Thomas William Morris (26 May 1831 – 29 May 1907)

He was born in Loudoun County, Virginia to Thomas Mason Morris and his second wife Nancy Hesser.  His father died in 1833 when Thomas Jr. was just two years old.  When he was six his mother moved the family to Muskingum County, Ohio, and the following year she married an elderly widower named John Clymer.  By 1840 the family had settled in Olive Township in Morgan (later Noble) County, where Clymer established a grist mill.   A guardianship bond in Morgan County dated 11 May 1844 shows that John Clymer was guardian of “Thomas William and Sarah Ann Morris, children of Thomas Morris, decd.”1

Although court records in Loudoun County, as well as the entry in the family Bible, refer to him as “John Thomas William Morris” he seems to have dropped the name “John” early in life.   He was simply “Thomas Morris” in the 1850 census, an 18-year old boarder in the household of Henry Wolf of Olive Township just three households away from John Clymer and his mother Nancy Clymer.2 Thomas Morris’s occupation was listed as “clerk”.

Marriage to Mary Thorla

As “Thos. Wm. Morris” he was married to Mary Thorla on 17 October 1852 by a J. P. named Jonathan D. Gibbs.3   She was the sister of William O. Thorla who had married his sister Sarah Ann Morris three years earlier.   Both were children of Benjamin Thorla of Massachusetts, a farmer who had come to Olive Township in 1816 with his parents and his wife Jane Dyer of Maryland.   Benjamin Thorla was also the proprietor of the township’s first tavern.

Thorla was later spelled “Thurlow” by most of his descendants.  His son Thomas M. “Thurlow” made that point in a 1904 article.4  and Mary styled her maiden name as Mary Thurlow in her 1908 widow’s pension application.

Thomas William Morris appears in the 1860 census in Olive Township, which was by then in Noble County, as T. W. Morris, age 28, with his wife Mary and children Frances (age 7), “Cromwell” (age 5), and Caroline (age 3).  His occupation was listed as County Recorder.   According to a county history he had been appointed to the job 12 November 1859, re-elected and served until he joined the army in 1862.5

Civil War service

Thomas Morris served in one of Ohio’s most active regiments, the 92nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry.  According to Army records, he enlisted on 29 July 1862 as a 2nd Lieutenant in Company E. 6  He was promoted to 1st Lieutenant the following year on 1 June 1863 in Tennessee.  He was wounded in action at Kenesaw Mountain, Georgia on 20 June 1864 when a shell hit him in the abdomen.  He was treated in a hospital through at least the end of August.  He was promoted to Captain in Company B on 14 July 1864 but never mustered, evidently due to the effects of the wound.  He was discharged on a surgeon’s disability certificate on 6 November 1864 and almost immediately qualified for an invalid (service injury-related) monthly pension of $6, later increased to $10, then to $15 in 1891. 7 The amount was increased

His disability was more specifically described when he applied for a pension increase in 1897 as a “shell wound of abdomen, alleged resulting affection of stomach, bowels, kidneys, bladder, nervous system and heart”.

In 1907 Congress increased the amount of veteran’s pensions based on age and length of service, and Thomas Morris applied for a regular pension.  He stated  that he was born on 26 May 1831 in Loudoun County, Virginia, that after the war he lived in Ohio from 1864 to 1871 then in Kansas from 1871 to present, and that his occupation was Recorder for Cowley County.  Although his height was omitted from the physical description he was said to have blue eyes and light brown hair.  He also fortuitously listed the names and birth dates of his five children.  Unfortunately, he died before the application could be processed.  Following her husband’s death, Mary Morris applied for a widow’s pension and received $12 monthly.

The 92nd Regiment was one of Ohio’s most active units.  It was organized during the summer of 1862 and mustered on 1 October 1862 with 949 men.  A week later it was attached to the Kanawha Division and marched to Charleston.  In January 1863 it was sent to Nashville and spent the next two years campaigning mainly in Tennessee and Georgia, participating in some of the most famous battles of the Civil War including Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Kennesaw Mountain and the Siege of Atlanta.  For a full list of the regiment’s engagements and activities, see this page.

The move to Kansas

Thomas Morris was still living in Olive Township in June 1870 when he was enumerated in the census of Caldwell village as a dry goods merchant and assessor, age 39, with Mary and five children.8

Within a few months he moved his family to Cowley County in southern Kansas.  It had been organized as a county in early 1870 but was sparsely settled (the June 1870 census counted a population of just 726) until the Osage lands were officially opened to settlers later that year.  In his pension application Thomas Morris declared that he resided in Kansas from 1871 onward, and indeed we find mention of his election as a justice of the peace for Beaver Township on 27 June 1871.9  That fall he was elected to the first of several terms representing Beaver Township as a Republican delegate.10

Carrie Morris Graham’s obituary states that “when she was 12 (sic) her parents moved from Caldwell, O. to settle on a claim near Arkansas City, Kas.”   Thomas Morris’s claim was for 150 acres on the Arkansas River in the western part of Beaver Township, very near the western border of the county and barely a dozen miles north of Oklahoma.  It was about equidistant from the towns of Arkansas City and Winfield, which spent the next few years vying for preeminence.

