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Rebecca Matlock
Born
Rebecca Inez Burrum

December 7, 1928 (1928-12-07)
Died November 9, 2019 (2019-11-10) (aged 90)
Alma mater Duke University
Occupation Photographer
Spouse(s)
(m. 1949)
Children 5

Rebecca Burrum Matlock (1928–2019) was an American photographer and the wife of former U.S. Ambassador Jack F. Matlock, Jr.

Biography

Born Rebecca Inez Burrum in Manchester, Tennessee to Hugh H. Burrum and Leona M. Graham, she lived in Waverly and Gallatin, Tennessee. As an undergraduate at Duke University she met and married Jack F. Matlock, Jr.

After graduation, they moved to New York City where both took graduate studies at Columbia University. In 1953 they moved to Hanover, New Hampshire, where the first three of their children (James, Hugh, and Nell) were born. In 1956 the Matlocks joined the Foreign Service and were posted in following years to Vienna, Oberammergau, Moscow, Accra, Zanzibar, and Dar es Salaam. Two more children were born during their first tour in Moscow (David and Joseph).

The Matlocks served four tours in the Soviet Union, between 1961 and 1991, and during that time she travelled to 14 of the 15 Union Republics. They were posted to Moscow in 1961, 1974, 1981, and finally in 1987 when Jack Matlock was appointed U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union. During their final tour they lived at Spaso House in Moscow until 1991 and their retirement from the Foreign Service.

After leaving the Foreign Service they lived for five years in North Stonington, Connecticut, and New York City; and then moved to Princeton, New Jersey. In 2009 she was named Honorary Trustee of the Friends of Davis International Center of Princeton University. In later years the Matlocks divided their time between a home in Princeton and her family farm in Booneville, Tennessee.

On November 9, 2019, Ambassador Matlock posted publicly on his Facebook: "My beloved wife of 70 years, Rebecca Burrum Matlock, passed away this morning in Duke University Hospital." The cause of death has not yet been made public.

Sarah Caldwell biography

Matlock served on the board of the Opera Company of Boston and interviewed director Sarah Caldwell over the course of several years to produce her biography, Challenges: A Memoir of My Life in Opera.

Photography exhibits

Matlock has had more than 50 exhibits of her photographs, as well as a series of exhibits by photographer Donald Schomacker.

Some Exhibits of Rebecca Matlock's Photographs
Date City Venue Exhibit Reference
1983 Washington, DC American Foreign Service Club Library Black and White in Color
1984 New York Columbia University On Architecture
1984 New York Republican Women’s Club On Architecture
1985 Seattle, WA University of Washington Art in Czechoslovakia, including exhibition by Donald Schomacker
1988 Moscow Cinematographers Union International Film Festival
1989 Moscow Photojournalists Union
January 1990 Moscow Writer’s Union People
1990 Vladivostok
1990 Tbilisi, Georgia
1990 Ulan Ude
March 8, 1999 Princeton, NJ Stevenson Hall, Princeton University Rebecca Matlock Exhibit
September, 1999 Princeton, NJ Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University Excursion to Georgia
June 6, 2004 Tbilisi, Georgia Tbilisi Movie Actors' Theatre Special Places of Rebecca
March 18, 2005 Greensboro, NC Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship The Time of Mikhail Gorbachev
November 7–18, 2005 Princeton, NJ Chancellor Green café, Princeton University The Time of Mikhail Gorbachev
September 1, 2006 New York, NY Harriman Institute, International Affairs Building Gorbachevs, Reagans and Bushes
November 7, 2007 Princeton, NJ Rockefeller College Gallery, Princeton University Repairs of the Inca Bridge over Peru's Apurimac River
November, 2008 Princeton, NJ International Center, Princeton University Black and White in Color

Published works

  1. At Spaso House: People and meetings: Notes of the wife of an American ambassador (in Russian) Transl. from English by T. Kudriavtseva, Moscow: EKSMO, Algorithm, 2004 ISBN: 5-699-05497-9
  2. Challenges: A Memoir of My Life in Opera by Caldwell, Sarah with Matlock, Rebecca, Middletown, Conn. : Wesleyan University Press, 2008 ISBN: 0-8195-6885-6
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