Elizabeth Ann Julian Abadie

Elizabeth Ann Julian Abadie, Associate Director Emerita of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, died on July 30, 2024. She was a member of the founding committee of the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference and coeditor of its annual volumes of proceedings from 1974 to 2012. She was also a founder of the Oxford Conference for the Book, associate coeditor of the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, the 24-volume New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, and the Mississippi Encyclopedia.

An astute grammarian, she was instrumental—especially in her retirement—in assisting others with the development of literary and artistic projects. Her dedication was recognized with the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters’ Noel Polk Lifetime Achievement Award and with the Southern Foodways Alliance’s Craig Claiborne Lifetime Achievement Award.

She was born on August 15, 1939, in Greenville, South Carolina. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and history from Wake Forest University and a Master of Arts and a PhD in English from the University of Mississippi.

She is survived by her husband of 60 years, H. Dale Abadie, daughters Elaine of Oxford and Leslie (John Boyne) of Madison, Wisconsin, son John (Sindy) of Oxford, grandchildren Thea and Thomas Boyne, Ella, Alexander, and Julian Abadie, sisters Carolyn Cooper (Billy) of Shelby, North Carolina, and Lou Anderson (Ronnie) of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and four nieces and one nephew. Her parents, Pansy Luna Falls and Frank Jefferson Julian, and brother, Frank, predeceased her.

Visitation will be held at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, 416 South 5th Street in Oxford, on Friday, August 2, 2024, at 1:30 pm and a Funeral Mass will be celebrated at 3:00 pm. A private interment will follow.

Memorials may be made to the Center for the Study of Southern Culture or to the St. John Benevolent Fund.