Born in Winchester, Kentucky, Thomas was the seventh of the nine children of George and Mary (Rowady) Thomas, immigrants from Tripoli, Lebanon (then part of the Ottoman Empire). Thomas said her father's surname, "Antonious", was anglicized to "Thomas" when he entered the U.S. at Ellis Island, and that her parents could neither read nor write. Thomas was raised mainly in Detroit, Michigan, where her family moved when she was four years old, and where her father ran a grocery store. Of her experience growing up, Thomas said: