Papers of Maryalice Secoy Thoma, 1903-1951

Maryalice Secoy Cobb Thoma was born September 17, 1900, the daughter of Car1 and Robin (Shortt) Secoy. She was graduated from Hartford High School in 1918 and from Radcliffe June, 1923, class of 1922. At Radcliffe her main extra-curricular interest was in theater and she acted in and coached many Idler productions, and appeared in a number of Harvard Dramatic Club productions, 1919-1922. After college Thoma became a secretary in a Brookline private school, then managed a bookstore in Cambridge. She was twice married: to Farrar McMurray Cobb, on June 27 1925 and to Henry F. Thoma, October 1, 1928. She worked briefly at the Harvard Business School as editor and grader, and during the war worked for the War Production Board in Washington as assistant to the Director of Civilian Defense.

Her interest in the theater revived in the fifties and she became active in the Lincoln Players and the Concord Players. As a volunteer at the Veteran's Hospital in Bedford, she did broadcasts and entertainments with talented patients. For this she received a certificate of outstanding service in 1954. From 1957 until 1969 she was head librarian at the Lincoln Public Library, and in 1962 accepted the Dorothy Canfield Fisher award for the small library which has shown the most improvement in growth in circulation and in services for the townspeople. After her retirement, Thoma continued to live in Lincoln until she moved in 1976 to Lincoln Woods. Her final years were spent in the Walden Nursing Home in Concord.