Kansas conducted a number of state censuses, and the state census of 1875 found the family, sans the eldest daughter Frances, living in Beaver Township.11  The 1880 federal census found Mary Morris and three of her children enumerated just a few miles to the north but over the county line Oxford, Sumner County, Kansas but Thomas was either omitted or living elsewhere.12 [4]   The 1885 state census found them several miles further west living near their daughter Carrie in Harper, Harper County, with only the youngest daughter left in the household.13

They may have briefly left Kansas, for he must have been the T. W. Morris listed as an employee of his son McDonald Morris in the 1892 Guthrie, Oklahoma city directory.  Indeed, the Guthrie newspaper noted on several occasions about that time that he was “from Perry” visiting his son Mac Morris in Guthrie.  However, the 1895 Kansas state census lists Thomas and Mary Morris back in Cowley County and living in the county seat of Winfield.14  In the latter two censuses, Thomas listed his occupation as “clerk.”  The 1900 census enumerated Thomas and Mary in Winfield living at 221 East 10th Avenue, his occupation listed as “hardware dealer.”15  They were still there for the 1905 state census, which lists him as “retired.”16

Thomas died in Kansas, Mary in Missouri

Thomas William Morris died on 29 May 1907 in Winfield and was buried in the Union Cemetery.  A month later on 3 July 1907 Mary Morris applied, successfully, for a widow’s pension for his Civil War service.   She lived another four years, dying on 5 January 1911 in Kansas City, Missouri at the home of her daughter Carrie Graham.  The location was fortuitous;  Missouri began recording death certificates in 1910 while Kansas did not require them until mid-1911.  Mary Morris’s death certificate, for which her son-in-law William O. Graham was informant, states that she had lived with his family four months, but that her usual residence was Winfield, Kansas where she was returned for burial the following day.  The death certificate gives her birth date as 1 October 1833, her father’s name as Benjamin Thurlow (born in Vermont) , her mother’s name as Jane Dyer (“[I] think born in Virginia”), and says she died after a 10-day illness of valvular heart disease accompanied by asthma, with senility a contributing factor.  She was buried in the Union Cemetery in Winfield.  The funeral was held in Winfield on 7 January 1911 and according to the Winfield Daily Free Press, was attended by all five of her children.17

Thomas Morris’s pension application included a section to list his “children living” where he listed the names and birth dates of five children, matching the five who attended Mary’s funeral:

  1. Frances Lily Morris (19 May 1853 – 11 January 1911)  Typically rendered as “Frances L., she was occasionally recorded as “Lillie” or “Lily”.  She was in her parents census households in 1860 (age 7) and 1870 (age 17).  She married about 1874 to Russell H. True (1842-1904) as his second wife and the couple were counted in the March 1875 state census living near her parents and in the 1880 census of Winfield.   According to a local Florida history, “Russell True, his wife Frances, and their daughters Carrie and Mary moved to Mount Dora in 1884 from Kansas… suffer[ed] from ill health [and] was advised by his physician to relocate to a warmer climate.”18  Russell True worked for a local merchant for a few years and in 1895 he bought a general store that he operated until his death.  He was active in local affairs, serving as postmaster from 1889 to 1893 and on the local school board.

    Russell True died in Mount Dora on 6 March 1904 and was buried in the Pine Forest Cemetery.  No probate records for him were found. He had served in several Ohio Union Army regiments, mainly as a quartermaster Sergeant and 1st Lieutenant, and Frances secured a widow’s pension on that service after his death19  The 1910 census shows Frances L. True with her adult daughters still at home in Florida.  However, according to a daughter’s obituary, the family spent eight years in Kansas City after Russell True’s death.  Indeed, when her mother died in early January 1911 Frances was living in Kansas City, apparently with her sister Carrie.  She died four days later in Kansas City, but was later buried with her husband in the Pine Forest Cemetery in Mount Dora.  Her daughters apparently continued to live with the Grahams until they returned to Mount Dora about 1915, where they lived nearly all their lives in Russell True’s original home.20  They evidently remained close to their aunt Carrie Graham according to reports of joint travel.21  The Trues had three children but no grandchildren:

