ABERNETHY, Thomas Gerstle, a Representative from
Mississippi; born in Eupora, Webster County, Miss., May
16, 1903; attended the public schools, the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, the University of Mississippi at Oxford,
and was graduated from the law department of Cumberland
University, Lebanon, Tenn., in 1924; was admitted to the
bar in 1924 and commenced practice in Eupora, Miss., in
1925; mayor of Eupora 1927-1929; moved to Okolona, Miss,
in 1929 and continued the practice of law; district attorney
of the third judicial district of Mississippi 1936-1942; delegate, Democratic National Conventions in 1956 and 1960;
elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-eighth and to the
fourteen succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1943-January
3, 1973); chairman, Committee on Elections No. 1 (Seventyeighth Congress); was not a candidate for reelection in 1972
to the Ninety-third Congress; died in Jackson, Miss., on
June 11, 1998.
