This from today's News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C. Tom was a terrific mechanic and a good guy. Apparently he'd had several operations recently.

smm


By Cindy George
Staff writer
RALEIGH — If you had an old Volvo that needed work, Tom Berry in Raleigh was the guy to see.
Even if you lived on the coast, in Virginia or beyond.
Paul Thomas Berry, a Volvo mechanic and connoisseur who tore apart and rebuilt his first engine before he could drive, died Sunday. He was 54.
Berry began his lifelong work at Weaver Brothers Volvo. A decade ago, he opened Bradberry Inc., a Volvo service and repair shop in Raleigh.
When Berry’s nephew, Sam Brewer, got his first car, a Volvo 240, in high school, he spent all summer in the yard of Bradberry with his uncle teaching him how to rebuild the engine.
“He would say: ‘This next,’ or ‘You missed this,’ ” said Brewer, 24, now a middle-school Spanish teacher in Raleigh.
Volvo enthusiasts such as Berry love the Swedish cars for their sturdy build and reliability. A 1966 Volvo with 2 million miles holds the Guinness World Record for car mileage.
“He liked to work on older cars,” said a longtime friend and customer, Kaj Bern, 73, a Sweden native who retired from Volvo Corp. “You go to dealerships, and they know the new cars — but they don’t know the old ones.”
Berry first opened his business in the mid-1990s off Capital Boulevard, then moved it to its current location on Wake Forest Road.
“He loved them because they were simple, straightforward in design and it was almost impossible to wear them out completely,” Bern said. “For a person to drive them 300,000, 400,000 and 500,000 miles is not unusual.”
This review of Berry’s business was posted online Oct. 5 on Citysearch, a local services Web site: “What can I say ... the only reason I bought a [second] Volvo was to keep from having to find another mechanic that I can trust as much as Tom. He tells you straight — what you need, what your options are — and does solid work.”
Like everyone in the Berry clan, Tom Berry had a nickname. His was “Huckle” Berry, said his wife, Judy.
“He was my angel,” she said.
The couple met three decades ago in Atlantic Beach, her hometown. He was a fisherman and beach lover. They were engaged in the 1970s, but never married. She waited 20 years before deciding she couldn’t live without him.
“He never asked anyone else to marry him,” she said Monday. “I asked him — on my knees — to marry me and he graciously said yes.” They got hitched six years ago on a boat moored on the Beaufort waterfront.
Judy Berry said she plans to scatter her husband’s ashes in the Neuse River.
Besides his wife, Berry is survived by his mother, Anne Wood Kelley of Raleigh; his brother, Dr. Bill Berry of Raleigh; a sister, Lou Kelley Brewer of Fort Worth, Texas; a daughter, Jamie West, and three grandchildren, all of Fuquay-Varina.

Staff writer Cindy George
can be reached at 829-4656
or cgeorge@newsobserver.com.