    1. Walter I. True (1877 – aft1910)  Walter was still in his parents’ household in 1885, age 8, but shortly thereafter was returned to Kansas as a child inmate of the Kansas State Asylum for Feebleminded and Idiotic Youth that was established at Winfield in 1887.  (The name was changed to The Kansas State Home for the Feebleminded in 1909.)  The home was intended to train young people to operate in society, but Walter True was still there almost twenty-five years later, enumerated as a 33-year old inmate in the 1910 census.  The facility’s longtime director, Dr. F. Hoyt Pilcher, was an advocate for eugenics and is reported to have illegally sterilized as many as 150 inmates.  In 1913 Kansas enacted a “sterilization act” that targeted “habitual criminals, idiots, epileptics, imbeciles, and insane” that gave legal cover to the Home’s eugenics program.  Whether Walter survived all that is unknown.  I could find no record of him after 1910.
    2. Carrie Alice True (3 October 1878 – 6 April 1947)  She never married.  She worked in the mercantile business with her father and continued to work in retail after his death, eventually becoming the proprietor of a shop in Mount Dora called the Rest-A-While Gift Shop.  Orlando newspapers reported that she made annual trips to New York City to purchase stock for the store.  She and her sister were shown living together in every state and federal census through 1945, in an expanded version of the original family home on 5th Avenue and Grandview St.  Carrie died unexpectedly on Easter morning in 1947 and is buried in the same cemetery as her parents and sister.
    3. Mary Morris True (28 January 1889 – 1 November 1960)  She remained single into old age, living with her sister Carrie and working as a cashier and bookkeeper in the First National Bank of Mount Dora.  She was called Mary well into middle age but later styled herself as “Mamie” True.22   In 1951, four years after her sister’s death, Mary married (as Mary Morris True) an elderly widower named John Abraham Crosswhite who had recently relocated from Texas to Mount Dora.  Her husband died just two years later.  Mary’s obituary called her “the last member of a pioneer Mount Dora family”, summarized several of her civic activities and mentioned that she had worked on compiling a history of the town.23   Mary is buried with her parents and sister in the Pine Forest Cemetery.
  2. Granville Morris (15 December 1854 – 6 April 1928)   See separate page.
  3. Caroline “Carrie” Morris (31 August 1856 –1934)   She was “Caroline” in 1860, but thereafter was known as “Carrie”.  According to her obituary, at the age of thirteen she “put up her glossy brown hair and donned long dresses and took the teacher’s examination for a certificate” then taught in a sod schoolhouse near her home in Whitfield.  At eighteen she was elected superintendent of schools for Cowley County and at twenty-one she rode by horseback forty-odd miles south  to Perry, Oklahoma and started a millinery store.24  Within the next two or three years she somehow arrived in Harper County, Kansas where she married William Oran Graham (1850-1937), a University of Kentucky graduate, about 1879 or 1880.25  They are enumerated as a couple in the 1880 census of the city of Harper, where he edited and published the local newspaper.  By the 1885 state census they had produced their son Horace.  About 1888 they moved to Kansas City, Missouri where William O. Graham was listed in the 1889 city directory as publisher of the K. C. Traveler.  The 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930 censuses enumerated them in Kansas City, Jackson County, Missouri where William Graham was a well-known printer and occasional author who later ran the Kansas City operation of the Great Western Type Foundry.  For a time Carrie’s sister “Louie M.” Morris was his partner in a stationary printing company, operating as “Morris & Graham”.

    Carrie Morris Graham operated businesses of her own in Kansas City.  She opened a millinery store in 1898 and was subsequently listed in early city directories as a milliner.  She was soon listed as the proprietor of the Graham Hat Shop on Eleventh Avenue (sometimes called the Graham Ladies Hattery), which she operated for more than twenty years.  Her mother Mary Morris lived with the Grahams for a few months before she died in early 1911 and appears in their household in the 1910 census.   Carrie retired from her business about 1925 and died in 1934 of heart disease at her son’ s home. She is buried next to her husband in the Mount Washington Cemetery in Independence, Missouri as “Carrie M. Graham”. 26 No death certificate was found for Carrie, but the Kansas City Star carried her obituary the next day.  Her husband William Oran Graham died at his son’s house on 25 May 1837 from complications from a fall a few weeks earlier that broke his hip.27

    William Oran Graham’s family was the subject of a “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” article about his family’s remarkable longevity.  His mother’s parents, who both lived past 85, produced fourteen children who lived to an average of 88 years.28  One of them was his mother who bore twelve children of her own among whom not a single death had occurred in 77 years.  All but one of her children died in the subsequent decade, William being the next to last.

