Hilah Frances Bryan Thomas was born November 27, 1909, in Charlotesville at Locust Grove, the home of Judge John Malachi White and his wife Hilah Frances White, her grandparents. She was the first child of Dr. Wm Minor Bryan, and Henrietta Kemp White Bryan and died on March 14, 2009, in Eugene, OR. Her funeral was held at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Eugene.
She was at home in a wide world that held in dialogue a liberal Christian faith, devotion to literature and the arts, love of the natural world and openness to the findings and unsolved mysteries of modern science. As the daughter of a senior surgeon in the US Public Health Service, she lived at his service posts along the Atlantic coast from Boston Harbor to Mobile, Alabama. Because they moved frequently, and often lived in remote and primitive circumstances, they were a very close family. Her sister Henrietta White Bryan, wife of Thomas Henry Alphin, M.D, died in Lexington, VA, only last October. Hilah told tales of their youthful years, including emptying kitchen garbage directly into Mobile Bay through a trap door in the floor of their house on stilts, and riding a launch to school from an island in Boston Harbor.
She graduated from Maury High School in Norfolk, VA, at 16 and then attended Stuart Hall in Staunton, VA, which encouraged her to continue to college. She graduated in 1931 from Smith College in Northampton, MA. Because jobs were scarce during the Great Depression, she continued her education at the University of Virginia, which at that time accepted women students only at the graduate level. By dint of hard work, while teaching part-time at St. Anne's School she completed her MS in one year in Biology under Professor Ivy Foreman Lewis, doing research into fungi and molds. She studied two more years toward her doctorate before leaving the University of Virginia to become a researcher for Hyson, Wescott, and Dunning, a small pharmaceutical firm in Baltimore, where she published several papers of her research with her mentor Dr. David Israel Macht
In 1939 at Christ Church in Charlottesville she married a young lawyer Llewellyn C. Thomas, who was clerking for the US Court of Appeals at Washington, D.C, a marriage that lasted nearly 70 years. In Washington, they began their family, ultimately consisting of four children, Hilah born 1941, Elizabeth 1944, Ellen 1945 and Wm Matthews Merrick 1947. During those family-focused years, she excelled as a wife, parent, PTA and Girl Scout leader in Chevy Chase and Bethesda, MD, where she and her husband settled after World War II, and as a volunteer at St. John's Church, Norwood Parish (Episcopal).
She resumed her scientific career in 1959, beginning as an abstracter but then moving into a 22-year career as a medical writer for two of the National Institutes of Health, first the Institute of General Medical Sciences and then the Dental Institute, both in Bethesda, MD. She was a leader in the Montgomery County Business and Professional Women's Society and in the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA), which made her a life member.
In 1982, she and Llewellyn retired to Charlottesville, VA (where she had first met him as a law student) to care for her mother and to audit courses at the University as alumni. In retirement she began drawing and painting, wrote a book about her life, took Feldenkrais instruction, swam regularly at the community pool and grew a vegetable garden on city land with her husband. As an active member of Trinity Episcopal Church, she taught Sunday school and volunteered regularly at the School House Thrift Shop on Rio Road.
She and Llewellyn moved west to Eugene, OR, in 2002, where they have enjoyed the community at Cascade Manor and a close relationship with their Eugene daughter Ellen and her family. In the last two years of her life she has been a favorite of the staff on the nursing floor at Cascade, who comment on both her sweetness and her wit. She is survived by her husband, four children, two of their spouses, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild, and by two nieces, a nephew, many cousins and friends.
A Graveside service at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 8, 2009, in Riverview Cemetery, 1701 Chesapeake Street with the Rev. Sherry Hardwick Thomas of Trinity Episcopal officiating. J.F. Bell Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangements (www.jfbellfuneralhome.com).
A reception for friends and family will be held immediately after the graveside service at the home of Hilah's cousins Lloyd and Ashlin Smith at 620 Park Street in Charlottesville (corner of Park Lane).
J. F. Bell Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
She was at home in a wide world that held in dialogue a liberal Christian faith, devotion to literature and the arts, love of the natural world and openness to the findings and unsolved mysteries of modern science. As the daughter of a senior surgeon in the US Public Health Service, she lived at his service posts along the Atlantic coast from Boston Harbor to Mobile, Alabama. Because they moved frequently, and often lived in remote and primitive circumstances, they were a very close family. Her sister Henrietta White Bryan, wife of Thomas Henry Alphin, M.D, died in Lexington, VA, only last October. Hilah told tales of their youthful years, including emptying kitchen garbage directly into Mobile Bay through a trap door in the floor of their house on stilts, and riding a launch to school from an island in Boston Harbor.
