Thomas, Lera Millard, 1900-1993

Lera Millard Thomas (August 3, 1900 – July 23, 1993) was an American politician who served as U.S. Representative in Congress representing the Eighth District of Texas from 1966 to 1967, after the death of her husband, Congressman Albert Thomas. She was the first woman to represent Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives. After leaving Congress, she founded Millard's Crossing Historic Village.

Born Lera Millard in Nacogdoches, Texas, she attended Brenau College in Gainesville, Georgia, and the University of Alabama before marrying Albert Thomas in 1922. The couple moved from Nacogdoches to Houston, where Albert took a position as assistant U.S. district attorney for the southern district of Texas. Albert was elected to the first of his fifteen terms in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1936. Lera Thomas raised their family in Washington, DC, and often commuted back to Houston for events in the district. Her husband served in the House until his death in February 1966.

Days after Albert Thomas died from cancer, district party leaders asked Lera Thomas to run for her husband’s vacant seat, and she agreed to accept the nomination. In the March 26, 1966, special election, Thomas won with more than 74 percent of the vote against Republican Louis Leman, who himself had encouraged voters to go to the polls for the widow Thomas. Constituents identified with the Thomas name and seemed inclined to believe that Lera Thomas would carry on in her husband’s tradition. Sworn in on March 30, 1966, her principal legislative task was to further the support her husband had gained for the space program and other economic interests of the urban Texas district. Thomas petitioned Congress to appropriate funds for the construction of NASA’s lunar sample receiving laboratory in Houston. In late 1966, she traveled to Vietnam as a Member and, after the expiration of her term on January 3, 1967, continued on as a journalist to gain an understanding of the prospects of victory in the war.

After returning to Washington in February 1967, Thomas served for six months as a consultant in the Vietnam Bureau of the U.S. State Department’s Agency for International Development. She eventually returned to Texas and managed the family farm and an antique shop. One of Thomas’s legacies was her part in the establishment of the Millard Crossing Historical Center on the north side of Nacogdoches, culminating years of work to preserve buildings and structures dating from the pioneer days of Texas to the Victorian Era. Lera Thomas died of cancer on July 23, 1993, in her hometown of Nacogdoches.