Thomas Ewing Dabney

Thomas Ewing Dabney​ (Author, journalist, editor, diplomat, and politician)​
Born	April 16, 1885​ New Orleans, Louisiana​​ Resident of Socorro, New Mexico (1942-1950) and member of the New Mexico House of Representatives
Died	April 22, 1970 (aged 85)​ Waveland, Hancock County, Mississippi Resting place: Garden of Memories Cemetery in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
Spouse	Winifred "Winnie" Michaels Dabney (married 1907-1970, his death) Four children: Patricia D. Bush Dorothy D. Kehoe David Fortesque Dabney Natalie D. Arnold Alma mater: Jackson Boys' School Dyer's Military Academy (both in New Orleans) University of the South,br> (Sewanee, Tennessee) Harvard University

Thomas Ewing Dabney (April 16, 1885 – April 22, 1970) was an author, editor, politician, and diplomat from New Orleans, Louisiana, and for eight years Socorro, New Mexico.

Background

Dabney was educated at the Jackson Boys’ School and Dyer’s Military Academy in his native New Orleans. He obtained a bachelor's degree in 1905 from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, and a master's in 1906 from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In 1907, he married the former Winifred "Winnie" Michaels (1885-1970), a native of London, England, who outlived her husband by only seven months and died in Covington in suburban St. Tammany Parish. The couple had a son and three daughters. David Fortesque Dabney, a World War II veteran and a civil engineer, was born in Pensacola in 1917 and died in 2010 in Mobile, Alabama. The daughters were Patricia Dabney Bush and Dorothy D. Kehoe, both of Covington, Louisiana, and Natalie D. Arnold of Lompoc in Santa Barbara County, California.

Career

In 1907, at the age of twenty-two, Dabney was named the third secretary of the United States Embassy in Mexico and was thereafter promoted to second secretary. He also worked briefly at the embassy in El Salvador. He returned to the USA in 1912 and settled in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, where he operated a dairy, developed a pecan orchard, and edited The Ocean Springs News. From 1917 to 1918, he was the editor of The Pensacola (Florida) Journal.

In 1918, Dabney returned to New Orleans to work for the former New Orleans States, for which he was a reporter, feature and editorial writer, and the business editor. In 1933, he joined the staff of The New Orleans Times-Picayune and edited that paper’s centennial edition, the largest single edition of a newspaper printed in New Orleans until that date.

In 1942, Dabney left New Orleans for Socorro, a small town in central New Mexico, where he became editor and owner of The Socorro Chieftan, now known as El Defensor-Chieftain. In 1945, he was elected to the New Mexico House of Representatives. He was a lecturer in journalism at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. In Socorro, he was a member of the Rotary Club and president of the Chamber of Commerce. He served from 1945 to 1950 as a regent for the New Mexico School of Mines in Socorro, an institution since known as the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.

On returning to New Orleans again in 1950, Dabney worked for eleven years as a consultant to New Public Service, Inc. He authored several books, including The Industrial Canal and Inner Harbor of New Orleans (1921); The Butler Regime in Louisiana, (1944) The Louisiana Historical Quarterly (1944); The Man Who Bought the Waldorf (1950); and One Hundred Great Years (1944), a history of The New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Death

Dabney died at the age of eighty-five in Waveland in Hancock County in southern Mississippi. He is interred alongside his wife at the Garden of Memories Cemetery in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.