Lula Thomas
By Ron Hayes
BOCA RATON — When she was named its 2011 Woman Volunteer of the Year by the Junior League of Boca Raton, Lula Thomas told The Coastal Star what she thought about growing old.
“Your age is just two numbers put together,” she said then. “I think it’s the spirit. Keep your thoughts right, and it doesn’t matter how old you are.”
Mrs. Thomas died Nov. 21. She was 86 and left behind one daughter, four granddaughters, five great-grandchildren and a long list of local institutions that benefited from her tireless service.
“I get up in the morning and I put on my clothes and my hose and my high heels, and I leave the house,” she said.
And then she might go to the Boca Museum or the Philharmonic, Planned Parenthood, the Red Cross, the FAU Library Group or the Caldwell Theatre. In the 1980s, she was named a “Legend of Boca” by the Boca Raton Historical Society and a life member of the Boca Raton Regional Hospital’s Debbie-Rand Service League.
In addition, she was a member of the Silver Palm Garden Club, the Southern Dames of America, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Music Guild of Boca Raton and the Center for Spiritual Living. “Lula was an inspiration to me as a volunteer,” said Debbie Abrams, who succeeded her as the Junior League’s 2012 Volunteer Woman of the Year.
“Her many years of quiet, committed service to our community made her the perfect person to win in 2011.” Born Lula Culpepper on Dec. 16, 1925, in Rocky Mount, N.C., she was the second of 10 children. She came to Boca Raton in 1974 with her husband, Vernon “Pat” Thomas, whom she married when she was 16.
Following his death in the late 1990s, she became even more involved in volunteerism. In recent years, she was a greeter at both the Boca Raton Police Department and the Historical Society Museum, where Director Mary Czar was astonished by her energy and charm.
“Lula just had a knack for dealing with people and making them comfortable,” Czar said. “When we nominated her for Woman of the Year, she came back to me with six or eight pages, handwritten front and back, of all the things she did, and it looked like a history of Boca Raton.”
Mrs. Thomas is survived by her daughter, Francis Marion Lowry; granddaughters Manya, Shannon, Kim and Ginger; and great-grandchildren Sonny, Stella, Sloan, Mac and Savannah.
A celebration of her life was held Dec. 6 at the Center for Spiritual Living.
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