Oliver Milton "O.M." Thomason

Birth:  

Family Information: He married Aldena Carlson in April 1937 and left the colony soon afterward.  

Description:  

Pre-Colony History: He had been in the colony briefly, but then left at some point and returned around 1935.  

Home in Colony:  

Job in Colony: In 1937 he had been in the colony for the past couple years and often wrote editorials for the Llano Colonist, including a column titled "Things I Think I Think".  

Other Info: In September 1935 Editor Thomason at the wheel of his trusty Nash, accompanied by Walter W. Robison, chief of the print shop layout, traveled to New Orleans to bring back Dan Gay, a press-man to help in the newspaper plant.

By 10am the next day they were in New Orleans and had broken the new to Dan and his wife and son, Frankey, after which the two "took in the town," including Canal Street and the historic old French quarters; looked longingly towards Lake Pontchartrain, but decided to "find other stimulating liquids."

By noon next day Dan was packed and the Nash headed West by North towards Baton Rouge over Huey Long's paved highway. Dan and Frankey fell asleep in the back seat.

Walter in his role as guide, "guided 'em all over Central Louisiana, by way of country roads, by-ways and bywords. After having traveled far enough to have reached Kansas City... lo, a light ahead. De Ridder! They had not intended to come out at De Ridder, but was glad they did."

In 1936 he helped fight a grass fire that started east of the colony in the early afternoon. A bunch of boys had gone out and extinguished it, or so they thought, but it broke out again and destroyed part of the fence around the Kid Kolony tract. It spread eastward, burned the fence around Fortell's place and threatened the house. Coak, Thomason and Ware managed to put it out before that catastrophe.  

Post-Colony History: In May 1937 he and his wife left the colony.

In 1949 he was a contributing editor for "The Searchlight" (A Journal of Fundamental Democracy) printed in San Francisco, California.

Death:  

Sources: "Llano Colonist": September 14, 1935, February 1, 1936, April 17, 1937, May 22, 1937; "The Searchlight": September/October 1949