Thomas J. Maloney
From Philosopedia
Thomas J. Maloney Jr. (16 November 1922 - 6 May 2005)
Maloney was born in Arlington, Massachusetts, the son of Doris Edwards Maloney and Thomas J. Maloney. He grew up in Brookline and Needham in Massachusetts and graduated from Needham High School in 1940.
He attended Northeastern University from 1940-41. During World War II he joined the Army and then the Marine Corps, serving in a surveying unit in China at the end of the war. His observations of the living conditions of the Chinese people during this service led him to be an activist for human rights.
In January of 1948 he graduated from Northeastern University with a BS in Chemical Engineering. He married Elizabeth (Betty) Gartner in Needham in February of 1948.
Maloney worked as a chemical engineer for General Aniline and Film in Easton, Pennsylvania, from February of 1948 to August of 1948. While a chemistry student at the University of Colorado in Boulder he was active in the Unitarian Fellowship and felt the call to the Unitarian ministry. He obtained his Bachelor of Theological Science Degree in 1952 from Harvard University.
From 1952 to 1956 he served as the minister of Unitarian Churches in Davenport, Iowa, and Quincy, Illinois. From 1957-1962 he was the part-time minister for the Unitarian Fellowship in Boulder, Colorado, and also was an instructor of anthropology at the University of Colorado. From 1962 to 1967 he held the position of assistant professor of anthropology and sociology at New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas, New Mexico. From 1967 to 1969 he served as a professor of Anthropology at Ripon College in Ripon, Wisconsin. He ended his academic career as professor of anthropology at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, Illinois, where he taught from 1969 to 1989. In 1989 he retired as professor emeritus and moved to Fort Collins.
During the first ten years of his retirement he volunteered with the Larimer County Search and Rescue, served on The Rural Land Use Board, and was active in the Fort Collins Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Democratic Party, Amnesty International, and Unitarian-Universalist Ministers' Association.
His favorite activities included exploring the back roads of Colorado's high country in his Jeep, photographing wild flowers, and fly fishing. He also enjoyed telling stories about his adventures.
Maloney died at the age of 82, having battled a progressive case of bulbar palsy. He was survived by Betty, his wife of 57 years; four children, Susan of Mexico City, Mexico; Greta of Boulder, Colorado; Lisa of Groton, New York; and Thomas J. of Worden, Illinois; seven grandchildren; and his cairn terrier, Salty.
Correspondence
Maloney volunteered to write book reviews for The Humanist:
