Michael Vincent Raphael Thomason

Michael Vincent Raphael Thomason died on February 4, 2025 in Spanish Fort, Alabama after a long illness. Michael was born to Milton Vincent Thomason and Carolina Virginia (Moseley) Thomason on June 20, 1942 in West Palm Beach, Florida. While in high school, he became an Eagle Scout and avid photographer. Following high school, Michael attended The University of the South, where he founded the school’s chapter of the Lambda Chi fraternity. In May 1964 he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in history. That December Michael and Marilyn Joan Heinzig were married in Toronto, Canada. The newlyweds moved to Durham, North Carolina, where Michael earned his MA and in Ph.D. in history at Duke University. While at Duke, Michael received a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and a Shell Overseas Study Fellowship to conduct research for his dissertation. Michael’s research took the young couple on the adventure of a lifetime through London, Istanbul and Cairo with a year-long stay in Nairobi, Kenya. Always the photographer, Michael captured hundreds of incredible photographic images of their year in Africa.

Ph.D. in hand, Michael secured his first teaching job as an interim at Appalachian State in Boone, North Carolina. The next year, 1970, Michael and Marilyn moved to Mobile, Alabama where Michael began his career as a professor at the University of South Alabama. In 1978, Michael founded the University of South Alabama Photographic Archives. The story goes that Michael went into the main public library in downtown Mobile where he discovered that anyone with a library card could check out glass plate negatives. Michael saw an opportunity to combine his loves of photography and historic preservation. Preservation was not Michael’s entire goal, though. He thought that both photographic images and history should be shared and worked to make that happen through various print sources. For years, Mobile’s Sunday newspaper featured a photographic image from the University of South Alabama Archives’ collection. During his career, Michael wrote, co-authored, and edited several books. Michael also founded the Gulf Coast Historical Review, an illustrated journal devoted to area history.

Michael was a bit of a Renaissance man. In the very early 1970s Michael began producing his own Christmas photocards using photographs he took and prints he made in his darkroom. He had a life-long interest in foreign automobiles. In the evenings and on weekends, Michael could often be found in his driveway tinkering with a car. After his beloved TR 3 was totaled in the early 1970s, Michael drove late model Volvos, also foreign but safer than Triumphs. By this time Michael had children. Safety became paramount to style, at least for a time. In the mid 1980’s, Michael bought his first MG and then drove British cars for the next 20 years. He almost always had classical music playing nearby. Michael was an avid reader. Books filled the shelves at his house. He could do basic carpentry, a skill he learned from his father and grandfather who were master carpenters. Michael continued to take photographs until he could no longer obtain the supplies he needed to develop black white prints in the darkroom that he and his father built. While he enjoyed capturing images, his true love was the art of printmaking.

Michael was predeceased by his grandparents, John Vincent and Deena Thomason, and Raphael Semmes and Tillie Moseley; his parents; an infant brother, Patrick; and his dear friends Jack Ross and Tom Purvis. He is survived by his wife, Marilyn Joan Thomason, daughters Caroline Thomason Pryor (David) and Catharine Virginia Aune; grandchildren Rachel Aune Feemster (Carson), Virginia Page Pryor, and Miles Aune; and great grandson, Henrick Michael Feemster.

Were he here, Michael would thank his long-time friend, Joe Brent, for his work on this obituary, though he absolutely would have insisted on editing it.

At Michael’s request, his family will hold a private memorial. He also asked that you lift a glass in his memory and take a photograph for your loved ones to view later on.

From Michael’s family, thank you to the teams at Willowbrooke Court and Gentiva Hospice for the care you gave Michael during his illness. To everyone who has reached out to us, thank you. You have given us comfort when we needed it the most. We will miss Michael, but we are grateful that God gave him rest after such a long fight and we pray that he is at peace in Heaven.