Ray M. Thompson Papers

Raymond Matthew "Ray" Thompson was born on May 29, 1898, in Lee Township, Ohio. He was a veteran of World War I and owner of an advertising agency that served Ohio and Pennsylvania. In 1940, Thompson and his wife, Ellen Ursula "Sue" Thompson, sold the advertising agency and moved to New Orleans, Louisiana. In his new home, Ray edited a travel magazine for the Mississippi Shipping Company, compiled and published a guide book entitled “New Orleans From A to Z”, and wrote “The Land of Lafitte the Pirate”. In the mean time, Sue opened an art supply store in the French Quarter called House of the Artists.

In 1950, Thompson was commissioned by “Ford Magazine” to write a story on the man made beaches of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. In the course of his research for the story, both he and Sue became fascinated by the Mississippi Coast, and ultimately moved both home and business to West Beach Boulevard in Biloxi.

Thompson was deeply interested in history, particularly the Civil War period, and by 1952 he was contributing articles to “Down South Magazine” on a regular basis. In 1956 he got the idea for a newspaper column that would focus on historical and current events peculiar to the Gulf Coast, and began researching the project. The result was a column entitled "Know Your Coast", which was published in the “Biloxi/Gulfport Daily Herald”, beginning on March 1, 1956. In 1960 the scope of the column was expanded to include historical or unusual people, places, and events throughout Mississippi, and its name was changed to "Know Your State." For the new column, Thompson gathered little-known snippets of Mississippi history, folklore, and culture from which he created a colorful mosaic of life in the "Magnolia State", past and present. After the name change, the column was published continually until 1969 in the Biloxi/Gulfport “Daily Herald”, the “Jackson Daily News”, and the Jackson “Clarion-Ledger”.

Thompson continued to write until about 1972, producing numerous newspaper and magazine articles in addition to the "Know Your Coast/Know Your State" series, all with an historical theme. Some articles were joint efforts with his wife, Sue. In 1957 Thompson wrote a booklet entitled “The Confederate Shrine of Beauvoir, The Last Home of Jefferson Davis”, and in the mid 1960s, he prepared a manuscript for a book to be titled “Know Your Coast: The Mississippi Gulf Coast From the Pascagoula to the Pearl”. Unfortunately, the book was never published. Other professional activities include editorship of the “Jefferson Parish (Louisiana) Yearly Review” in 1962.

Ray Thompson died on December 25, 1977 at Driftwood Nursing Home in Gulfport. Both he and Sue are interred at Southern Memorial Park in Biloxi, Mississippi. They are survived by a daughter, Rae Corinne Thompson.