Thomas, Lera Millard, 1900-1993

<p>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. She also founded Millard's Crossing Historic Village.</p>

<p>Born Lera Millard August 3, 1900, in Nacogdoches, Texas, she attended Brenau College in Gainesville, Georgia, and the University of Alabama. She married Albert Thomas in 1922. Albert was elected to Congress in 1936, and they lived in Washington, DC after that. Lera was a member of the Houston League of Women Voters. The Thomases had two daughters and a son who died early in childhood, Ann Thomas Lasater, James Thomas and Lera Thomas.</p>

<p>On February 15, 1966, her husband died and a special election was called for March 26, 1966 to elect another Representative. Lera Thomas was the first woman elected to Congress from the State of Texas, when she was elected as a Democrat in the special election to succeed her deceased husband. She received over 74% of the vote against Republican Louis Leman who urged voters to vote for the Widow Thomas. She served on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee where she supported funds to expand the Houston Ship Channel. Thomas did not stop with the Houston Ship Channel, continuing her husband's work she became vital in the creation of a NASA branch within her district, adjacent to other exiting laboratories. Because he died after filing for office in 1966, Albert Thomas's name remained on the Democratic Primary ballot for the 8th District and his widow determined that she would not seek a full term for 1967. State Representative Bob Eckhardt won the primary for a full term. After serving the remainder of her husband's term, Thomas left Congress on January 3, 1967. After her term in Congress, Mrs. Thomas served as special liaison for the <i>Houston Chronicle</i> to members of the armed services in Vietnam.</p>

<p>For more than 30 years, Lera Millard Thomas worked behind the scenes to cultivate the political career of her husband, Albert Thomas, who became one of the most powerful Members in the House. Upon Congressman Thomas’s death in 1966, however, Lera Thomas opted to run for the vacant seat out of a desire to provide continuity for constituents and to further her husband’s political agenda. In her brief nine-month term, Thomas worked on legislation affecting Houston from her Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee seat. A descendant of Texas territory pioneers, Thomas was the state’s first woman to serve in Congress.</p>

<p>Lera Millard was born in Nacogdoches, Texas, on August 3, 1900, the daughter of Jesse Wadlington Millard and Annie Donnell Watkins Millard. She attended Brenau College in Gainesville, Georgia, and the University of Alabama. In 1922 Millard married her high school sweetheart, Albert Thomas. The couple moved from Nacogdoches to Houston, where Albert took a position as assistant U.S. district attorney for the southern district of Texas. The Thomases had three children: Jim, Ann, and Lera.</p>

<p>Originally, Lera Thomas did not want her husband to become involved in politics. But when Jim died at a very young age in 1934 (he was then their only child), the Alberts decided “to throw ourselves completely away from everything that we had done or where we lived or anything like that.” In 1936 Albert left his district attorney post to campaign for a seat in the U.S. House, covering most of Houston, in the 75th Congress (1937–1939). Since radio advertisement time was scarce and prohibitively expensive, Albert and Lera Thomas divided up campaign duties to make the rounds at political events: “He’d go in one direction to picnics and barbeques and I would go in the other direction. Just to meet people.” Lera Thomas frequently debated her husband on political issues to help him sharpen his positions. He “used to say I was his severest critic.” Thomas won election to the House as a Democrat against a longtime popular mayor of Houston. He went on to win 14 consecutive elections after that and became a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee. Beginning in 1949, he chaired the Appropriations Subcommittee on Independent Offices, which eventually controlled funding for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Atomic Energy Commission, among other Cold War appropriations. Congressman Thomas helped make Houston a center for manned space flight operations, often opposed his party on generous foreign aid packages during the Cold War, and was considered an ally of labor unions. Lera Thomas, meanwhile, raised the family in Washington, DC, and often commuted back to Houston for events in the district. Though Albert Thomas’s name was not widely known to the public outside Texas, he worked closely with three Democratic Presidents—Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. At the time of his death in February 1966, the New York Times described him as a “quiet power in the Capitol.”</p>