Jessie Ceola (Buck) Morse (1913 - 1987)

Born 23 May 1913 in Madera Canyon, Pima, AZ

Ancestors

Wife of Grant Morse — married [date unknown] in Minneapolis, Hennepin, MN

Died 6 Jun 1987 at age 74 in Hennepin, MN

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Biography

Sources

• 1. Hubert Nelson Buck, The Descendants of Charles Buck of Virginia, Name: Hubert Nelson Buck, Atlanta, GA, 1963. Source Quality: This series of nine large charts was researched and drawn by my great-uncle, Hubert Nelson Buck. -- G. S. Buck, Jr.

ABBR Hubert Nelson Buck: Buck Family Tree. "Hubert Nelson Buck, The Descendants of Charles Buck of Virginia. Source Quality: This series of nine large charts was researched and drawn by my great-uncle, Hubert Nelson Buck. -- G. S. Buck, Jr."

Memories of Viola (sister), Edna (sister), and Lena (sister) as told to George Markley (nephew) in 2002--

Jessie was born in 1913. The Bucks had not yet homesteaded what was to become Evergreen Ranch, were still living in the Ranger Station house in Madera Canyon. But by 1916 they had a couple of rudimentary structures on the land and thus fulfilled the terms of homesteading. A year later the last Buck child was born, Lena Claude. Thus Jessie had a sibling to play with but who was young enough to get in her hair all the time. Jessie and Lena definitely had their ups and downs with each other, the blame to be laid according to who was asked.

Jessie attended Empire school from first to eighth grade, then moved to Tucson for High School, living with the Fischers. She graduated in 1931. She had been very impatient to graduate and turn 18 so she could get a job and be on her own, but she found it very difficult to get and do many of the things she wanted after paying the rent and utilities and buying food. For some reason, she moved to Houston Texas soon after graduating, and there she met and married her first husband. After several years they were divorced and Jessie moved to Galveston where she met Grant Morse, a young sailor stationed at the Navy base. They married, and planed to have a family. Jessie thought she was pregnant, but after visiting Grant in California (where he was sometimes stationed during the war) and returning to Galveston, she discovered she had a large tumor. She was never able to have children, possibly because of a bad injury she received when just a toddler of 2 when a heavy lifting tripod fell on her, injuring her back. After the accident she didn't get medical care (this was up in Madera Canyon) but had to learn to walk all over again after being in bed for a couple of weeks. She had back problems all her life.

After the war ended, Grant and Jessie moved to Denver. They lived there for several years, at first staying in the Stillhammer basement. Nancy (Stillhammer) was just a baby of three, and very tiny, but was already showing her spunky nature. She could talk very well and was very curious about everything. She invaded the Morse domain on occasion, wanting to eat waffles which she loved, or play with various things. When at times she was rebuffed, she wanted to know why and was told these things belonged to them, not her. She wanted to know why they belonged to them and was told 'because we paid for them'. Once Grant came upstairs to play on the Stillhammer's piano and found Nancy on the stool playing around. He told her to get down because he had to practice his piano, and Nancy puffed up to about twice her size, and asked: Who paid for it?

While in Denver, Jessie got Grant to go to Bethany Baptist church, though he could only stand to sit through one sermon a week. He finally 'accepted the Lord' and thereafter could hardly be restrained from going to church all the time. He did a turn around in his life, giving up many of his bad habits such as smoking. He even attended Rockmont College for a time. But his ambition was to be a baker, and so he and Jessie moved to Wisconsin where there was a very good bakery school. After he finished baking school, they moved to Minneapolis, where his folks lived. Sometime in the early 50s they heard about a chance to adopt an unwanted baby girl who was only a few days old and still in the hospital in Denver. They went to Denver to fetch her, and started the adoption process. They had been foster parents before, so had a much easier time of it. Several years after that, they had a repeat opportunity, same place, also a little girl a few days old. Thus Cecelia and Leeann were brought into their lives. Jessie her family lived in Minneapolis for many years, her daughters growing up and marrying and having kids of their own. After Grant died in the early 80s of a heart attack Jessie moved in with Cecelia and her family, in a little apartment in the back of her house. There she lived until she died in the early 90s of kidney failure. She had been on dialyses for years, getting sicker and sicker.