Nancy Elizabeth (Tanner) Morse (1839 - 1922)

Born 13 Sep 1839 in Rutherford County, North Carolina, United States

Descendants

Died 1 Mar 1922 at age 82 in Tebo Township, Henry, Missouri, United States

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Biography

Nancy was born in 1839. Nancy Tanner ... She passed away in 1922.

Tebo Baptist Church Cemetery, Tebo, MO

Note: The 1880 census cited below has an index that is not properly attached to the image of the page. Parents William & Nancy Morse are enumerated with their children, namely William, Elnora, Louella, Kizer E [? male], Rosa, Sarah, Cordelia. The last three are linked together in the index.

This person was created through the import of JDS_09_17_10.ged on 09 February 2011.

Source S757

Abbreviation: Morse Family

Title: Morse Family

Author: James O. Morse (15907)

Publication: 05/14/2003

Text: FAMILY

Josephine Chastain was a ten-year-old girl living on a farm in Missouri when her mother died of pneumonia. As the oldest girl she had to drop out of school to tend to the house and her younger siblings. Although her father later married a widow with children of her own, Josie was never allowed to return to school. She did pursue a lifelong practice of reading whatever became available, however. Still, her most enduring complaint about her stepmother was that she allowed her pet pig to roam through the house.

The first snow of her eighteenth winter was an occasion for hog butchering. Unfortunately the pet pig was not the victim. Josie and her sister were occupied with rendering lard and by late afternoon were looking rather frazzled when the sister’s boyfriend appeared to ask her to go sleigh riding that evening. He had with him a new friend named Kize Morse, who was hoping to double date. As Kize stepped into the gloomy smokehouse where the girls were working he was smacked in the face by a loop of hog intestine which had been washed out and hung over a rafter to drain. “He won’t be back,” predicted the sister.

They were married a few months later despite the objections of Josie’s father; Kize was a Democrat and was known to imbibe of alcoholic spirits from time to time. I never learned which side either the Morses or the Chastains had favored during the Civil War. Nor was there ever mention of a war veteran in either family.

My father was born the following year and was named Otto at the request of some well-off German neighbors, who had earlier lost a child of that name. The gift of the late little Otto’s baby clothes and furniture were a part of the deal, it seems.

Kize worked at the sawmill that his father, William Haines Morse, operated. William’s sons (George, William, Henry, Charlie, and Kize) felt that their father was a difficult man to work for and began to look for opportunities elsewhere. The oldest son, George, was the first to migrate to Indian Territory, where he married an Indian woman and settled down to farm her land and father a huge number of children). Kize followed when my father was two and the second child, Glen, was a babe in arms. Little George was born two years later while Grandfather was farming in the Clematis community.

That had been a difficult year. All the crops except sweet potatoes failed, and the mule died. Grandmother sold the locket watch she had received as a wedding present to pay for another mule. She later explained George’s life-long aversion to sweet potatoes as being due to her having eaten them almost daily throughout that pregnancy.

Eventually Grandfather was able to secure a job much more to his liking in Davenport-firing a boiler. After Hazel was born Grandma opened a restaurant and counted among her regular customers Crazy Snake, who was later to be the Sac and Fox leader of the last Indian rebellion in Oklahoma.

Two years later Iva Mae was born, and in 1911 the family moved to Calvin along with their best friends, the Robinsons. Josie came on ahead to clean the two houses the men had rented on an earlier trip. Maw Robinson and children came by passenger train, but the men and older boys traveled in a chartered boxcar with the household goods in one end and the livestock in the other. After they had to sit on a siding in Shawnee for a whole day the trip began to seem less of an adventure to the boys.

Kize the Younger, the sixth and last child, was born later that year. Grandfather took a job as a traveling boiler mechanic but after a few years changed to a local job as the two middle boys developed a need for more on-site discipline.

On my mother’s side there had never been any doubt as to involvement in the Civil War. Two of my Grandmother Atkison’s uncles had been killed in a battle close to their home in Mississippi when they were only teenagers. Their sisters located and buried their bodies as soon as the fight ended.

Grandfather Atkison was born while his father, Giles, was away in the War. Like Forrest Gump, Grandfather was named for Nathan Bedford Forrest. That was even more obvious in my grandfather’s case-Forrest was his middle name, his first name being General.

When the baby was still quite young some miscreants burned down the house with my great grandmother in it. Fortunately she had sent the two children to the neighbors as soon as trouble appeared. When my great grandfather was erroneously reported to have been killed in action, the neighbors kept the girl but gave my grandfather to another family. As the South was collapsing, that family returned to Alabama but never told anyone where exactly they expected to settle.

When Giles returned home he found only his daughter. Every year after the crops were harvested he would travel over to Alabama in a vain search for his son. Finally, when my grandfather was fourteen, he managed to find his way home on his own. He appeared underfed and could neither read nor write.

