Llewellyn C. Thomas

Llewellyn C. Thomas

Llewellyn C. Thomas passed away on Wednesday, October 26, 2011, of age related causes after a long, productive life dedicated to justice. He was 97. His funeral service was held Tuesday, November 8 , 2011, at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Eugene, Oregon. He was born on November 5, 1913, in Porto Alegre, Brazil to Sarah (Cruikshank) and the Ret. Reverend William M. "Merrick" Thomas, who were missionaries. He was fluent in Portuguese and attended the elementary school, Southern Cross, his father founded. He had two older brothers, George and James, who preceded him in death.

At the age of 13, he traveled by steamship to America to attend the Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia, graduating in l931. He then graduated from Princeton University in 1935 and from the University of Virginia Law School in l938, serving on the Law Review and elected to The Raven Society. He began clerking for the United States Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. and then married Hilah Frances Bryan on August 12, l939, in Charlottesville, Virginia. She died on March 14, 2009, after 70 years of marriage. Llewellyn worked as a lawyer for a Washington, D.C., law firm before starting his own practice in Maryland, specializing in trusts and estates. He interrupted his career to serve in the United States Navy aboard the USS Rooks in the Pacific during World War II, from l944 until 1946.

He and his wife had four children, 1Hilah Frances Thomas (1941) of New York City; Elizabeth Mayer (1944) of Berkeley, Calif; Ellen Thomas (1945) of Eugene, Oregon; and W. M. "Merrick" Thomas, M.D. (1947) of Denver, Colorado. He loved history, research, exploring his community, hiking, swimming and building things. He traveled widely with his wife, including a cruise that took him around the tip of South America and back to Brazil. He was an avid Democrat and raised his children in a liberal tradition. He was active his whole life in the Episcopal Church, including being the presiding judge on the Ecclesiastical Court of the Diocese of Washington, D.C., and writing the dissenting opinion that laid out the reasons why women should be priests and the groundwork for reversal of Canon Law. He and his wife retired to Charlottesville in 1983 and spent the next 19 years living on Amherst Street. They were active members of Trinity Episcopal Church. They enjoyed their alumni privileges of auditing courses at the University, swam daily at the community pool and created a vegetable garden on City Bottom Land below Barracks Road. The Schoolhouse Thrift Shop was a favorite form of community service. Because of his wife's failing health, he moved to Eugene to live at Cascade Manor, near one of his daughters in 2002, and engaged in many activities, even in late retirement. He is survived by his four children, two of their spouses, five grandchildren, two step-grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, many nieces, nephews, cousins and friends. One of his grandsons, Colin O'Fallon, died previously on July 10, 1986.

A graveside service will be held 2 p.m. Saturday, December 3, 2011, at Riverview Cemetery with Pastor Cass Bailey of Trinity Episcopal Church officiating.

J.F. Bell Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements. www.jfbellfuneralhome.com



This obituary was originally published in the Daily Progress.