Thomas Wellborn Ford
1924-2015
Thomas Wellborn Ford died Sunday, the 23rd of August 2015 in Houston. He was born on the 23rd of December 1924 to Henry (Harry) Harrison and Natalia Wellborn Ford in Houston, Texas. Tom held a B. A. degree from Rice, M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Texas. Following high school at Kinkaid in Houston and Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, he attended Rice Institute for one semester in 1942 before joining the United States Army Air Corps where he served in the Pacific as flight engineer - aerial gunner on a B-24. Returning to Rice in 1946, Tom graduated with a B. A. in 1950 and received his M. A. from the University of Texas in 1951. He married Cora “Pete” Marilyn Lewis from Hattiesburg, Mississippi in 1953, and taught at Kinkaid High School from 1953 to 1955.
Attending graduate school at the University of Texas beginning in 1955, Tom received a Ph.D. in American literature in 1959. Son Thomas W. Ford, Jr. was born in 1955 and daughter Emily Lewis Ford in 1958, both in Austin. He was awarded University of Texas Fellowships in 1956-1957 and 1957-1958, and was granted a Special Instructorship the last year of graduate work. From 1959 to 1966, Tom taught in the English Department at the University of South Carolina. He returned to Houston in 1966 to teach at the University of Houston until his retirement as Professor Emeritus in 1997. Tom’s scholarship and teaching focused on nineteenth and twentieth-century American literature. He published two books - Heaven Beguiles the Tired: Death in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson and A. B. Guthrie, Jr., a critical and biographical study of the Pulitzer winning author of The Big Sky. Tom published poems in a number of literary magazines, and book reviews and articles on such authors as Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, Robert Penn Warren, and John Updike which appeared in scholarly journals such as The New England Quarterly, The Southern Review, Western American Literature, Texas Studies in Literature and Language, The Explicator, Southern Folklore Quarterly, The Walt Whitman Review, Mark Twain Journal, and others.
Tom was a member of the Modern Language Association, American Literature Section/MLA, American Studies Association, Western Literature Association, South Central Modern Language Association, Conference of College Teachers of English, Popular Culture Association, and at which he delivered numerous papers. While at the University of Houston, he received teaching awards from Mortar Board National Honor Society, Golden Key National Honor Society, and was elected Outstanding Professor by the Graduate English Society in 1976. He was featured as a commentator and academic advisor in a film made for Public Television, “A. B. Guthrie’s Vanishing Paradise,” aired in Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho in 1985, and in Houston on KUHT Channel 8 in 1987.
Tom and Cora enjoyed vacationing together and with children and grandchildren. Some of the most memorable of these vacations were to Charleston, Hilton Head, Kiawah Island, South Carolina; to Cozumel, Merida, and the Mayan pyramids of Chichen Itza and Uxmal in the Yucatan; to Williamsburg, Virginia; several trips to Washington D.C.; and a cruise to Alaska. They enjoyed trips abroad to Italy and to England and enjoyed driving trips on the Natchez Trace, driving trips to Glacier National Park, Big Bend National Park, Palo Duro Canyon State Park, and frequent trips to Galveston, San Antonio, and New Orleans. One of Tom’s great pleasures was performing magic tricks for his grandchildren, who called him Grandoc or Doc. Tom especially enjoyed reading (his favorite author was Cormac McCarthy and his favorite novel, Moby Dick), being a member of Houston Country Club, playing tennis, having lunch with friends, listening to music from the decades of the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s, playing Sudoku and being a long-time movie buff.
Tom was preceded in death by his parents; brothers, Henry (Harry) Harrison Ford, Jr., Kenneth Bowen Ford, and Frank Goss Ford. He is survived by his loving wife of sixty-two years, Cora “Pete” Lewis Ford; son, Thomas (Tommy) Wellborn Ford, Jr. and wife Ellen of Houston, TX; daughter, Emily Ford Cooksey and husband Paul of Alexandria, VA; grandchildren, Elizabeth Ellen Ford (Austin), and Paul Hooff Cooksey, Jr. (Miami), Amelia Lewis Cooksey (Houston), Isabelle Ford Cooksey (Austin), and Sophia Caroline Cooksey (New York City); nephew, Kenneth B. Ford, Jr., wife Jaunea; nieces, Janie Slack, husband James; Sally Kelley, husband Terry; and Blake Ford; and numerous great and great-great nieces and nephews.
Honorary pallbearers are his good friends, Bert Magill, Sandy Dale, Ben Brollier, George Peterkin (the Purple Pups), Dick Anderson, Ross Baker and Buster Vandervoort.
The family wishes to thank the helpful and caring staff at the Memorial Hermann Memorial City stroke unit, the Memorial Hermann Northwest rehabilitation center, the wonderful Hospice nurses, and the many staff throughout the Forum at Memorial Woods, where Tom had enjoyed living with Cora the last three years.
Friends are cordially invited to gather with the family and share remembrances of Tom during a reception to be held from four o’clock in the afternoon until six o’clock in the evening on Sunday, the 30th of August, in the grand foyer of Geo. H. Lewis & Sons, 1010 Bering Drive in Houston.
The memorial service is to be conducted at two o’clock in the afternoon on Monday, the 31st of August, at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, 717 Sage Road in Houston, where he was a member since 1966.
Immediately following the service all are invited to greet the family during a reception in Bagby Parish Hall.
In lieu of customary remembrances, contributions should be made to a charity of choice.