Milestones

We were sorry to hear that Brother Thomas W. Spalding, 78, of Louisville Kentucky died of a heart attack at his home on Tuesday 28th January. He was a native of Bardstown KY, and had been a member of the Xaverian Brotherhood for 60 years.

Brother Thomas was a distinguished historian and writer. After graduating from Saint Joseph prep in 1942 he matriculated at Xaverian College in Silver Spring, MD, then attended Fordham University in New York NY, Spalding College in Louisville and the Catholic University of America in Washington DC, where he received his doctorate.

In addition to his studies at the gradu­ate level, he taught high school Spanish and US History at Cardinal Hayes High School in Bronx, NY and at the Xaverian High School in Brooklyn NY. His last teaching assignment was at Spalding University in Louisville, where he had been a full professor for 27 years. With all his researching he had been unable to find any tie of his family name to that of the University. He devoted two full years and “almost a dozen summers” to the research and writing of “The Premier See – a History of the Archdiocese of Baltimore 1789-1889” which was published in 1989. The Maryland Historical Society selected the book, which is about the first Catholic diocese in the United States, as the winner of its annual book prize in 1990.

He coedited and/or coauthored a number of other historical works such as Catholics in the Old South: Essays on Church and culture and The ancestry of Dorothy Points. He wrote frequently for such scholarly journals as the American Historical society and the Catholic Historical Re­view; and at the time of his death was writing a history of the Xaverian Brothers’ East Africa missions.

Tom’s parents were Thomas William Spalding and Mary Frances Boone, his grandfather Charles Henry Boone married Susan Ellen Blincoe one of the Kentucky Blincoes who had emigrated from Virginia to Kentucky in the late 1700’s.

He carried on a large correspondence with other researchers and shared his information freely. We were fortunate to have his attendance at several of the early reunions where he was an accomplished and entertaining guest speaker. “He was a gentle and gentlemanly man,” said Daniel Medinger, CEO of the Cathedral Foundation. “He had the kind of presence that when he came into a room he would calm it.”

Brother Thomas is survived by two brothers, Dr. Charles Spalding, a former mayor of Bardstown, and Dr. Harry Spalding, both of Bardstown, KY. ‘Bro. Tom’, as we remember him, was an early member of the Family Association from the days when it was primarily a “Blincoe” group. We will miss his friendship and his research.

Helen Simpson
South San Gabriel CA
March 2003