Lining the shelves of Midge Thomas’s apartment is an abundance of information about a life well lived. Awards are framed and hung on the entryway walls, and stacks of binders document her endless initiatives. It’s—to say the least—perfectly engrossing. Laura DiCaprio met Thomas for the first time while on assignment for (585) magazine in 2021. While she knew the experience was about to be one of a kind, she was unprepared for just how captivating the moments that followed would be.
What started as an hour-long interview to write an article detailing the impact Thomas has had on the community soon turned into weekends upon weekends of conversations, a lifelong friendship, and DiCaprio’s first book—Letters to Freddie: The Biography of Midge Thomas.
Born and raised in Rochester, Thomas has implemented numerous projects such as the Jane Pittman Drinking Fountain and the Freddie Thomas Foundation, earning her a spot in the National Women’s Hall of Fame and a National Jefferson Award.
The idea for DiCaprio’s article came about through her uncle George—a man who had been friends with Thomas for more than thirty years.
“I had all these questions that I wanted to ask her because of the projects that I knew about from my Uncle George, and she was telling me all these stories of other things she did—I wasn’t prepared for it,” DiCaprio says. “I didn’t know that she had done ninety percent of what she did, and so I was really inspired coming out of that interview and thinking, ‘Wow, I could have done so much more with this if I had known ahead of time what she had done.’”
Ninety-five years old at the time, Thomas had more to say, and DiCaprio wanted to listen. After thinking about it for a couple of months, she decided she wanted to write Thomas’s biography. The two got together for breakfast, and she popped the question. Thomas was pleasantly surprised.
“I was shocked,” Thomas says. “I had all these portfolios, and she had to unscramble them. The things I did were things I had to do; they were not for any accolades; they were things that were very close to me. I wanted to help people. “
Throughout Thomas’s lifetime, she wrote letters to her late husband, civil activist Dr. Freddie Thomas. Even after he passed away, she would write to him, sharing her projects and initiatives as a way of feeling connected to him. Letters to Freddie not only details how the activist dedicated her life to improving Rochester in honor and memory of her husband, but it also narrates the stories of their love through the lines of those heartfelt letters.
“I didn’t expect it to be a book or anything—it was my therapy. It was for me, and it’s very personal, but it’s historical too,” Thomas says.
The letters soon became the essence of the book. Each chapter begins with a letter and then discusses the period of time that it correlates with in Thomas’s life.
“I remember standing in my office and going through a binder that she gave me and finding this manila envelope. I opened it up, and there were all these letters that were so beautifully written—the idea to structure it that way came to me right away,” says DiCaprio.
Writing letters and recording information was something Thomas had been doing for years, which helped make the writing process easy for DiCaprio. They met face-to-face every Saturday morning for about eight months.
“She was a hoarder of her own information but in a good way,” DiCaprio says. “Every time I would come over, she would hand me a binder, a folder of newspaper articles, awards she had won, or letters she had written or people had written to her. I would go through everything, organize it, and then pull out quotes or the most important pieces of information and put those into my chapters. Then I would write around that information and reach out to people for comments.”
Now ninety-seven, Thomas doesn’t plan on slowing down anytime soon, as she continues to add to her long list of accolades.
“Right now, I’m improving the street— it’s my project. Those flowerpots, that bench, I just put those there two weeks ago. We’re getting a new banner for the light posts. I have a friend at Downtown ROCSs! named Michael Gilbert, and he wants to put solar lights in the trees. So, we’re making this area friendlier. And I have musicians here every Friday in the summer for a jazz jam. I put chairs out and have refreshments, and it’s free.”
DiCaprio continues jokingly, “She’s doing so much stuff. Every time I would come over, she’d say ‘Oh wait, there’s something else, oh wait, I did this, oh, I’m getting this award.’ And towards the end I was like ‘Midge, you got to stop you can’t do anything else because I’m done, I can’t fit anything else in this book.’”
Just as Thomas was drawn to these projects, DiCaprio felt compelled to tell her story. She received grants from Panther Graphics, Inc., Panther Solutions LLC, and Flower City Group, Inc., which helped her self-publish.
“I felt like I had to write her book,” DiCaprio says. “There was so much that she has done that needed to be chronicled in one place—that needed to be saved somewhere. And just how she gave her life to volunteering and giving back to people, all the proceeds from the book are going to be donated to Downtown ROCS!, an organization that works on beautification projects for Rochester—Midge chose that as her charity of choice. All the money from the book sales will go right back into Rochester.”
Thomas continues, “I’d like for people to focus on the message, not that this is one person who’s doing something, but to focus on what they can do. I want to encourage people to be involved in whatever their heart tells them. Make the day count. Carry the torch.”
Read more about Thomas in DiCaprio’s January 2022 (585) article, “A creative visionary” at 585mag.com.
