T. Dempster, 81, delivery manager

Thomas Dempster, 81, of Burlington City, who retired in the mid-1990s as a home delivery manager after 25 years at the Philadelphia Daily News, died of heart failure Tuesday, Dec. 29, at Aria Health-Torresdale Campus.

"He was a very positive, outgoing individual," said a son, William, co-owner with his wife, Audrey, of Dempster's Sports Pub in Mount Holly.

"His father passed at an early age," William said, "and he quit school at 16 to help support the family."

Mr. Dempster grew up in Kensington and, like others, gathered with other teens at Kensington and Allegheny Avenues, daughter Joanne Leicht said.

"He used to hang out there and whistle at all the local girls," Joanne said.

Married at 18, he worked as an "order picker at the Sears, Roebuck & Co. warehouse on Roosevelt Boulevard, where, she said, he would find materials that customers had ordered by phone or mail and send it on to dispatchers.

When his daily work at Sears was done, she said, he would deliver pizzas in the evenings.

Mr. Dempster joined the Daily News in the late 1960s, where Frank Lavin, currently a district circulation manager in South Jersey, knew him well.

"He was my boss from 1983," Lavin said. "We all respected Tom. He was a great boss."

After Mr. Dempster retired, he and Lavin continued the friendship, often golfing together.

Mr. Dempster's daughter recalled that her father helped run neighborhood subscription drives, to help benefit the children who did the bell-ringing.

"If you signed up with the Daily News," she said, the children earned points toward newspaper-sponsored trips, among them to Miami and Montreal.

"He got out there on the street," she said, "and drove us door to door."

With the children or in the office, she said, "he loved it. He was very good at motivating people, a great talent of his. His positive attitude was contagious."

Especially when it involved family, she said.

In the early 1970s, Mr. Dempster took five weeks off, shepherded his wife and their six children into a pop-up camper, and drove to visit his brother in California.

"We went to all the national parks" along the way, she said. "It was the best memory we have as a family."

In retirement, she said, he used a mobile home to repeat the adventure more than once.

Besides his son and daughter, Mr. Dempster is survived by sons Thomas R. and Glenn; daughters Susan Maute and Nancy Dempster-Andorn; a brother; a sister; 11 grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren. His former wife, June, died in 2015.

A visitation was set from 1:30 to 3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 2, at Perinchief Chapels, 438 High St., Mount Holly, before a 3 p.m. funeral service there. Interment is to be private.

Donations may be sent to the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, Fifth Floor, 383 Main Ave., Norwalk, Conn. 06851.

Condolences may be offered to the family at www.perinchief.com.

wnaedele@phillynews.com

610-313-8134 @WNaedele