Father John L. Thomas; Jesuit Author and Sociologist

Father John L. Thomas, 81, a Jesuit author and sociologist who devoted his life to promulgating the family as the basic unit of society. The former writer in residence at Marquette University in Milwaukee helped start the Jesuit Institute of Social Order in 1943, a research group devoted to the social sciences. His books included “Alternative America,” “The Family Clinic: A Book of Questions and Answers,” and “The American Catholic Family.” The last work sold more than 1 million copies and was honored as Book of the Year in 1954 by the Catholic Sociological Assn. From 1957 to 1963 his weekly column was carried in more than 50 newspapers nationwide. In Milwaukee on June 4 of cancer.