O'Donnell, Thomas C. (Thomas Clay), 1881-1962

Thomas Clay O'Donnell (1881-1962) was an American magazine editor and author of books on upstate New York history and folklore.

Born on 29 July 1881 in a lumber camp near Saginaw, Michigan to George and Vesta O'Donnell, he received his early education in Vestaburg, Michigan, and later attended a business college in London, England, where he married another Michigander, Bertha May Smith, in 1905.

After returning to the United States, he lived from 1909-1919 in Battle Creek, Michigan where he taught at Battle Creek College before beginning his varied career as a magazine editor at Good Health, a magazine of the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Later he edited Cartoons magazine in Chicago. From 1923 to 1927 he was editor of The Writer's Digest in Cincinnati, where he also wrote and produced for radio station WLW, the Crosley Radio Corporation station there. An active Freemason for most of his life, he was for many years the editor of the monthly New York Masonic Outlook for the Grand Lodge of Masons of the State of New York. He edited the magazines Outing and Wayside Tales as well. From 1943 to 1945 he was production manager of Robert M. McBride & Company, publishers in New York City.

During his retirement, first in Boonville, New York, and then in Winter Park, Florida, O'Donnell wrote on the history of upstate New York. The publication in 1948 of The Sapbush Run: An Informal History of the Black River & Utica Railroad was followed by Snubbing Posts: An Informal History of the Black River Canal (1949) and Tip of the Hill: An Informal History of the Fairfield Academy and the Fairfield Medical College (1953). Of an intended trilogy on the history of the Black River, two books were completed: Birth of a River: An Informal History of the Headwaters of the Black River (1952) and The River Rolls On: A History of the Black River from Port Leyden to Carthage (1959).

His other works include several children's books, The Ladder of Rickety Rungs (1923) and The "Tell Me Again" Bible (1936), as well as plays for children and children's verse. Among his writings on the home are the books The Family Food (1911), A Garden for You (editor, 1946), and The Healthful House (1917, written with Lionel Robertson). O'Donnell wrote under numerous pseudonyms, including James Radley. He died at the Masonic Home in Utica, New York, on 11 November 1962, survived by his wife of 57 years and three children.

From the guide to the Thomas Clay O'Donnell Papers, 1900-1962, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)