William Maurice Ewing, 12 May 1906 - 4 May 1974

Abstract

William Maurice Ewing was born on 12 May 1906 in Lockney, a town of about 1200 inhabitants in the Texas panhandle. When he grew up he rarely used the name William and was always known as Maurice. His father’s parents came from Kentucky, which they left after the defeat of the South in the Civil War. His mother’s family came to Texas from Illinois and Arkansas. Both families were among the earliest settlers along the edge of the high plains of northern Texas. His father Floyd Ford Ewing was a gentle, handsome, intellectual man with a liking for literature and music, whom fate had cast in the unsuitable roles of cowboy, dryland farmer and dealer in hardware and farm implements. He is spoken of with great affection by all who knew him;he was a talented violinist and also enjoyed fiddling in the Southern style with the instrument on his knee. His mother (born Hope Hamilton) was a small energetic woman. She married when she was 19 and her husband 22; they started their married life with a homesteading venture in New Mexico. The story of the ensuing disasters has been told with great skill and sympathy by Maurice’s brother, Floyd, who was a professor of history at Wichita Falls, Texas (F. Ewing 1963). In 1904 they returned to Texas. Maurice was the fourth of ten children. The three oldest had died very young in New Mexico so that he grew up as the eldest of seven children. Mrs Ewing was determined that her children should receive a good education and should have a wider choice of careers than was to be found in a small west Texas town. In fact all but one, the eldest daughter Ethel, went to university and had professional or academic careers. Ethel married very young and for many years was a most successful teacher of the piano in Tulia, Texas.