    1. Horace Roy Graham  (23 April 1884 – January 1965)  The 1900 census gives his year of birth as 1885, but military and Social Security records give it as 1884 and the 1885 state census supports that.  He was “Horace” in 1885 and “Roy H.” in his parents’ 1900 household, but later was known as Horace Roy Graham.  He married Etta Wanda Egbert, daughter of a local merchant, in Kansas City on 27 November 1909.29  She was prominent in Kansas City society and Volunteer service, being favorably mentioned in several newspaper articles over the years.  The couple was enumerated in 1910 in Kansas City with his occupation listed as a “commercial traveler” in millinery, perhaps associated with his mother’s business.   His World War I draft card says he was a traveling salesman, and the 1920 census lists him as a wholesale milliner in Kansas City.  In 1930 the census found him living on Mission Drive in Mission, Missouri just outside Kansas City, his occupation again listed as a wholesale millinery merchant.  He was living at 415 East Meyer Blvd. in 1937, according to his father’s death certificate, for which he was the informant.  According to censuses he had two children:

      1. Aloha Graham (2 September 1911 – 16 July 2004)   She was still in her father’s household in 1830.   She first married Ferdinand Hauk and had a daughter named Phyllis, then married William J. Crawford on 26 March 1944 and had a daughter named Karen.   The 18 July 2004 issue of the Kansas City Star contains an obituary for Aloha Graham Crawford that identifies her as the daughter of Horace Roy and Wanda Graham.30  She died in Shawnee Mission, Kansas according to the Social Security Death Index, and at St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City according to the obituary.  She was survived by two children named Phyllis Hauk Kerr of Kansas City and Karen Crawford Voss of Des Moines.
      2. Phyllis Graham (25 February 1915 – February 1995)   Horace Graham gave permission for the marriage of his daughter Phyllis to Mitchell J. Henderson Jr. on 22 December 1934.   She died in St. Louis according to the Social Security Death Index.
  4. McDonald Thorla Morris (19 January 1861 – 27 April 1919)   He was evidently named for his teenaged uncle McDonald Thorla (or perhaps both were named for the same person).31 He married Flora L. Sherburne, daughter of William Sherburne, in Oxford, Sumner County, Kansas on 18 February 1885.32  At this time McDonald owned two hardware stores.  A few months after the marriage he sold a half-interest in his Attica store, managed by his father, to his brother Granville Morris.33  Although his brother-in-law owned the local newspaper, surely a business advantage, Granville promptly relocated the “Morris Brothers Hardware” store to Medicine Lodge in Barber County.34  The move was famously unsuccessful and Granville appears to have taken the blame.  In July 1888 he bought out McDonald’s remaining half interest in the business, auctioned off the stock, and spent several years being sued over $10,000 in debts to suppliers. 35 36.  This was, however, only a temporary setback to the Morris Brothers business.

    McDonald and Flora moved to Oklahoma, probably during or just after the first Oklahoma land run of 22 April 1889, as the 1890 territorial census found them living in Guthrie, Logan County. (A newspaper report of his death says he arrived in Guthrie in 1889.)   He did not homestead, but rather bought Guthrie’s first hardware store with a partner named F. O. Farquharson. The first directory for the new town of Guthrie was published in 1890 and “M. T. Morris” is listed as a hardware store clerk.37

    The 1892, 1896, and 1898 directories list him as a partner in the New York Hardware store on West Oklahoma St.  His partner for the first several years was the mayor, A. O. Farquharson.  He also partnered with his brother Granville in 1894 to open a branch of New York Hardware about twenty miles northward in Perry, Oklahoma.38  He bought out Farquharson’s interest in the Guthrie store, and in the city directories of 1899 and thereafter, he was listed as the proprietor of Guthrie’s New York Hardware.  In early 1899 McDonald and Granville partnered in still another venture, buying a hardware store in Chandler, which they would briefly operate as the firm of Morris & Morris with Granville in charge of it.39  Two years later the business, by then known as New York Hardware, was sold to investors.40  This was the last venture in which the brothers partnered.

    The local newspaper reported in 1895 that his new house on North Broad  was “one of the handsomest residences in the city.”  The censuses of 1900 and 1910 found him living at 319 North Broad St. in Guthrie with his occupation listed as hardware merchant.41 42  The Guthrie Daily Leader newspaper carried regular advertisements for the hardware store, consistently calling him either “Mac Morris” or “Mack Morris”.   A 1910 newspaper blurb mentioned that he was “contemplating investing a little surplus cash in automobiles.” 43

    When he died on 27 April 1919 the newspaper reported that Guthrie’s merchants closed their doors for two hours for the funeral.44   The same article mentioned that he left two sons: “Tom, who came home from Harvard University, and Don, who was in business with his father”.   He was buried in the Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie, where a stone still marks the grave. In the 1920 census, his widow Flora was enumerated as head of household with her son Donald and his family.   Donald Morris sold the hardware store in 1921 and returned to his wife’s home in Massachusetts.  The widow Flora is not buried in the family plot; she seems to have moved to Massachusetts to live near her sons.   She was enumerated in a boardinghouse in Arlington, Massachusetts in the 1930 census.45  She died in 1935 and is buried in Cambridge’s Mount Auburn Cemetery as Flora Linda Morris.   McDonald and Flora had four children, one of whom died in infancy according to the 1900 census, and another who predeceased his father.

