Will Thomas Home Assembly, KS

Will Thomas was born in Wales, and was saved and introduced to the assemblies there at the age of 20. He soon was invited to join an assembly-founded group of itinerant evangelists called the Pilgrim Preachers, and eventually emigrated to Perry, Kansas, where he was involved in leadership with Perry Gospel Hall, a sizable assembly there. After Will's death, his widow raised their two daughters back in Perry.

First Wichita Assembly

Will Thomas married Margaret E. Bradford (1899-1985) around 1928 and lived at 702 E. Boston, Wichita, Kansas with their two daughters, and started the first Open Brethren assembly in the Wichita area that year in their home, which lasted until around 1931 when they moved back to their farm in Perry, Kansas due to failing health, dying later that year, when daughter Charlotte was two, and Florence was one.

Others in the assembly remembered by daughter Florence Wakefield include Mrs. Shea and her son Vincent.

Florence remembers Dean Jensen visiting their family farm in the 1940's to advise her mother that the remaining Wichita assembly that her late husband had started, had acquired a building and was then known as East Kellogg.

Margaret E. Bradford Thomas

Margaret was a descendant of William Bradford, who emigrated on the Mayflower. She was born in 1899 to Charles Oliver Bradford and Anna L. Bradford. She taught school for nineteen years in Perry, Kansas, and moved to Lawrence in 1964, where she was involved at Lawrence Bible Chapel, where after her death, Ron Nadvornik and John Scollon officiated her memorial.

Margaret Bradford Thomas' siblings

Margaret had several siblings, who were raised at the Perry Gospel Hall:

• Robert Bailey Bradford (1898-1918)
• William Alonzo Bradford (1902-1956)
• Paul Bradford
• Donald Irving Bradford (1910-1983) died Topeka, KS.
• Mary Gladys Bradford Walterick (b. 1914) was engaged to Vincent Shea, of her brother-in-law William's house assembly in Wichita (1928-1931), which ended. She then married a soldier who died (two years into their marriage) in the Battle of Viny Ridge. She then married Lloyd Walterick, founder of the Brethren publisher of the assembly address book.

Will's Siblings

Will was the youngest of seven children (from eldest to youngest):

• Morgan William Thomas (1880-1944) married Gertrude Selina Vincent (b. 1883) around 1909 in Wales, and was employed in the early 1910's as a substitute postmaster and grocer in Nantgarw, Glamorgan Wales. Later he served as a "clerk in holy orders" at Oxford in the late 1930's, also referred to as "Reverend" at time of death as at the Vicarage East Garston, near Newbury, Berkshire, England.
• Henry William Thomas (b. 1881)
• Garnet E. Thomas (1882-1940), just before his death was living in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England, employed as a Prinester of Religion. He married Winifred Mary Greenway (b. 1887), and had at least one daughter Enid M. Thomas (1919-1997), who married Ernest J. Rowe.
• Gordon Hugh Thomas (1885-1941) lived in Brooklyn, NY, then Garden City, NY then died in Mineola, NY. He married Sarah Ann (b. 1891 Wales), and they had one son, Aneurin Hugh Thomas (1914-1975), who served as a T3 in the U.S. Army during WWII, & one daughter, Dilys (b. 1921)
• Margaret Ann Thomas (1887-) married Joseph Lewis James (1884-1954), a wholesale milk contractor.
• Abraham "Ernest" Thomas (1889-1980) and his wife Bertha Mary Squire Thomas (1892-1969) emigrated in 1926 to Brooklyn, and later lived in New York City. Bertha was raised in England. They had one son, Leslie S. Thomas (1918-1984)

Will Thomas' Ancestry

Will Thomas born in 1891 in Pontypridd, Glamorgan, Wales to Hugh William Thomas and his wife Margaret A. Thomas.

Hugh William Thomas b. 1852

Hugh was born around 1852 in Aberdare, also in Glamorgan Wales to Morgan William Thomas & Mary Thomas. ===Morgan William Thomas=== Morgan was also born in Aberdare, the son of William & Mary (b. 1802) Thomas.

William Thomas b. 1781

William was born in Kill Cwm, Carmarthenshire, Wales.

Sources

• Ancestry.com
• Florence Wakefield intervews 2019