitarian Universalist community, aesthetic landscapes and liked oriental rugs, arias, classic musicals, and the writings of Wendell Berry, Goethe, Cicero, Olmstead, and Shakespeare.

He is predeceased by his second wife, Ann Burgess Ford; his sister Joan Darling Hopps; and his youngest son, Douglas William Hopps.

Mr. Hopps is survived by his daughter, Robin Elizabeth Hopps of Bristol, Vermont, her wife Wendy Sue Harper, and three sons; Frederic Lewis Hopps of Beverly, Massachusetts, his wife Jette and their daughters Inge of Copenhagen, Denmark, Kaja Hopps of Camden, Maine, and Sara Hopps of Portland, Oregon, Jonathan Shaw Hopps of Cumberland, Maine and his wife Tory, their son Sawyer Hamilton Hopps and his wife Laura of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and daughter Carly (Carolyn Shaw) of Flint Hills, Virginia.

Mr. Hopps has four step-sons and their families: Christopher and Eve Ford of  Rowayton, Connecticut, Thomas Hobart Ford of Camden, Maine, Peter and Amanda Ford of Vero  Beach, Florida and Hobart and Susan Ford of Weaverville, North Carolina; six grandchildren; twelve step-grandchildren; and a great grandson due in September.

A memorial service is being planned for this fall.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Merryspring Nature Center, Camden, Maine where Mr. Hopps had served on the board and as president. Mail to PO Box 893, Camden ME 04843 or use their Donate Securely Online button at the bottom of their homepage, https://www.merryspring.org/