Butte County
Biographies
MRS. MAY L. THOMAS
MRS. MAY L. THOMAS.—A very prominent business woman in whom the commercial talent has been well developed, and who is also a social favorite and a power in circles of refinement and culture, is Mrs. May L. Thomas, a native of Californian who was born at Cherokee, the daughter of William and Mary (Morgan) James, pioneers of the county, who are represented elsewhere in this work. She was educated at the well-known Mills College, long accepted as one of the best institutions of learning on the Pacific Coast, and the pride of Oakland; and there she was graduated.
May L. James married the Hon. Richard I. Thomas, a native of Nevada City, Cal., who was then already a mining man of considerable promise, although he was still young. He was a graduated of Hopkins Academy at Oakland, and also of the Military Academy at Benicia, and as a student evidenced unusual aptitude for mining—an aptitude that was later developed in his career as a practical miner.
Having gained a wide reputation for ability and enterprise, and having won the confidence of his fellow citizens, Mr. Thomas was elected to the State Assembly from Nevada County, and for two terms served his constituents with the greatest devotion to their interests and utmost forgetfulness of self. His death at Nevada City, therefore, was a public loss, and all too soon closed an active and valued life.
Appointed by President Roosevelt, Mrs. Thomas served as postmaster at Cherokee for seven years, until she resigned and moved to Oroville, where she and her mother now make their home. She still devotes herself to the postal service, filling a clerkship in the Oroville office. Mrs. Thomas is a Republican in politics. In her church affiliations she is a Congregationalist; and fraternally she is a member of Amapola Chapter, O. E. S.
Transcribed
by Sharon Walford Yost.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Page 1166, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2009 Sharon
Walford Yost.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies