Louie Thomason

Louie Roach Thomason died peacefully at her home in Dalton on September 14, two weeks short of her 102nd birthday. One of ten children in a farm family, she began her life journey in the Mill Creek Community of Whitfield County on September 27, 1910. She spent her later childhood in the Five Springs Community. She attended Dalton High School and graduated from Central High School in Chattanooga. After a summer course for teachers at Georgia State College for Women in Milledgeville, she taught alongside her first cousin at a one-room schoolhouse in the Mill Creek area.
On April 9, 1933, she married A. Troy Thomason and, when their first child was born the next year, became a full-time mother and homemaker. In the late 1930s, they opened a dry goods store, Thomason & Company, on South Hamilton Street in downtown Dalton, and together operated a successful business in the same location for almost fifty years.
Descended from large pioneer families who moved to Whitfield County before the Civil War, she valued family and enjoyed relationships with numerous relatives still living in the area. She was a member of Dalton’s First United Methodist Church for more than seventy years.
She is preceded in death by her husband of sixty-two years, A. Troy Thomason; parents, Hilly and Parizade Griffin Roach; daughter-in-law, Rose Shearouse Thomason; sisters, Flossye Orr, Estelle Helton, Olera Wade, Laura Burns, and Vinnie Roach; and brothers, Burns Roach, Irvine Roach, and H.G. Roach.
She is survived by her daughter, Helen Thomason of Dalton; son, Robert Thomason of St. Johns, Florida; sister, Ivan Strain of Dalton; sister-in-law, Willie Mae Ward of Lafayette; grandsons, Mark Thomason (Jill) of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and Bryan Thomason (Laura) of Flower Mound, Texas; six great-granddaughters and one great-grandson; nieces and nephews. She is also survived by four loving caregivers, Freda Boring, Amanda Benson, Kristen Satterfield, and Linda Hicks, who, with the assistance of Heartlite Hospice Care, blessed the final months of her life.
A memorial service to celebrate her life will be held on Monday at 2:00 p.m.at Love Funeral Home. The Rev. Queon Smith of Trion will officiate. The family will receive friends for an hour before the service. Cremains will be buried in the family plot in West Hill Cemetery at a private service.
In lieu of flowers memorial gifts may be made to DOCUP, c/o Dalton First United Methodist Church, 500 South Thornton Avenue, Dalton, Georgia 30720.
Words of comfort may be sent to the family at www.lovefuneralhomega.com.
Love Funeral Home, 1402 N. Thornton Ave., Dalton (across from Hamilton Medical Center) is in charge of arrangements.