She graduated from Maury High School in Norfolk, VA, at 16 and then attended Stuart Hall in Staunton, VA, which encouraged her to continue to college. She graduated in 1931 from Smith College in Northampton, MA. Because jobs were scarce during the Great Depression, she continued her education at the University of Virginia, which at that time accepted women students only at the graduate level. By dint of hard work, while teaching part-time at St. Anne's School she completed her MS in one year in Biology under Professor Ivy Foreman Lewis, doing research into fungi and molds. She studied two more years toward her doctorate before leaving the University of Virginia to become a researcher for Hyson, Wescott, and Dunning, a small pharmaceutical firm in Baltimore, where she published several papers of her research with her mentor Dr. David Israel Macht
In 1939 at Christ Church in Charlottesville she married a young lawyer Llewellyn C. Thomas, who was clerking for the US Court of Appeals at Washington, D.C, a marriage that lasted nearly 70 years. In Washington, they began their family, ultimately consisting of four children, Hilah born 1941, Elizabeth 1944, Ellen 1945 and Wm Matthews Merrick 1947. During those family-focused years, she excelled as a wife, parent, PTA and Girl Scout leader in Chevy Chase and Bethesda, MD, where she and her husband settled after World War II, and as a volunteer at St. John's Church, Norwood Parish (Episcopal).
She resumed her scientific career in 1959, beginning as an abstracter but then moving into a 22-year career as a medical writer for two of the National Institutes of Health, first the Institute of General Medical Sciences and then the Dental Institute, both in Bethesda, MD. She was a leader in the Montgomery County Business and Professional Women's Society and in the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA), which made her a life member.
In 1982, she and Llewellyn retired to Charlottesville, VA (where she had first met him as a law student) to care for her mother and to audit courses at the University as alumni. In retirement she began drawing and painting, wrote a book about her life, took Feldenkrais instruction, swam regularly at the community pool and grew a vegetable garden on city land with her husband. As an active member of Trinity Episcopal Church, she taught Sunday school and volunteered regularly at the School House Thrift Shop on Rio Road.
She and Llewellyn moved west to Eugene, OR, in 2002, where they have enjoyed the community at Cascade Manor and a close relationship with their Eugene daughter Ellen and her family. In the last two years of her life she has been a favorite of the staff on the nursing floor at Cascade, who comment on both her sweetness and her wit. She is survived by her husband, four children, two of their spouses, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild, and by two nieces, a nephew, many cousins and friends.
A Graveside service at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 8, 2009, in Riverview Cemetery, 1701 Chesapeake Street with the Rev. Sherry Hardwick Thomas of Trinity Episcopal officiating. J.F. Bell Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangements (www.jfbellfuneralhome.com).
A reception for friends and family will be held immediately after the graveside service at the home of Hilah's cousins Lloyd and Ashlin Smith at 620 Park Street in Charlottesville (corner of Park Lane).
J. F. Bell Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
Hilah Frances Bryan Thomas was born November 27, 1909, in Charlotesville at Locust Grove, the home of Judge John Malachi White and his wife Hilah Frances White, her grandparents. She was the first child of Dr. Wm Minor Bryan, and Henrietta Kemp White Bryan and died on March 14, 2009, in Eugene, OR. Her funeral was held at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Eugene.
She was at home in a wide world that held in dialogue a liberal Christian faith, devotion to literature and the arts, love of the natural world and openness to the findings and unsolved mysteries of modern science. As the daughter of a senior surgeon in the US Public Health Service, she lived at his service posts along the Atlantic coast from Boston Harbor to Mobile, Alabama. Because they moved frequently, and often lived in remote and primitive circumstances, they were a very close family. Her sister Henrietta White Bryan, wife of Thomas Henry Alphin, M.D, died in Lexington, VA, only last October. Hilah told tales of their youthful years, including emptying kitchen garbage directly into Mobile Bay through a trap door in the floor of their house on stilts, and riding a launch to school from an island in Boston Harbor.
She graduated from Maury High School in Norfolk, VA, at 16 and then attended Stuart Hall in Staunton, VA, which encouraged her to continue to college. She graduated in 1931 from Smith College in Northampton, MA. Because jobs were scarce during the Great Depression, she continued her education at the University of Virginia, which at that time accepted women students only at the graduate level. By dint of hard work, while teaching part-time at St. Anne's School she completed her MS in one year in Biology under Professor Ivy Foreman Lewis, doing research into fungi and molds. She studied two more years toward her doctorate before leaving the University of Virginia to become a researcher for Hyson, Wescott, and Dunning, a small pharmaceutical firm in Baltimore, where she published several papers of her research with her mentor Dr. David Israel Macht
In 1939 at Christ Church in Charlottesville she married a young lawyer Llewellyn C. Thomas, who was clerking for the US Court of Appeals at Washington, D.C, a marriage that lasted nearly 70 years. In Washington, they began their family, ultimately consisting of four children, Hilah born 1941, Elizabeth 1944, Ellen 1945 and Wm Matthews Merrick 1947. During those family-focused years, she excelled as a wife, parent, PTA and Girl Scout leader in Chevy Chase and Bethesda, MD, where she and her husband settled after World War II, and as a volunteer at St. John's Church, Norwood Parish (Episcopal).
