ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 27, 1994                   TAG: 9401270288
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: HARRISONBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

OBIT-WILSON, THOMAS JAMES III

WILSON, Thomas James III, of Harrisonburg, died Sunday evening, January 23, 1994, at the Rockingham Memorial Hospital, after a brief illness. Mr. Wilson was a fourth generation attorney and retired Federal Bankruptcy Judge. The son of the late State Senator Thomas J. Wilson, Jr. and Virginia F. Sommers Wilson, he was born in Orange County, Va., was graduated from Clifton Forge High School in 1938, and from the Virginia Military Institute in 1942 at the age of nineteen. Judge Wilson served in World War II in the U.S. Army as a Captain from 1942 until 1946 in the Seventh Corps of the First Army Field Artillery in the European Theatre. Following his discharge, he graduated from the University of Virginia Law School in 1948. He then began a private law practice in Harrisonburg. From 1953 until 1958, he served as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia in Roanoke. In 1958, he returned to Harrisonburg where he made his home until his death. He also served as a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge from 1966 until his retirement in 1986. Judge Wilson was a member of the Harrisonburg Elks and Lions Clubs, the Fourth Circuit Judicial Conference, and also the Emmanual Episcopal Church, where he served as a vestryman and warden. He was also a 32nd Degree Mason and was a member of the Rockingham Union Masonic Lodge No. 27 in Harrisonburg. On June 7, 1950, he married the former Margaret Brock, who survives. Also surviving are four children, Thomas James Wilson, IV and Rebecca Wilson, both of Harrisonburg, Carter Wilson of New York City, New York, and Leslie Wilson Pepper of Edmond, Okla. and three grandchildren. Funeral services were held Tuesday afternoon at 2 p.m. from the Emmanuel Episcopal Church with the Rev. W.L. Mengebier and the Rev. John Glover officiating. Burial followed in the Woodbine Cemetery. Those desiring to do so, may make memorial contributions to the American Heart Association or to the American cancer Society in his memory. The Lindsey Harrisonburg Funeral Home is handling funeral arrangements. 


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