Marcella Thum

11 July 2002

Marcella Thum, an award-winning author and librarian, died Thursday (July 11, 2002) of lymphoma at St. Mary's Health Center. She was 77 and lived in Affton. Miss Thum wrote more than 20 books, both fiction and nonfiction, on various subjects. For her first book, "The Mystery at Crane's Landing," she received an Edgar Award for best juvenile work from the Mystery Writers of America in 1965. Her nonfiction work, "Exploring Black America," was a guide to points of interest for African-Americans in 1975. For that, she received a Notable Children's Book Award from the American Library Association. She updated it in 1991, and it was published as "A Guide to Black America." She also collaborated with her sister, Gladys, on several nonfiction books, including "Exploring Military America," which pointed out battlefields and museums of interest, in 1982. Born in St. Louis, Miss Thum earned a bachelor's degree from Washington University and a master's degree in library science from the University of California at Berkeley. Throughout the 1950s, she worked as a librarian and writer for the Air Force and was stationed in South Korea, Germany, Hawaii and Okinawa and at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. With her love of traveling and her experience living abroad, she was able to set a few novels in exotic locales. She wrote "Mistress of Paradise" about the takeover of Hawaii by the United States, and "Thorn Trees," which was set in Kenya in World War I. "When she wrote her stories, she always wanted to teach the history in a way that would be interesting so people would learn," said her niece, Marilee Gilmore. "She always took the underdog side. She educated people, in a gentle way, to see the other side." She wrote primarily in her spare time. After working for the government, she became librarian at Affton High School in the early 1960s. She later was a librarian at St. Louis Community College at Meramec. She was honored as a Distinguished St. Louisan at Cupples House at St. Louis University and by the Missouri Writers Guild. Although she received numerous accolades, Miss Thum did not boast about her accomplishments. "She was very humble; nobody would guess that she was such a great writer," Gilmore said. Years ago, she was active in the St. Louis chapter of Romance Writers of America and several area writers clubs. She was a member of the Rose Society at the Missouri Botanical Garden, the Mount Tabor United Church of Christ and the American Library Association. She is interred with her sister, Gladys (1920-2005). *Goodreads