2006
Ella Cooper Thomas, 91, a retired law reporter and editor with the U.S. Tax Court, died Aug. 23 of congestive heart failure at the
Windsor Oaks assisted living facility in Bradenton, Fla. A former Potomac resident, she had lived in Florida since 1975.
Mrs. Thomas was born in Fort Totten, Long Island, N.Y., and graduated from Western High School in the District in 1932. She
attended Vassar College and the University of Hawaii and then received her undergraduate degree from George Washington
University in 1937. She received her law degree from GWU in 1940.
In 1941-42, she was the secret maps custodian for U.S. District Engineers in Honolulu, responsible for protecting maps and
properly destroying them if the Japanese invaded Hawaii after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
When she moved back to the District, she was a contributing associate editor of Labor Relations Reporter for less than a year
and then become an associate attorney with Smith, Ristig and Smith, a tax law firm. In 1947, she became a librarian at GWU's
law library.
In 1953, she joined the U.S. Tax Court as an attorney editor and assistant reporter. She was promoted the next year to reporter of
decisions, a position she held until her retirement in 1975. Her tenure as reporter of decisions, a position that put her in charge
of publications about the court's rulings, remains the longest anyone has held that position at the court.
Mrs. Thomas was a member of various professional organizations as well as Daughters of the American Revolution, Army and
Navy Chapter; the Vassar Alumni Club; and the Capitol Hill Club.
Mrs. Thomas's husband, Robert E. Lee Thomas Sr., died in 1985.
Survivors include a son, Robert E.L. Thomas Jr. of the District; a sister, Caroline C. Wills of Melbourne, Fla.; two brothers,
Kenneth Cooper, also of Melbourne, and Richmond Cooper of Alexandria; and two grandchildren.