Althea Gilhooly Thoms

After a full life of 100 years Althea Gilhooly Thoms died peacefully Monday, May 16, 2022, surrounded by her family. Known as Babs to her friends, she was born on May 5, 1922 in Jersey City and lived in St. Paul’s Parish, Greenville all her life until moving to Bayonne several years ago.  A proud 1940 graduate of St. Dominic Academy, Althea worked as a young woman at Western Electric in Kearny where she met her husband of 55 years, Gerard Patrick Thoms, at a lunch time dance in 1942. They both loved Big Band music and dancing in their youth and did the Lindy Hop at Jenkinson’s Pavilion on the Boardwalk in Point Pleasant, Frank Dailey’s Meadowbrook in Cedar Grove, and many Manhattan ballrooms.

Althea is survived by her daughters and sons-in-law, Susan Jean Thoms of Toms River, Patrice Thoms-Cappello (Joseph) of Galisteo, New Mexico, and Kathleen Thoms-Bauer (John) of Bayonne with whom she lived. Immediate survivors also include her beloved grandsons, Donal and Timothy Thoms-Cappello (Meredith Kirsch) and Christopher and Patrick Thoms-Bauer to whom she was always just Nana. Preceded in death by her parents, Mary (nee: Conroy) and Laurence Joseph Gilhooly, husband Gerard, brother Gilbert Laurence Gilhooly, she was the last of more than a dozen first cousins who all began their lives in Jersey City.

Althea spent her professional life as an administrative assistant in Manhattan at the Ford Motor Land Development Corporation, Purolator-Courier and other firms before retirement.  In a long life filled with cherished memories of families and friends, Althea never forgot her beloved dogs from the first toy poodle at six to her last beloved black Labrador at 86. After that time, she doted on her family’s cats and dogs including Tyche, the last black lab with whom she lived. Although she loved travel and had visited Canada, Ireland, France and Disney World with her family, Althea really loved the Big Apple best for the theater, dining, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Christmas windows, tree lightings at Rockefeller Center, and, of course, for shopping (especially hats).

Please come join us for a celebration of her life from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 pm on Monday, May 30th at Bayonne Memorial Home at 854 Avenue C, and on Tuesday, May 31st at 10:00 a.m. for a Mass of the Resurrection at Blessed Miriam Teresa Parish at St. Andrew’s at 125 Broadway, in Bayonne, NJ.  Interment will follow at Holy Cross Cemetery, North Arlington, NJ.

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