This is a draft. It is published so it can be read and corrected, not because it is finished.
Mattie W. Tompkins
A woman lawyer in a Florida town of two or three lawyers in the 1920s, and a sitting member of its city council through the Depression and the war.
Who she was
Born 11 May 1888 at Arlington, Virginia, to Metellus W. and Mary Frances Louise Blaine Tompkins; schooled in Virginia; a graduate of the Washington College of Law in the District of Columbia, 1921-1924, LL.B.; admitted to the District of Columbia bar on 10 February 1925 and, by examination before the state board, to practice in Florida on 5 December 1925.[fawl-150] The Florida Bar’s own notice at her death is one line: “Mattie W. Tompkins, Avon Park. Admitted 1925; Died February 1, 1986.”[flbar-tompkins-memoriam] Sixty-one years at the bar.
She practiced at Avon Park as an associate of the firm of S. C. Pardee and S. C. Pardee, Jr., in a general practice with a specialty in real estate and probate.[fawl-150] The law reports show the three of them together: in Kent v. Polk Grocery Co. (1938) the counsel line reads “S. Colquitt Pardee, Mattie W. Tompkins, and S Colquitt Pardee, Jr., all of Avon Park.”[kent-1938] She was still practicing alongside the younger Pardee and Keith E. Collyer in 1961, and the Tenth Circuit’s bench-and-bar photograph of 1962 has her beside “one of her law partners S.C. Pardee.”[tenth-1962]
On the council, 1939-1947
She was elected to the Avon Park city council in September 1939 — the first election under the charter amendment that had just moved the city’s poll to September — and served until October 1947, when she lost re-election by five votes. She sat on the parks, finance and utility committees. The decisions she took part in include the purchase of land for the airport, the establishment of a WPA “serving room” where local women could work, the city’s first garbage-control ordinance, and the establishment of the city’s first telephone system.[fawl-150]
That puts a woman on the council through the years in which the city gave 210 acres to the state for a hospital, ran its own bus line to the bombing range, and saw its limits contracted.
The rest
She belonged to the Highlands County Bar Association; to the Business and Professional Women’s Club, as local president and as state chair of its legal committee; and to Kappa Beta Pi, the legal sorority. She is in Who’s Who Among Women Lawyers for 1939. She was a Baptist and a Democrat.[fawl-150]
Why she came to Avon Park in 1925, where she lived, her part, if any, in the election affair of 1951 when her firm’s partner and her colleague were on opposite sides, and her burial place are not recorded.
References
- fawl-150 — Florida Association for Women Lawyers and The Florida Bar. Celebrating Florida’s First 150 Women Lawyers (2017 edition): entry for Mattie W. Tompkins. 1 April 2017. https://www-media.floridabar.org/uploads/2017/04/150womenbook-all.pdf
- flbar-tompkins-memoriam — The Florida Bar. In Memoriam: Mattie W. Tompkins, Avon Park. Admitted 1925; died February 1, 1986. 1 March 1986. https://www.floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-news/in-memoriam-66/
- kent-1938 — Supreme Court of Florida, as reproduced by vLex. Kent v. Polk Grocery Co., 131 Fla. 139, 179 So. 136 (1938): counsel line, ‘S. Colquitt Pardee, Mattie W. Tompkins, and S Colquitt Pardee, Jr., all of Avon Park’. 1938. https://case-law.vlex.com/
- tenth-1962 — Tenth Judicial Circuit of Florida Historical Society. Tenth Judicial Circuit Florida Bench & Bar, Anno 1962. 2026. https://tenthcircuitflhistory.com/1962-tenth-circuit-bench-bar/
Related
- Entity: S. Colquitt Pardee, father and son
- Entity: Keith E. Collyer
- Reference: how Avon Park’s charter was amended, 1939 to 1959
- Report: The Avon Park election of 1951
Where this comes from
- Evidence
- single-source — One source. Treat as reported, not established.
- Review
- unverified — Drafted from sources but not yet checked by a volunteer.
- Rights
- society
Sources
- Florida Association for Women Lawyers and The Florida Bar, Celebrating Florida's First 150 Women Lawyers (2017 edition): entry for Mattie W. Tompkins (2017)
- The Florida Bar, In Memoriam: Mattie W. Tompkins, Avon Park. Admitted 1925; died February 1, 1986 (1986)
- Supreme Court of Florida, as reproduced by vLex, Kent v. Polk Grocery Co., 131 Fla. 139, 179 So. 136 (1938): counsel line, 'S. Colquitt Pardee, Mattie W. Tompkins, and S Colquitt Pardee, Jr., all of Avon Park' (1938)
- Tenth Judicial Circuit of Florida Historical Society, Tenth Judicial Circuit Florida Bench & Bar, Anno 1962 (2026)
Something here wrong, or incomplete? The Society would rather know. Tell a volunteer.
Have a question about this record?