Thomas, Bertha L., born December 28, 1923.The only child of Willard R. Gause and Lillian McCreary both of Tarpon Springs, passed to the Grand Architect of the Universe on April 2, 2012 peacefully, at her home in St. Petersburg, surrounded by family and friends. “Bert” grew up in Tarpon Springs, and attended Tarpon Springs High School where she met her future husband, Ernest N Thomas also of Tarpon Springs. She moved to St. Petersburg when Willard accepted a position at Florida Power Corp as a dispatch operator. She graduated from St. Petersburg High School in 1941, attended Bixby Business school and was secretary to John W. Biggar Superintendent of the Masonic Home. Bert married “Ernie” in 1942, went to work for Peninsula Telephone as an operator and worked there during WWII. After the war she and Ernie settled down in St. Pete and had one child, a son Dale. For the next seventeen years she engaged in the honorable profession of mother and homemaker. Bertha participated in Cub Scouts, Band Booster, Swim Team Moms, was secretary of the Trianon Club and delivered Meals on Wheels. Bert and Ernie were long time associates of the Telephone Pioneers and the Tarpon Springs Old Timers Association where they still have many friends. They were regular attendants of the monthly get togethers. They enjoyed their later retirement years and traveled about the country visiting friends and seeing the grand sites out West, including the Wild West show in Cody, Yellowstone National Park, Bryce Canyon, the Grand Canyon and many other historic and famous sites. They enjoyed several trips to Germany with German friends from St. Petersburg. One of their last trips was on a cruise ship to Alaska. They talked about the beauty and grandeur of the coast line and of Alaska itself and were so very glad they decided to undertake the adventure. During this time the Thomas family enjoyed bowling, boating, fishing, hunting and most of all…trapshooting. After Willard’s retirement from Florida Power, he helped organize and start the Lealman Rod & Gun Club (later to become “Skyway Gun Club”) in Pinellas Park near Sawgrass Lake. An avid supporter and promoter of Trapshooting, he is considered by some as the “Grandfather of Trapshooting” in Florida. During the startup and early days of the club, Bert was instrumental in organizing fund raisers for the club and entertaining the wives while husbands shot trap and skeet. She was content in these activities until after Dale joined the US Navy in 1966 (a Thomas tradition). After a couple of years practicing and in 1968 she began her career in competitive trapshooting. During the next 28 years she won many State and local events and was twice the Amateur Trapshooters Association Southern Zone Ladies Champion. She shot her last 100 round event in 1996 with a score of 92x100. The “squad” consisted of herself, Ernie, Dale, Anne Pfannkuche and Guillermo “Willy” Ruiz. After smoking the last target, she handed her gun to Dale and exclaimed “I HAVE to do something about these cataracts!” This last event allowed her to have attained a lifetime goal of shooting 100,000 registered 16 yard targets, 57,800 handicap targets and 6,650 doubles targets. This is in addition to the several hundreds of thousands of practice rounds. Bertha was inducted into the prestigious Florida Trapshooters Hall of Fame in 2005. The story of Bertha’s life would not be complete without a brief history of the Gause clan. If nothing else, this illustrates the depth of history of the Gauses and their spouses in Florida. Robert Edwin Gause married Ella Ethelia Campbell in 1896, built their homestead at Wall Springs and had four sons; Harry Weller Gause (born 1897), Willard Robert Gause (born 1899), Roy Campbell Gause (born 1905) and Wallace Peyton Gause (born 1913). Harry married Grace Pritchard and had four children, Roy married Ora Lee Rouse and had two children, Wallace married Cornelia Watson and had three children and Willard married Lillian McCreary and had one child who was Bertha Louise Gause. As of this writing, there are now five generations of Gauses who are Native Floridians. $(document).ready(function(){ });