    1. Donald Ray Morris (19 January 1888 – ? ) His original name was evidently McDonald, like his father, as he was listed as “McDonald R.” in the 1890 territorial census. That name was shortened, however, as he is simply “Donald” or “Don “ in every later record. According to the Guthrie Daily Leader he married Marion Hawes Perkins in Pawtucket, Rhode Island on 2 April 1907. Both were 19-year old students at Dean College in Franklin, Massachusetts and had attempted to keep the marriage secret.  He returned to Guthrie to work in the family hardware business in time to be listed in the 1908 city directory. He was living with his parents and his own family in subsequent directories and in both the 1910 and 1920 censuses. He filled out a World War I draft card in 1917 with his date of birth as above in Oxford, Kansas. The draft card describes him as having blue eyes and brown hair, of medium height and “stocky” in build. (It also indicates, under “military experience”, that he had attended secondary school at the Kenyon Military Academy in Ohio.) Two years after his father’s death, in June 1921, Don sold the hardware store in Guthrie and removed to the vicinity of his wife’s family on Cape Cod. The 1930 census enumerated him in Bourne, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, working as a traveling salesman in hardware.  The 1940 census lists him as a hardware salesman living in the same house.  wqqHis World War II draft registration card confirms his birth date and place, and describes him 5’10” tall and 230 pounds. It lists his occupation as a supplier for Biddle Hardware of Philadelphia. Censuses list three daughters: Flora Virginia Morris (1908-?) , Hildegard A. Morris (1911-?), and Mary Georgette Morris (1919-2000).
    2. Kenneth R. Morris (November 1890 – 2 December 1914) He was living with his parents at 319 North Broad Street in the 1910 census, and city directories beginning in 1908 list him as a clerk in his father’s store. He passed away suddenly of peritonitis after being “in feeble health for some months.”46  One newspaper reported that he had had previous attacks, which he had intended to treat at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.47 He was unmarried. Kenneth R. Morris is buried with his father in the Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie.
    3. Thomas William Morris (5 December 1892 – 7 January 1969) He may have been named Thomas William Sherburne Morris, as he was enumerated as “Thomas S.” in the 1900 census and named his own eldest son Thomas Sherburne, but as an adult he was known as Thomas William Morris. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1915 and while a student there he applied for a passport in 1914, giving his birth date as above. The application describes him as 5’9” tall, with “bluish gray” eyes, a full chin, medium nose, fair complexion, and light hair. His World War I draft card, dated in May 1917, lists his occupation as a US government lawyer at Camp Funston, Texas but gives his parent’s address in Guthrie. The draft card indicates that he was in the Reserve Officer Corps. In 1919 he received a law degree from Harvard Law School, where student records list his marriage on 12 September 1917 (sic) to Catherine Cecilia Kemp.48 49

      They had actually married a year earlier on 20 September 1916, when the Boston Herald reported that Catherine Kemp had eloped to marry Thomas W. Morris “whom she had met last winter while skating on the Charles River.”50  They were divorced by the 1930 census when Catherine C. Morris was enumerated as a divorced head of household in Cambridge with the five children below. Thomas Morris was not found in the 1930 census but was listed with a work address in the Boston city directory. He appears to have married again in the early 1930s to a woman named Marion C. Murphy (1904-1987).51  Thomas Morris practiced law in Boston, initially in a law firm but later on his own, and was listed in Boston City directories for many years.  Newspaper records of lawsuits suggest that he specialized in investment law.52

      In 1938 he was arrested by federal prosecutors in New York and accused of looting the assets of several investment companies. He and his law partner Ralph Robb were both acquitted of larceny in the case of the Continental Securities firm, but were also indicted in April 1939 in another case involving two companies called Insuranshares Corp. and Byrco Inc.  In December 1939 Thomas E. Morris, Ralph Robb, another Boston lawyer, a Canadian stock manipulator, and Stephen Paine (a partner in Paine, Webber & Company and son of the founder) were all convicted of mail fraud and conspiracy in that case. Paine, Webber had made loans of nearly $700,000 in late 1937 and early 1938 to the lawyers so that they could purchase enough stock in the two investment companies to gain voting control, whereupon they repaid the loans by selling the companies’ securities and replacing them with worthless ones, including stock in their own dummy companies. The prosecutor claimed they pocketed nearly $1.3 million in the scheme. They were accused, but not convicted, of a similar scheme involving a fourth investment company. Thomas Morris and the other lawyers were sentenced to two years in prison.53

