Walter B. Posey, 87, professor emeritus at Agnes Scott College and Emory University and author of books on the religion of the southern frontier, died on August 10, 1988.

Born in Smyrna, Tennessee, Professor Posey received his bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and his master's and doctorate from Vanderbilt University. After teaching economics for two years at Cumberland University, he taught history at Birmingham-Southern College for eighteen years, chairing the department most of that time. In 1943 he became professor and chair of the history and political science department at Agnes Scott, and served in this position until retirement in 1970. In 1948 he received a joint professorship at Emory University, teaching in the graduate program until 1969.

Professor Posey lectured at Shrivenham University in England and for the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II and later taught in England and Germany with the Maryland Overseas Program. His visiting summer professorships spanned the nation. In retirement he continued to teach his American biography course in senior citizen programs.

A founding member of the Southern Historical Association in 1934, Professor Posey served as its president in 1958.

His books were Methodism in the Old Southwest (1933), The Presbyterian Church in the Old Southwest (1952), The Baptist Church in the Lower Mississippi Valley (1957), Religious Strife on the Southern Frontier (1965), his Fleming Lectures at Louisiana State University, and Frontier Missions (1966).

He is survived by his wife, Margaret Grisham Posey and by a daughter and two granddaughters.

James Harvey Young
Emory University