Thomas John Thomas came to Wayne County, Nebraska, in 1887 and lived in the Carroll, Wayne County, Nebraska vicinity the remainder of his life. He farmed there until the year of his retirement in 1937. He passed away on November 3, 1957, at the age of 91. Thomas was born on January 21, 1866, in Tynewydd Llandilo, Carmarthenshire, South Wales. He was a son of an innkeeper who was well known for his trout dinners. His parents, William and Anne (Williams) Thomas were Welsh. His parents died at an early age. His mother, Anne, was stricken with tuberculosis, and his father with Bright's disease. In those days it was believed that tuberculosis was contagious, so all the children were sent in separate directions to live with different relatives. Thomas's father, William, remarried but died 4.5 years after his first wife died. Thomas was one of either 5 or 6 children. His mother, Anne, died in 1868 when Thomas was only 2 years old. His father, William, died in 1872 when he was about 7 years old. Thomas was raised by his grandparents, John and Sarah Thomas. His grandfather was a farmer who was born in 1810 and died on 10/25/1891 at the age of 81 years. His siblings were Mary, Anne, William, David, and a sibling that little is known about named Bufford. Thomas went into the mines to work at 12 years of age. At home his job was to feed the pigs. He had to cook beets to feed the pigs and so until the day he died, he refused to eat beets. When Thomas was 19 years old, he came to America on a vessel named Germanic. He was sent over in the custody of 2 New York businessmen. This was a custom when one left a foreign country to come to America at a young age. When the ship docked at Liverpool, New York, it was 8/8/1885, the day also of General Ulysses S. Grant's funeral procession. Only a few passengers were allowed off the ship that day. Thomas was one of those allowed to leave because he was in the custody of the 2 businessmen. His port number was 987 and he was the 267th passenger listed. Thomas's brother, William, came to the United States 2 years ahead of him. His brother first settled in Red Oak, Iowa. Later William moved to California. Thomas never heard from his brother after the San Francisco earthquake in April 1906. When Thomas arrived in the states he joined his brother, William, in Red Oak, Iowa in 1887. Thomas moved to the Carroll, Wayne County, Nebraska area on 1/12/1888, the day of the great blizzard. Thomas worked on the Wadsworth Ranch, located 6 miles west and 1 mile south of Carroll. Soon Thomas added the initial J. to his name because of mail mix-up with other similar names. Probably he selected the initial J. after his grandfather, John, who had raised him until he was a young man. He was nicknamed "Tom-Tom", T.J., and one close neighbor chose to call him "Tom-Tom, Tom-Tom" twice. His family knew him as Taid, which is a Welsh name for grandfather. On 2/25/1891 he married Sarah A. Davis who was born on 10/26/1872 in Tyrhos, Gallia County, Ohio. Her parents, Jenkin T. and Mary (Davis) Davis were also of Welsh descent and were well-known and well liked in the community and the church. After Thomas married Sarah, they purchased and lived on what was known as the Rudy Valasak farm west of Carroll, Nebraska. This is where five of their children were born -- Anna Mae (Thomas) Morris, Alfred Thomas, Della (Thomas) Baker, Daniel Thomas and David Thomas. In the spring of 1908, they moved to what was known as the Lizzie Anderson Farm. Here two more sons were born, Wayne Thomas and Lloyd Thomas. These two farms and the 80 acres across the road, north, were later purchased by his son Alfred Thomas. Alfred lived at this location until near the end of his life when he moved to Norfolk, Madison County, Nebraska to a retirement home. Sarah died at the early age of 53 on 6/8/1926. She had stepped on a rusty nail while working near the incubator and died the day after. This caused an infection and thus fatal blood poisoning. The Carroll community was in shock. For a short period of time, Wayne Thomas and his wife, Hilda (Bruggeman), lived with Thomas and helped him farm. The time frame of this was around the early 1930s. Also, in the year 1936, his granddaughter Tillie (Morris) Jones and her new husband, Lemuel Jones, worked for him. In 1937, Thomas sold the farm. He lost his land and the farm during the great depression. He lived his remaining years with his daughter Anna Mae (Thomas) Morris and her husband Edwal Morris. The last few months of his life were spent in a retirement home in Norfolk, Nebraska, where he passed away and then was buried at the Bethany Presbyterian church Cemetery in rural Carroll, Wayne County, Nebraska. Thomas and Sarah were both affiliated with the Bethany Presbyterian Church, a country church southwest of Carroll, Nebraska. Their oldest child, Anna Mae (Thomas) Morris, was the first baby to be baptized in the early church, and her son, Wendel, was the first baby to be baptized in the present church. Alfred Thomas, second child and first son of Thomas J. Thomas and Sarah (Davis) Thomas, is credited with much of the information about his parents' lives.