In Memoriam

Celeste Brown Thomas
1958-2020

ONEONTA—Celeste Brown Thomas, retired “New York Times” staff editor and Oneonta, New York native, passed away June 20, 2020 in Rochester, New York of complications from uterine serous cancer. She was 61.

She had been treated for the disease, a rare and aggressive cancer, at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and Rochester since May 2017. She died surrounded by family, having been under hospice care at home for several weeks.

She was born November 25, 1958 in Sayre, Pennsylvania, the eldest of two children of Foster Lloyd Brown, a statistics professor, and Barbara Feather Brown, a music teacher. After attending Bugbee School and Oneonta High School, she graduated with a bachelor’s in English from SUNY New Paltz and later a master’s in English from New York University.

She was a devoted mom, loving sibling and kind person. Optimistic and resilient by nature, she loved ballroom dancing, travel, theater, interior design, history, nature, and spending time with family and friends. She enjoyed “CBS Sunday Morning”, NPR’s “Writer’s Almanac,” and outdoor cafes. Travels with her family included a nine-month sabbatical trip through Europe during her childhood, a three-month journey through the western United States during America’s bicentennial celebration year, numerous Caribbean cruises, and visits to Colonial Williamsburg. 

She moved to Manhattan in 1984 and enjoyed an urban lifestyle for the next 20-some years. She was a founding editor of “Premiere Magazine” and also “7 Days Magazine,” which won a national magazine award.

In her spare time, she competed in national ballroom dance competitions. She met her future husband, Anthony Thomas, a Fred-Astaire Dance Studio manager, in 1995. The two continued to compete together, married in 1996, and welcomed their son Charles “Chase” in 1997.

She was hired by the “New York Times” in 1990. Before that, she had been a reporter at the “Sun-Journal” in New Bern, North Carolina, where she broke an investigative story about hospital fraud that earned the paper a national Associated Press Managing Editor’s Service award. She also worked for the “Jacksonville Journal” in Florida, where she received several state AP awards. She was then editor of the sister papers “The Huguenot Herald” and “The Highland Herald” of New Paltz, New York, where the paper also received multiple AP Awards.

Survivors include her son, Charles “Chase”; her brother, Wendell (Craig); her uncle, David (Jean); cousins Laurie, Ahmad, Brent (Rosie), Tanya (Stuart), Keevin, Rolanda, and Jeananne (Bob); step-siblings Manny, Ginny, Paula, and Rebecca; and stepmother Rita. She was preceded in death by her parents, Aunt Marie, Uncle Dennie (Marion), and Aunt Beth.

A celebration of life will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 22, 2024 at the Lewis, Hurley & Pietrobono Funeral Home, 51 Dietz Street, Oneonta; www.lhpfuneralhome.com. There will be an opportunity for family and friends to share a remembrance. 

 A private interment will be at the Glenwood Cemetery, Oneonta.

Donations may be made in her name to the Committee to Protect Journalists, https://cpj.org/donate.

Remembrances may be expressed at https://www.memories.net/page/6614/celeste-brown-thomas#!/.