Early return from Dallas put 74-year-old man in path of disaster

In August, Carol and Larry Thomas celebrated their 50th anniversary and renewed their vows in a ceremony on the banks of the Blanco River, outside their home in Wimberley.

Nine months later, the couple found themselves struggling to hold on to the gutters of the house as surging floodwaters pulled them downstream. Carol, 71, managed to hang on by clinging to a satellite dish. She watched as her husband, who is 74 and had been debilitated by strokes and a heart attack, was swept away Saturday night.

“The ceremony was on the side of the river, right where he left us,” said their daughter Tracy Hayworth, 45. “That’s where they planned on staying forever. They always liked the Hill Country.”

Larry Thomas’ body was found Sunday in San Marcos. It was the first body discovered following the historic flood that tore through Blanco, Wimberley, San Marcos and Luling, but officials didn’t identify it as Thomas’ until Wednesday. Five bodies have been recovered so far along the Blanco River.

Tragically, the couple nearly evaded the disaster. They had been in Dallas the week before to meet their newborn grandson Leo, who is their daughter Carrie Schilling’s son. They returned a day early because Larry Thomas wasn’t feeling well. As a result, neighbors may have thought they were still away when they sought higher ground as the water rose.

“Mom and dad were up in Dallas visiting the new baby and they came home a day early,” Hayworth said. “They weren’t supposed to be home.”

A descendant of James Butler Bonham, who died in the Alamo, Dayton Larry Thomas grew up in McCallen area and spent his summers picking cotton on the family’s South Texas farm, his daughter said.

He went to Lamar University in Beaumont and met his future wife at a party while they were both students. After school, he worked at the Henry S. Miller commercial real estate firm.

The job transferred him to Dallas, where the couple would raise their three kids and Thomas would found his own real estate firm, Equity Management Corporation. He became president of the Texas Apartment Association, which required many lobbying trips to Austin, and an officer for the Institute for Real Estate Management.

After Thomas retired, the couple moved to Wimberley in 1996.

A GoFundMe.com account for Carol Thomas, who is a teacher at the Pathways School in Dripping Springs, has raised about $50,000.