William R. Thomas III ’27

Bill Thomas died Sept. 9, 1993, after a long battle with cancer, He came to us from Lawrenceville, played on our freshman tennis squad, and was a member of Triangle, musical, and Cottage clubs. An accomplished saxophonist, he formed his own jazz ensemble, which played for its passage on TransAtlantic liners and toured Europe in the 1920s.

After graduation, he became V.P. of his father's Wahnetah Silk Co. and later a partner with his brother of M. and W. Thomas Co., silk manufacturers in NYC and finally president of W. M. Thomas Inc., nationally known shirt makers, in Catasauqua, Penn.

He sang in the famed Bethlehem Bach Choir for 20 years and was its secretary for part of this time. In 1948, he served as secretary of the Princeton Alumni Assn. of Eastern Pennsylvania.

Bill retired some years ago and lived at Waverly Heights retirement center at Gladwyne, outside of Philadelphia, where he formed another jazz group, which entertained residents at the center. He attended our class's 70th reunion last June.

He married his first wife, Lucy, in 1930. She died in 1980. They had a daughter Nancy and a son Frederick '55. In 1982, he married Virginia Brown and she and his two children survive. To them the class sends its deepest sympathy and mourns the loss of a colorful classmate.

The Class of 1927