Josephine Ann Thomas (1934 - 2026)

From The Salt Lake Tribune

Josephine Ann Thomas (AKA Joan Thomas) was born October 1st, 1934 in Inglewood, California. On 29 August 2026 she passed away in her Salt Lake City home after 44 days of hospice (from Trinity Bomb Day to John the Baptist Day). Joan's parents were native Minnesotans and moved the family back when Joan was six, where she grew up with her little sister Laurie (Wyman). "Joey" graduated from the University of Minnesota with a B.A. in Spanish, and is survived by her daughter Anne Craigmyle. She was married thrice, and loved men undergoing psychological distress.

Joan's unique revolutionary love also included mountain hikes and unceasing literature. She was a self-publisher of eight books and two pamphlets (memoirs, folk history and poetry). Her knees and hips couldn't support the hikes in her final 15 years. Her first spouse (Ben) was her childhood best friend. Her second spouse was Salt Lake City's famous Ammon Hennacy, key organizer of the progressive Joe Hill House and Saint Joseph's Refuge in the 1960s. She supported this Catholic Worker house of hospitality for homeless alcoholics and Ammon's other projects until their final closure in 1969. Ammon and Joan have been admired in the Catholic Worker movement since their anarchist marriage in Nevada in 1965.

After Ammon's death (in 1970), Joan moved to Arizona for 50 years, where she and Joseph Craigmyle (another anarcho-pacifist disciple of Ammon) had a daughter Anne, who cared diligently for Joey in her final SLC years. Joe died of cancer in 1982, and Joan "married" another lover, Leon Maclean for 22 years until he died of cancer in 2008.

Joan said, "I've been a writer since I was five years old. It's my vocation." She has become a legendary, saintly figure to numerous friends across the USA.

Joan is featured in the 2005 film, A Peace of the Anarchy: Ammon Hennacy and Other Angelic Troublemakers in the USA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM3N2iDIOF0

Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist, by her second husband, Ammon Hennacy, at the Anarchist Library: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ammon-hennacy-autobiography-of-…

Joan Thomas' papers at University of Utah: https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:80444/xv274134

The Joan Thomas papers (1893-2014) contain personal materials along with prose and poetry. The collection also contains materials related to her relationship with Ammon Hennacy and their focus on pacifism and workers' rights. Included are numerous drawings created by Thomas.
Dates: 1893-2014

Biographical Note

Josephine Ann Thomas was born October 1, 1934 in Inglewood, California. She married Hennacy in 1965 and, after the death of Ammon in 1970, Joan moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Thomas moved to Salt Lake City in 2020, and into the Friendship Manor retirement community in 2021. She was a prolific poet, writer, and artist, best known for her book The Years of Grief and Laughter: A "Biography" of Ammon Hennacy.

Ammon Ashford Hennacy was born July 24, 1893, in Negley, Ohio. He was a member of the Catholic Worker Movement and a Wobbly. He established the "Joe Hill House of Hospitality" in Salt Lake City, Utah and practiced tax resistance. He studied a year each at Ohio State University, Hiram College in Ohio, and University of Wisconsin-Madison. At the outbreak of WWI Hennacy was imprisoned for 2 years in Atlanta, Georgia for resisting conscription. In 1953 he moved to New York and became editor of the Catholic Worker, moving to Utah in 1961. Hennacy died January 14, 1970, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Joan Thomas passed away on August 29, 2026 in her Salt Lake City home at the age of 91.