Joseph W. McKnight

(1925 - 2015) MCKNIGHT, Joseph Webb, passed away peacefully on November 30, 2015. He was born on February 17, 1925 in San Angelo, Texas, where he was raised during some of the most severe years of the Great Depression. Notwithstanding the tough times, he loved San Angelo and he and his four siblings returned there often and spoke proudly of their West Texas roots. He excelled academically at an early age and graduated at the top of his high school class at the age of 16. After completing several years at the University of Texas, where he was a member of Sigma Chi fraternity, he enlisted in the Navy and served during and in the aftermath of World War II. After returning to his studies at the University of Texas, he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and in 1947 entered Magdalen College at Oxford University. His Oxford years were formative, and he earned the degrees of Bachelor of Arts in Jurisprudence, a Bachelor of Civil Law, and a Master of Arts. He also received an LL.M. from Columbia University. After a short stint practicing law with Cravath Swaine & Moore in New York City, he joined the faculty of the SMU School of Law in 1955, where he taught for the following 59 years through May 2014. He was a prolific scholar, authoring over 100 articles and several books, with a primary focus on family and matrimonial property law, as well as legal history. He held leadership positions in a number of legal and historical organizations, directed the Texas Family Code project, and was a principal drafter of several important Texas laws addressing matrimonial property matters, including the property rights of married women in Texas. While a scholar and advocate for legal reform, his true love was for teaching and law students, with many of the latter remaining life-long colleagues and friends. Professor McKnight and his wife, Mildred Payne McKnight, were known to entertain a tremendous number of law students, faculty, scholars and friends in their Dallas home and, during many summers, their house in Oxford. The Professor was preceded in death by his parents and siblings, as well as his first wife, Julia Ann Dyer McKnight. He is survived by his second wife, Mildred Payne McKnight, his sons John B. McKnight and J. Adair McKnight, his step-children, Sawnie R. Aldredge III and Amy P. Aldredge, and numerous grandchildren. A mass of Christian burial will be held at the Church of The Holy Cross Dallas, 4052 Herschel Avenue (at Douglas) at 10:00 am on Friday, December 4, 2015. In lieu of flowers, donations are requested in Professor McKnight's honor either to the Joseph P. McKnight Memorial Scholarship Fund at the SMU Dedman School of Law, or to the Church of The Holy Cross Dallas.