Ralph Moyle Thomas fonds

Ralph Moyle Thomas was born at Indian Point in Lunenburg County in 1910. The son of Herbert and Flora (Langille) Thomas, he first went to sea at the age of nine, working on a Grand Banks fishing schooner during the summer months as a cabin boy and fish cutter. When he was 18, he skippered a 48-foot private yacht to New York. Remaining for a time in the United States, he worked in Connecticut with the Bullard Machine Company, where he eventually received his Journeyman’s Certificate. With the onset of the Depression, he moved to Montreal, working for the Imperial Oil Company on various oil tankers. In 1932, he received his Chief Mate's certificate. He was next employed at the Imperial Oil Company in Dartmouth. In 1936 he married Rita Alice Barnes. The following year, he moved to Talara, Peru, working with the International Petroleum Company, based out of New York. His family joined him in Peru eight months later. In 1943 he returned to Canada and joined the merchant marine. During the Second World War he served in the North Atlantic convoys. After the war, he received a Panamanian certificate and continued to sail until the late 1940s, when he accepted a shore position with Imperial Oil in Dartmouth, eventually attaining the position of day foreman. After retiring from Imperial Oil in 1966, he served as a chief officer on CN ferries running from Cape Tormentine to Borden, P.E.I. After his final retirement, he became active in several bridge clubs, obtaining his junior masters at the age of 71. He died at Lunenburg in 1999.