Robert McGill Thomas Jr. (May 9, 1939 – January 6, 2000) was an American journalist. He worked for many years at ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', and was best known for the obituaries he wrote for that newspaper.

Early life

Thomas was born in

Shelbyville, Tennessee Shelbyville is a city in and the county seat of Bedford County, Tennessee, United States. The town was laid out in 1810 and incorporated in 1819. Shelbyville had a population of 20,335 residents at the 2010 census. The town is a hub of the Tenness ...

on May 9, 1939. He was distantly related to

Estes Kefauver Carey Estes Kefauver (; July 26, 1903 – August 10, 1963) was an American politician from Tennessee. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1939 to 1949 and in the Senate from 1949 until his d ...

, a U.S. Senator from Tennessee who was the Democratic candidate for vice president in the 1956 presidential election. Thomas attended

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

but dropped out, and joined the ''Times'' as a copy boy in 1959.

Career

Writing under the name Robert McG. Thomas, Thomas covered a variety of subjects at the ''New York Times'' as a reporter, though he gained particular attention for his obituaries. More than thirty of his obituaries were published in the 1997

anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically categ ...

, ''The Last Word''. After his death, a larger collection of Thomas' obituaries was published in 2001 as ''52 McGs.: The Best Obituaries from Legendary New York Times Reporter Robert McG. Thomas''. The author of a starred '' Kirkus Review'' of ''52 McGs'' wrote, "For the last half of the 1990s, readers of the ''New York Times'' could be excused if they searched out Thomas's work before they bothered with the front-page lead. Known as 'McGs.'—after the veteran reporter's middle name—these little beauties celebrated the unsung, the queer, the unpretentious, the low-rent."

Michael T. Kaufman Michael Tyler Kaufman (March 23, 1938 – January 15, 2010) was an American author and journalist known for his work at ''The New York Times''. He won the 1978 George Polk Award in foreign reporting for his coverage of Africa and was a recipient ...

, writing in Thomas's own ''New York Times'' obituary, said that he "extended the possibilities of the conventional obituary form, shaking the dust from one of the most neglected areas of daily journalism".

Personal life and death

Thomas and his wife, Joan, had twin sons. They lived between Manhattan and a vacation home in

Rehoboth Beach, Delaware Rehoboth Beach ( ) is a city on the Atlantic Ocean along the Delaware Beaches in eastern Sussex County, Delaware. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the population was 1,327, reflecting a decline of 161 (11.2%) from the 1,488 counted in the 2000 ce ...

, where he died from

abdominal cancer Stomach cancer, also known as gastric cancer, is a cancer that develops from the lining of the stomach. Most cases of stomach cancers are gastric carcinomas, which can be divided into a number of subtypes, including gastric adenocarcinomas. Lymph ...

on January 6, 2000, aged 60.

References

1939 births 2000 deaths 20th-century American journalists 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American writers American male journalists Deaths from cancer in Delaware Deaths from stomach cancer Journalists from Tennessee Obituary writers People from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware People from Shelbyville, Tennessee The New York Times writers Webb School (Bell Buckle, Tennessee) alumni Writers from Manhattan {{US-journalist-1930s-stub