Jack Thomas’ byline appeared in the Boston Globe for an impressive 60 years. He was a copy boy to start, working for the sports desk as a teenager after a childhood spent delivering papers. From a police writer to a national correspondent to the paper’s ombudsman, Thomas wore more hats in his time at the Boston Globe than just about any other journalist who appeared in its pages.
Over his several decades at the Globe, during which he was also a Washington correspondent, TV critic and features writer, he rarely shied from an assignment, whether it entailed spending a week living among homeless Bostonians to profiling his beloved Julia Child, to whom he once proposed running away together.