She resumed her scientific career in 1959, beginning as an abstracter but then moving into a 22-year career as a medical writer for two of the National Institutes of Health, first the Institute of General Medical Sciences and then the Dental Institute, both in Bethesda, MD. She was a leader in the Montgomery County Business and Professional Women's Society and in the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA), which made her a life member.
In 1982, she and Llewellyn retired to Charlottesville, VA (where she had first met him as a law student) to care for her mother and to audit courses at the University as alumni. In retirement she began drawing and painting, wrote a book about her life, took Feldenkrais instruction, swam regularly at the community pool and grew a vegetable garden on city land with her husband. As an active member of Trinity Episcopal Church, she taught Sunday school and volunteered regularly at the School House Thrift Shop on Rio Road.
She and Llewellyn moved west to Eugene, OR, in 2002, where they have enjoyed the community at Cascade Manor and a close relationship with their Eugene daughter Ellen and her family. In the last two years of her life she has been a favorite of the staff on the nursing floor at Cascade, who comment on both her sweetness and her wit. She is survived by her husband, four children, two of their spouses, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild, and by two nieces, a nephew, many cousins and friends.
A Graveside service at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 8, 2009, in Riverview Cemetery, 1701 Chesapeake Street with the Rev. Sherry Hardwick Thomas of Trinity Episcopal officiating. J.F. Bell Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangements (www.jfbellfuneralhome.com).
A reception for friends and family will be held immediately after the graveside service at the home of Hilah's cousins Lloyd and Ashlin Smith at 620 Park Street in Charlottesville (corner of Park Lane).
J. F. Bell Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
She was at home in a wide world that held in dialogue a liberal Christian faith, devotion to literature and the arts, love of the natural world and openness to the findings and unsolved mysteries of modern science. As the daughter of a senior surgeon in the US Public Health Service, she lived at his service posts along the Atlantic coast from Boston Harbor to Mobile, Alabama. Because they moved frequently, and often lived in remote and primitive circumstances, they were a very close family. Her sister Henrietta White Bryan, wife of Thomas Henry Alphin, M.D, died in Lexington, VA, only last October. Hilah told tales of their youthful years, including emptying kitchen garbage directly into Mobile Bay through a trap door in the floor of their house on stilts, and riding a launch to school from an island in Boston Harbor.
She graduated from Maury High School in Norfolk, VA, at 16 and then attended Stuart Hall in Staunton, VA, which encouraged her to continue to college. She graduated in 1931 from Smith College in Northampton, MA. Because jobs were scarce during the Great Depression, she continued her education at the University of Virginia, which at that time accepted women students only at the graduate level. By dint of hard work, while teaching part-time at St. Anne's School she completed her MS in one year in Biology under Professor Ivy Foreman Lewis, doing research into fungi and molds. She studied two more years toward her doctorate before leaving the University of Virginia to become a researcher for Hyson, Wescott, and Dunning, a small pharmaceutical firm in Baltimore, where she published several papers of her research with her mentor Dr. David Israel Macht
In 1939 at Christ Church in Charlottesville she married a young lawyer Llewellyn C. Thomas, who was clerking for the US Court of Appeals at Washington, D.C, a marriage that lasted nearly 70 years. In Washington, they began their family, ultimately consisting of four children, Hilah born 1941, Elizabeth 1944, Ellen 1945 and Wm Matthews Merrick 1947. During those family-focused years, she excelled as a wife, parent, PTA and Girl Scout leader in Chevy Chase and Bethesda, MD, where she and her husband settled after World War II, and as a volunteer at St. John's Church, Norwood Parish (Episcopal).
She resumed her scientific career in 1959, beginning as an abstracter but then moving into a 22-year career as a medical writer for two of the National Institutes of Health, first the Institute of General Medical Sciences and then the Dental Institute, both in Bethesda, MD. She was a leader in the Montgomery County Business and Professional Women's Society and in the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA), which made her a life member.
In 1982, she and Llewellyn retired to Charlottesville, VA (where she had first met him as a law student) to care for her mother and to audit courses at the University as alumni. In retirement she began drawing and painting, wrote a book about her life, took Feldenkrais instruction, swam regularly at the community pool and grew a vegetable garden on city land with her husband. As an active member of Trinity Episcopal Church, she taught Sunday school and volunteered regularly at the School House Thrift Shop on Rio Road.
She and Llewellyn moved west to Eugene, OR, in 2002, where they have enjoyed the community at Cascade Manor and a close relationship with their Eugene daughter Ellen and her family. In the last two years of her life she has been a favorite of the staff on the nursing floor at Cascade, who comment on both her sweetness and her wit. She is survived by her husband, four children, two of their spouses, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild, and by two nieces, a nephew, many cousins and friends.
A Graveside service at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 8, 2009, in Riverview Cemetery, 1701 Chesapeake Street with the Rev. Sherry Hardwick Thomas of Trinity Episcopal officiating. J.F. Bell Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangements (www.jfbellfuneralhome.com).
A reception for friends and family will be held immediately after the graveside service at the home of Hilah's cousins Lloyd and Ashlin Smith at 620 Park Street in Charlottesville (corner of Park Lane).
J. F. Bell Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
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