      In 1942 he filed a civilian draft registration card listing a home address in Belmont but a mailing address in Portland, Maine, and giving his brother as a contact. He was in Hollywood, California by 1947, apparently still acting as an attorney.54  He died in Anaheim, California in 1969 and is buried in the Good Shepherd Cemetery in Huntington Beach along with his second wife, who died in 1987. Thomas and Catherine had five children before their divorce: Thomas Sherburne Morris (1917-1966), Margaret L. Morris (1919-1973), Kenneth E. Morris (1921-1965), Katherine A. Morris (1926-1972), and Joan A. Morris (1927-1970).

  5. Mary Louise Morris (2 April 1866 – 28 January 1919)  Her birth year is uncertain, both 1866 and 1867 given in different source documents, though the former seems more likely  Born in Noble County, Ohio she moved as a child to Winfield.   She was enumerated as “Louie” in 1870 and “M. Louie” in 1880, aged 4 and 14 respectively.  (She was apparently double-counted in 1880, also listed in her sister Frances’s household.)  Despite her youth, her occupation was listed as “music teacher” in 1880.  In both the 1875 and the 1885 Kansas state censuses she was “Louie M.” Morris.   She was referred to as “Lou Morris late of the Harper Daily Sentinel” (her brother-in-law’s newspaper) in 1887 when she arrived in Medicine Lodge.55  She was also listed as “Louie M. Morris” in the 1889-91 and 1893 Kansas City city directories, as a partner with her brother-in-law William Oran Graham in the printing firm Morris & Graham.  The frontispiece of an essay authored by Graham called “The State of Kansas and Her Natural Resources”, published in 1890 by Morris & Graham, also lists her as “Miss Louie M. Morris”.   She disappeared from individual listings in the city directories after 1893, but the printing firm continued to be listed as Morris & Graham in the 1894 and 1895 directories.

    She married Charles Lyon Wenner (1868-1931) on 14 December 1893 in Perry, Noble County, Oklahoma at about the same time as her brother Granville Morris moved there.  They were living in Perry in July 1896 when their one-year old son Morris Wenner died.56 Interestingly, when her brother Granville Morris resigned as Noble County commissioner the Governor appointed her husband Charles Wenner to fill the vacancy.57

    The 1900 and 1910 censuses for Noble County list her as “Louie” and “Louie M.” Wenner with her husband and three daughters named Wilda M. Wenner, Flora Wenner, and Frances L Wenner.   Her husband was listed as a dealer in “books, paper, and lumber” in 1900 and as a hardware merchant in 1910.   Sometime around 1915 they moved to Guthrie, where they lived just one block down Broad Street from McDonald Morris.  All three daughters graduated from Guthrie High School.  A photograph of the family taken about 1910 or so and posted at Ancestry by a descendant is located at this Ancestry page.

    A report of Louie’s death after a lengthy illness, which called her “Mary Lou Wenner”, was carried in local newspapers.  All three of her living siblings attended the funeral.58   Another newspaper reported that her death was “very sudden, presumably due to heart trouble.”59  There is a stone for her (with the erroneous birth year 1867) in the Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie.  Her husband briefly relocated to Oklahoma City, then moved back to Kansas City where he married again to a widow in 1925 and died in 1931.

