Obituary of T. Felder Dorn

THOMAS FELDER DORN

Thomas Felder Dorn, son of the late Thomas Elbert Dorn, Jr. and Etta Moseley Dorn, died March 31, 2024.  He was born in Bowman, S.C. on August 15, 1933, and was living in Millburn, N.J. at the time of his death.

On Friday April 5th, friends may visit the family at the Jacob A. Holle funeral home, 2122 Millburn Ave., Maplewood, NJ from 4:00 – 7:00 p.m.   A prayer service and remembrances will be from 7:00 – 8:00 p.m.  The Memorial Mass will be at St. Stephen’s Church, 119 Main Street, Millburn, NJ at 11:15 a.m. on Saturday, April 6th.   A reception will follow from 1:15 – 3:15 p.m. at St. Stephen’s Church.  The burial will be private.

He was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Duke University in 1954 with the degree of Bachelor of Science. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1958.  Dr. Dorn taught chemistry from 1958 through 1969 at The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, where he also served for several years as director of a summer graduate program for secondary school teachers of science and mathematics.  He joined the staff of the College Entrance Examination Board in New York in September 1969.  He served as an Executive Associate to the Vice President for Programs and was responsible for the establishment of a national fee-waiver program for the College Board's Admission Testing Program. He came to Kean College in Union, N.J. in August 1973, where he served in the Kean administration for 17 years, including positions as Associate Dean, Dean, and Vice President for Academic Affairs.  During his tenure as Acting Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, several new programs, including those in Nursing and Medical Record Administration, were developed and added to the curriculum.  In July 1990, he left the administration to serve as Professor of Chemistry.  He retired from Kean University in September 2001 and was named Dean Emeritus by the Board of Trustees in May 2003.

His professional publications include a journal article on radiocarbon dating (his dissertation topic), two publications on ternary phase diagrams, and an article on the College Board Fee Waiver Program.  He was the author of five books, The Tompkins School: A Community Institution, (1994); The Guns of Meeting Street: A Southern Tragedy (2001); Death of a Policeman; Birth of a Baby: A Crime and Its Aftermath (2012); Challenges on the Emmaus Road: Episcopal Bishops Confront Slavery, Civil War, and Emancipation (2013); and The Downfall of Galveston’s May Walker Burleson: Texas Society Marriage and Carolina Murder Scandal (2018). He published articles in From the Mountain and The Sewanee Theological Review about the state of Sewanee’s owning dioceses at the end of the Civil War. His family will submit for publication his book manuscript entitled Equal in the Sight of God, but Not of Man about the efforts of the Episcopal Church in South Carolina to recruit black communicants in the decades immediately after the Civil War.

While in Sewanee, he chaired a fund drive to add four rooms to the Sewanee Public School. This was a community effort undertaken to facilitate integration of the schools.  He was President of the Sewanee Public School Parent Teacher Association.  In 1964, Dr. Dorn was named "Sewanee Man of the Year" by the Sewanee Civic Association.  He also served as President of the Franklin County Tennessee Association for Retarded Children and Adults and was a member of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Association for Retarded Children and Adults.  He served in Manhattan as Cubmaster for a Cub Scout pack sponsored by Holy Apostles Church.  He was a member of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Millburn.  His service at St. Stephen's included membership on the vestry and two terms as a church Warden.  He served for ten years as a volunteer at Canterbury Village, an assisted living home in West Orange, and initiated a program for St. Stephen’s Church to provide volunteers there on a regular basis. He coordinated the tours of St. Stephen’s cemetery that were held at intervals from 2008 to 2014 and currently was serving as the coordinator for the Food Barrel at St. Stephen’s.

He was married in 1956 to the former Sara Ruth Higgins of Greenwood County, S.C., who died in September 2020.  He is survived by three children, Julia of Millburn, NJ; Ruth, and her partner Eugene Damiano, of Croydon, PA; and Thomas, and his wife Eleanor, of East Stroudsburg, PA; and by granddaughters Kristine and Allison, and Allison’s husband Scott and their daughter Maeve; and by grandson Adam and his wife Valerie and their daughter Pippa and son Graham.  He also is survived by two sisters, Cynthia Dorn Hobbs of Hilton Head, SC, and Nancy Dorn of Randallstown, MD.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 119 Main Street, Millburn, New Jersey, or to the March of Dimes.