Margaret Louise Thomas

We celebrate the long healthy life of Margaret (Peg) Thomas.

Margaret Louise Johnston was born on June 28, 1920 in Harrisburg Pennsylvania to her parents Mary Louise and Walter Johnston. She was the third of four children, and the only girl. She grew up in a house facing the Susquehanna River. As a child she enjoyed visits to Ithaca, NY to see her grandparents, Jared Treman Newman and Jane Williams Newman, even living with them for a spell after her family was in a serious automobile accident.

Peg attended Dickinson College and graduated from Margaret Morrison College (now Carnegie Mellon University) with a degree in costume design. She used her college drafting courses to get a wartime job (WWII) at the Army Intelligence center in Harrisburg. There she met an intelligence officer named Daniel Stout, whom she married in 1943. Dan went to work for his father after leaving military service, leading Dan and Peg to settle in Indianapolis.

Peg and Dan had two children, S. Louise (1944) and Lawrence (1948). In Indianapolis Peg was an active member of a new church, Northminster Presbyterian, and a new theater organization, The Mud Creek Players, as well as the American Association of University Women. In 1958 she completed a certificate for teaching home economics from Butler University, and taught for eight years at North Central High School. Peg and Dan divorced in 1961.

Peg completed her Master’s degree in counseling in 1966, also from Butler. When Louise graduated from college and Larry graduated from high school, she decided to reinvent her life: Peg moved to Ithaca, NY to become a counselor in the School of Home Economics (now the College of Human Ecology) at Cornell University. She became active in the Cayuga Trails Club, AAUW, Zonta, as well as many other community organizations. She was an elder in the First Presbyterian Church in Ithaca, and on the board of Planned Parenthood.

It was through the church that Peg met a new partner, Earl Thomas, a physicist and electrical engineer. They were married in 1977 and enjoyed a long life together. Their household was a hub for a growing family of shared grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Peg continued to work at Cornell until she retired at age 66. Peg had life-long interests in opera, botanical illustration, origami, and walking outdoors. She kept a list of all the ferns and mushrooms that she had identified. She was a formidable opponent in bridge and Scrabble.

Peg and Earl were among the founding residents of Kendal in Ithaca. The family is grateful for the community Peg and Earl had there, and for the care Peg received from the nursing staff at Kendal and especially the Classen companion care staff over the last four years when Peg could no longer see or hear well.

Peg died in Ithaca on February 6, 2019. She was 98.

Peg was predeceased by her husband Earl, her son Lawrence Stout, her brothers Carl, Donald, and Gilbert Johnston, and her first husband Dan. She is survived by her daughter S. Louise Gould and her daughter’s husband Frank (New Britain CT); her daughter-in-law Susan Burt (Normal IL); her four grandsons and their wives: Joel and Judith Gould (Santa Rosa CA), J. Ben Gould and Sarah Duford (Brooklyn NY), Andrew Stout and Julie Gregorio (Cambridge MA), and Alan Stout and Brittni Toole (Normal IL). She has seven great-grandchildren: Eleanor and Franklin Gould, Jacob and Nathan Gould, Amalia and Alfred Gregorio-Stout, and Sam Stout. She is also survived by her sister-in-law Sheila Johnston, nieces and nephews and their children, in addition to the children and grandchildren of her late husband Earl Thomas. She was particularly close to Earl’s daughter Denise and youngest son, Jeff, who were still children when she and Earl married, as well as to Earl’s grandchild Thomas Bennett, with whom she often corresponded late in life.

There will be a celebration of Peg's life in the Community Room at Kendal in Ithaca on Saturday, March 23 at 3 pm. She will be buried with her grandparents in Lake View Cemetery in the spring.