    1. Wilda Morris Wenner (22 February 1897 – 23 March1966)  She married Melville Everett Case (1894-1966) on 3 April 1920 in Oklahoma City.  By 1930 they were enumerated in Denver with two young sons named Melville and Robert.  Wilda and her husband both died in Denver and are buried in the Ft. Logan National Cemetery.  A photo of Wilda as a young woman is located at https://www.ancestry.com/mediaui-viewer/tree/77893844/person/38370271088/media/6a9a6444-cbcd-4bcd-b74c-c9734e035aae
    2. Flora Wenner (9 June 1899 – 22 November 1960) She married Carl. D. Walton (1896-1971) in Kansas City on 5 October 1923. They were enumerated in Bakersfield, California in 1930 and in Los Angeles in 1940. Flora died in Las Vegas and was buried in the Palm Downtown Cemetery.
    3. Frances L. Wenner (2 September 1905 – 6 December 1984) She married at 17 to George H. Riker in Kansas City by license dated 14 August 1923, her father giving permission.  They were childless in the 1930 census, and divorced sometime in the next few years apparently after having moved to Denver, Colorado where her older sister lived.  George Riker appears in 1940 as a divorced man in Los Angeles.  Frances remarried to Edgar L. White on 29 May 1839 and lived out her life in Wyoming.  She had one child, Jack Duane Riker, born in1831 who became part of her second family.  She and her husband share a stone in the Crown HIll Cemetery in Park County, Wyoming.
  1. Gateway to the West (Clearfield Publishing Company, 1989), Ruth Bowers and Anita Short, Vol. II, p254.  This is a bound version of a periodical published from 1967 to 1978.   The portion of interest is an abstract of guardian bonds in Morgan County, Ohio. []
  2. John Clymer was enumerated as a miller, age 73, born in New Jersey.  His wife Nancy was age 55, born in Virginia.  She was listed with $375 in personal property of her own, and he with $1,500. []
  3. Noble County Marriage Records Vol. B (1852-1867), page 498. []
  4. The County of Noble (Selwyn Grant, 1904), page 137. []
  5. History of Noble County, Ohio (Chicago: L.H. Watkins & Co., 1887), page 139. []
  6. Service records summarized in Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1866, Vol. 7 (The Ohio Valley Press, 1988), page 168.  Note that a similar summary in the History of Noble County contains a typo and omits a fact or two. []
  7. Invalid Pension File No.145353, Certificate No.102051. []
  8. 1870 Census, Olive Township, Noble County, Ohio, p178: Thomas W. Morris (39), Mary (36), Frances L. (17), Granville (15), Carrie (13), McDonald (10), Louise (4).  All the children are listed as born in Ohio. He was credited with $500 in real estate and $500 in personal property.  Note that this entry is erroneously indexed as “Thomas W. Maris” at ancestry.com []
  9. Cowley County Censor newspaper, issue of i July 1871. []
  10. Cowley County Censor newspaper, issue of 21 October 1871. []
  11. T.W. Morris (44), farmer, Mary (42), Granville (20), Carrie (17), Mc (14), Louie (9).  It lists all of them born in Ohio and lists Thomas with $1,000 of real estate and $300 of personal property. []
  12. The census record that exists today was copied from the actual census-taker’s forms, so omissions and other copying errors are not unknown.  The census lists Mary Morris (46), Granville (25), McDonald T. (19), and M. Louie (14).  All were born in Ohio, their father in Virginia, and Mary gave her father and mother’s birth places as Maine and Virginia. []
  13. 1885 Kansas state census, Harper County, p85:  Thomas W. Morris (54), clerk, Mary (52), Louie M. (19).  All listed as born in Ohio, and Thomas listed as a veteran of Co. E. 92nd Ohio Infantry.   The Kansas state census was unique in that it identified Civil War veterans. []
  14. 1895 Kansas state census, Cowley County, p5:  Thomas W. Morris (63), clerk, Mary (61).  Both are again listed as born in Ohio, and Thomas’s Civil War service is listed as before. []
  15. 1900 Census, Cowley County, Kansas, District 68, p1B:  W. T. Morris (69) May 1831, MD-MD-MD, hardware dealer;  Mary Morris (67) Oct 1832, OH-ME-ME; married 47 years; mother of 5, all 5 living. []
  16. 1905 Kansas state census Cowley County, Winfield Family No. 821:  T. W. Morris (63)[sic] born VA, retired, Mary (71) born OH.  The Civil War service is again repeated. []
  17. Winfield Daily Free Press issue of 6 January 1911, page 4: “Mr. W. O. Graham of Kansas City, a son-in-law, and Mrs. Graham and Mrs. R. H. True of Kansas City and Mrs. C. L. Wenner, Perry, Oklahoma, daughters, Mack T. Morris, Guthrie, Oklahoma, and Granville Morris of Texas, sons of Mrs. Mary Morris, are all here to attend the funeral of their mother tomorrow afternoon.” []
  18. Lynn M. Homan and Thomas Reilly, Mount Dora (Arcadia Publishing, 2000), page 42. []
  19. Pension Certificate #607161. []
  20. Obituary of Mary Morris Crosswhite. []
