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Community Corner

From 'There's Nothing Here' to More Than 40 Years Here

Three generations of the Thomas family living in Reston.

It began when Carol Thomas read an intriguing article about this new planned community somewhere way out in Fairfax County.

"One Saturday [in1964] I saw an article in the newspaper about Reston, " recalls  Thomas.  "I said to my wife:  'let's take a drive out to this place. ' " 

After visiting the model home, they tried to get home via back roads through Vienna, which dead-ended into a creek. Carol Thomas' wife, Laura, said she could not imagine leaving their home in Washington, D.C.

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"There is nothing here," she told her husband. " Nothing."

"There are trees here," replied Carol.   

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"But where am I going to buy my New York Times?" she countered.

Despite Laura's hesitation, the Thomases and their three children moved to Gold Cup Lane.

Laura Thomas, still uncertain about the move,  was active in Open Housing issues in the metropolitan area. She knew of Reston founder Robert E. Simon's commitment to non-discriminatory housing.

 She was concerned, however, about possible race discrimination in Virginia public schools.

 "I anticipated some problems," she said. "But staff at Hunters Woods Elementary School and Herndon High School couldn't have been more gracious."

They were active in civic affairs, including Reston Black Focus, an educational and cultural organization of black Restonians founded in the late 1960s.  The group sponsored the Reston Black Arts Festival from 1969-1976.   

Laura had a long career in Fairfax County Public Schools, from math teacher at South Lakes High School to retiring in 2004 as the Chief Education Officer.  Carol was tapped in 1970 to help run the newly formed Environmental Protection Agency. He finished his federal career as the Secretary of the Federal Trade Commission. 

Their youngest son, Paul, born in 1964, and his friends treated Gold Cup Lane's backyards as one big neighborhood.  In 1978, the family moved to Chadds Ford on Lake Thoreau, where Paul often played hockey in the winter with his friends on the lake.

Paul graduated from South Lakes High School in 1982. Ten years later, he met a young woman at a Charlottesville party.  Her hometown was - you guessed it - Reston.

Heather Fitzsimmons Thomas had moved to Reston in 1974, entered first grade at Dogwood Elementary School, and graduated from South Lakes in 1987. 

When reminiscing about her years in Reston, Heather recalls lifeguarding at Glade Pool and Lake Audubon Pool, riding her bicycle around Reston and walking to school on the paths. 

"The Reston bands sang a song called 'We are not Dead:  We are Reston,' " Heather Thomas says of her teen years. "' There wasn't much to do."

Then she remembers the day Reston Town Center developers came to South Lakes to ask the government classes,  "what would make you want to come to Reston Town Center?"

 The conversation worked, said Heather, since teenagers flock there now.

Paul and Heather Thomas married a few years later, and naturally, returned to Reston.  They are now raising a third generation of Restonians, son Jack, 9, and Margaret, 5.  Their  house backs to the same woods and the paths they caroused as kids.  Paul Thomas is also the vice president of  Reston Association.

Meanwhile, Carol and Laura Thomas retired and live at Midtown at Reston Town Center.  More than 40 years after Laura Thomas's "There's nothing here" protest, she says, "it's safe to say I'm a convert."

 

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