Dorothy Kathleen Thomas

Dorothy Kathleen Bishopp Thomas died in her sleep Tuesday, May 26, 2015. She was a resident of Garden Estates of Temple where she had lived for five years. She was 102 years old and would have been 103 on June 22.

A memorial service will be held on Sunday afternoon, May 31, 2015 at 3:00 PM at the Rogers Park Boat Ramp on Lake Belton with the Rev. Donna Bowling officiating.

Dorothy was born in Vermillion, Alberta Canada on June 22, 1912. She was the second youngest of 9 children. Her family farmed a homestead near Vermillion but harsh winters forced them to sell their farm and immigrate to Lakeland, Florida when she was a teenager.

Dorothy studied business in high school and graduated at age 16. She entered the Salvation Army’s officer training school in Atlanta after telling them she was 18. Upon completion of her training she served the Salvation army for the next ten years as the leader of a number of small Salvation Army outposts in Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma and Texas. She eventually became the Army’s financial auditor for all its activities in those states.

While living in Oklahoma City in 1940 she married Horace Lincoln Thomas, a Salvation Army officer like herself. A year later she gave birth to her first son, David, in Seminole, Oklahoma, and four years later, she bore her second and last child, Horace Lincoln, in Dallas.

In 1953 her husband became a Presbyterian minister and he and Dorothy served the Lord through his pastorates in Presbyterian churches in Charlotte, North Carolina, Shelbyville, Illinois, Ada, Oklahoma, Sturgis, Michigan, and Detroit, Michigan. They retired to Lakeland, Florida in 1975.

When Horace developed Alzheimer’s disease in 1998 they moved to Temple, TX to be with Horace’s two older sisters, Delia White and Evangeline Fowler. Horace died in 2000 of complications caused by Alzheimer’s disease.

Dorothy leaves behind her two sons, Horace Thomas of Belton and David Thomas of Montebello, California, four grand children: Shawn Thomas of Morgan’s Point, Tanna Braud of Round Rock, Marc Thomas of Los Angeles and Laura Cetilia of Providence, RI. She had two great grandchildren, Miles Thomas of Morgan’s Point and Mara Cetilia of Providence, RI.