  21. The Orlando Sentinel issue of 30 January 1926, page 8, reported that the True ladies and Carrie Graham had vacationed in New  York and Philadephia together. []
  22. Per her numerous newspaper appearances in The Orlando Sentinel. []
  23. The Orlando Sentinel issue of 2 November 1960, page 31. []
  24. Kansas City Star, issue of 26 January 1934, page 3. []
  25. Although no marriage record was found, in the 1900 and 1910 censuses they declared they had been married for 18 and 30 years, respectively. The latter is probably correct, since they appeared in the 1880 census as a couple. []
  26. His death certificate, No. 19162, states that he was widowed and that his wife’s name had been “Carrie M.” Graham. []
  27. Kansas City Star issue of 25 May 1837, page 6. []
  28. Kansas City Star issue of 18 May 1924, page 42. There was a fifteenth child who died in infancy. []
  29. Jackson County, Missouri Marriage License No. 45639 []
  30. Only an index entry was read. []
  31. Harvard alumni records for his son Thomas list his middle name as “Thorlean”. []
  32. Sumner County Marriage Book C, page 43. He was styled in this record as “Mack T. Morris.” Both Flora and Jennie were enumerated as daughters in the 1880 household of William Sherburne in Sumner County, Kansas. []
  33. The Oxford Register issue of 4 July 1885. []
  34. The Oxford Register issue of 14 November 1885. []
  35. Medicine Lodge Cresset, issue of 26 July 1888, page 3. []
  36. Ibid, 15 August 1888, page 3. []
  37. Online database. He was listed as a clerk for George E. Munday, who owned the New York hardware store, and was residing at the corner of Broadway and Warner. []
  38. Perry Daily Times issues of 6 February1894, page 3, and 28 March 1894, page 3. []
  39. The Chandler News issue of 24 February 1899. []
  40. The Chandler News issue of 20 June 1901. []
  41. 1900 census, Guthrie, Logan County, Oklahoma, p92A: McDonald T. Morris (38) Jan 1862 OH OH OH, Flora M. wife (35) Oct 1865 IN ENG NY, Don R. son (12) Jan 1885 KS OH IN, Kena R. son (9) Nov 1890 OK OH IN, Tom S. son (7) Dec 1892 OK OH IN. Couple had been married 15 years, 4 children, 3 living. []
  42. 1910 census, Guthrie, Logan County, Oklahoma, ED 125, p8B: M.T. Morris (51) OH VA VA hardware merchant, Flora wife (46) IN ENG IN, Donald son (22) KS OH IN hardware clerk, Marion daughter-in-law (22) MA MA MA, Kenneth son (19) OK OH IN, Thomas son 17 OK OH IN, Flora daughter (2) OK KS MA, Hilda daughter (0/12) OK KS MA, Jennie Sherburne aunt (39) IN ENG IN.   McDonald and Flora married 25 years 4 children, 3 living. Donald and Marion married 4 years, 2 children, both living. []
  43. Oklahoma State Capital (Guthrie), issue of 13 March 1910, page 5. []
  44. Oklahoma State Register (Guthrie), issue of 1 May 1919, page 1. []
  45. She is listed as Flora L. Morris, a widow of the right age, born in Indiana with parents born in England and Massachusetts. She had been listed as Flora L. Morris in Guthrie city directories and censuses had shown that she was indeed born in Indiana and that her father was born in England. Her mother’s birthplace, though, seems to have been New York rather than Massachusetts. []
  46. Oklahoma Leader (Guthrie), issue of 3 December 1914, page 1. []
  47. Oklahoma State Register (Guthrie), issue of 3 December 1914, page 5. []
  48. Boyd Lee Spahr, ed., General register of the members of the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity, 1850-1920, page 1279. []
  49. Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates (Harvard University, 1920), page 908.   Also see General Catalogue Issue (Harvard University, 1920), page 330. []
  50. Boston Herald issue of 23 September 1916, page 14. []
  51. The passenger list of a ship returning from Bermuda in 1935 shows Thomas W. Morris, age 42 and born in Guthrie, Oklahoma and an apparent wife Marion C. Morris, age 31 born in Benedicta, Maine. []
  52. Numerous issues of the Boston Herald mention his cases, most of which seemed to involve suits by stockholders or bondholders. []
  53. Numerous issues of the Boston Herald and other newspapers. One of the lawyers pled guilty and the other four men were convicted in December 1939 of mail fraud and a number of conspiracy counts. Paine, who authorized the loans, was sentenced to one year in prison and the other four men drew two-year sentences. Paine was independently involved in similar crimes with others. []
  54. Lowell Sun issue of 19 September 1947, pages 1 and 33 carried an article about the suicide of a Boston woman whose attorney was Thomas W. Morris of Hollywood. []
  55. Medicine Lodge Cresset, issue of 31 March 1887. []
  56. Guthrie Daily Leader issue of 3 July 1896, page 4. []
  57. Daily Oklahoma State Capital issue of 24 December 1897, page 4. []
  58. Guthrie Daily Leader issue of 28 January 1919, page 4.  See also Oklahoma State Register (Guthrie) issue of 30 January 1919 page 1. []
  59. The Perry Republican issue of 30 January 1919, page 1. []