Electra Dianetta (Ward) Nicks (1916 - 2003)

Born 16 Jul 1916 in Sackville, Westmorland, New Brunswick, Canada

Ancestors

Wife of George Eugene Nicks — married 18 Sep 1948 in Pawling, Dutchess, New York, United States

Died 28 Apr 2003 at age 86 in Pawling, Dutchess, New York, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Jeffrey Ward [send private message]

Biography

She was the long-time secretary of American writer and broadcaster Lowell Thomas.

From the New York Times, Feb 27, 1983: POSTINGS; A PLUM IN PAWLING

World traveler that he was, Lowell Thomas nevertheless had a constant home base on Quaker Hill in Pawling, N.Y., from 1926 until his death in 1981. The broadcast journalist began with a 32-room house and 80 acres, which he acquired with a $1,000 down payment.

At one time, his estate on Quaker Hill totaled 3,000 acres, but he parceled it out to friends like the Rev. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, former Gov. Thomas E. Dewey and Dr. Howard A. Rusk, the rehabilitative-medicine specialist. During his years there, he built a community house, a golf course and a ski slope - he was a passionate skier - and even had the local church moved to what he felt was a better spot.

But it was not until after he said his final So long until tomorrow in 1976 that he selected a 40-acre site on one of the highest points in the area to build his retirement home, called Main Top. A three-story brick Georgian house with a columned entry, it has 15 rooms, including a theater and projection rooms, wine cellar, paneled library with intricately carved molding, numerous fireplaces and a widow's walk from which, Mr. Thomas said, he could see five states. According to Electra Nicks, his secretary, he did not have time in the year he lived there before his death to complete the kind of landscaping that the house deserved.

His estate is now up for sale for an asking price of $2.25 million. The house still contains all his furnishings and memorabilia, but some of these possessions are destined for the Lowell Thomas Center, a new museum in Pawling that is expected to open this spring.

• Fact: Burial Quaker Cemetery , Pawling, Dutchess County, New York, USA

Sources

• Electra W Nicks (1916-2003) on Find A Grave: Memorial #158390910 retrieved 31 August 2020
• PANB ([1] Birth record)
• 1921 Census Sackville, NB
• 1921 Census Sackville Town: https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/home/record?app=census&IdNumber=63337279