After he grew up Grandfather met a girl who was named Mary Bell but was usually called “Molly.” As a consequence of one of her missionary ancestors’ having married a parishioner, she was one-eighth Choctaw. By the time she became engaged she had finished Ponotoc Female Academy and was teaching school. After the couple were married they followed Molly’s sister’s family, the Williams, to Durant, Indian Territory, where Grandfather opened a general story and Grandmother settled down to birth eight children over a period of about thirteen years. My mother was one of the twins born next to last.

Don and “Skeet,” the two older boys, fought in France in World War I. Bill, my mother’s twin, was awaiting a place in the Army flight school when the Armistice was signed. (The other boy, Forrest, had died of a childhood illness.) Don and Bill were mobilized with the National Guard for World War II.

Cammie, the oldest girl, married a printer when he returned from Germany in 1919. Not long afterward they moved to Kerrville, Texas to help Win’s brother run a weekly newspaper. Salabel, the next girl, also married a veteran, D. W. Sneed, who was later to amaze his niece and nephews by teaching himself college math and completing a program in architecture by correspondence.

My mother, who was originally named Charlotte but later settled on Lottie, and Thelma, the youngest sister, came to Calvin as teachers. Thelma married first, but my mother insisted upon first teaching in New Mexico for a year in order to improve her “bronchial trouble” (which later turned out to be tuberculosis). I’ve often wondered if she infected any children (besides me) in Calvin and Mesilla Park.

When my father was sixteen he ventured outside the State for the first time, hopping freights to Greeley, Colorado. There he stayed with his Aunt Tabitha, and spent the summer working in the wheat harvest. When he returned to school the next fall he began working part-time in the local bank.

Since it was obvious that the family did not have the means to send him to college Ott felt that he should take maximum advantage of the opportunities afforded by the local high school and returned after graduation to complete a fifth year. He once remarked to me that he had found some use for every course he had taken except for physics. I wondered what that was and resolved to avoid it. I wonder what he would have said had he known that was to be my major at Texas A & M.

As Glen grew into his upper teens he developed a taste for whiskey, and that often got him into trouble. He was not a large man, but when drinking he tended to think that he was and was forever picking fights with larger guys. Then he would go on the wagon for a time-just long enough to give his parents false hopes.

Uncle Bob Daniels, Thelma’s husband, once told me of a Sunday morning when my grandfather came over to the depot where Bob was on duty. After some talk Bob asked, “Kize, how’s Glen doing?”

“Well, you know, I think he’s finally got himself straightened out. He’s even going to church and taking part in the B. Y. P. U (Baptist Young People’s Union).”

This last statement was interrupted by a shout of “Yippee” from the direction of Millard Wilson’s filling station, which was just up the street and a known outlet for bootlegging.

“What was that?” asked Bob.

“Sounds like Glen,” answered Grandpa dejectedly.

Glen was the only one of the family to see military service in World War I, but he never got overseas. Influenza stopped him in Florida and almost caused his death. He returned home weakened and with a chronic ear infection that left him partially deaf for the rest of his life.

Alcohol abuse continued to dog him, however, and he barely escaped discharge from his railroad job until around 1940, when he joined Alcoholics Anonymous and remained an active participant for the rest of his life.

George, the third son, had similar difficulties with alcohol. Grandpa hoped that a year at Oklahoma Baptist University would cure him. It didn’t. Still, unlike Glen, he did not get into fights when drinking. Instead his problem was that he tended to get in his pickup and drive.

He did fight, however, when he had a reason to. Perhaps his most famous fight took place with “Big Huff” down in the town park. When he arrived home and was undressing for bed he was boasting to his sister Hazel about how he had beat up on that larger fellow.

“What’s that sticking in your belt?” Hazel asked. George was somewhat shook up when he realized that it was the tip of a knife blade. He hadn’t even been aware that Big Huff had pulled a knife on him.

George dreaded going to work the next morning and having to face his boss, Lee Clayton, for Lee’s wife Minnie was a sister to Big Huff, and it seemed like Lee was forever having to bail the Huffman boys out of some difficulty or other. Years later Ancil was charged with the murder of Harvey Bryant, a local barber whose body had been found down by the railroad tracks with the head bashed in. Lee had to bring in a high-powered, big-city lawyer to get him out of that scrape. Fortunately for Ancil’s associate, he got off free also. If he had been alone, most people thought he would have “fried” for sure.

George was busy behind the meat counter when Lee came in with a grave expression and said, “George, when you get a minute would you come over to the feed room?”

George removed his apron and hurried over, wondering whether he would still have a job when he returned. Once the door was closed, Lee’s expression changed completely as he patted George on the back and shouted, “I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed anything so much. You really gave it to him, George!” Then he paused before going on, “Now if anyone asks you, you tell them that I gave you a hard talking to and threatened to fire you. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” George answered and returned to work, trying to appear frightened and worried.

My mother was not fond of young Kize, and that feeling could probably be traced back to an incident when I was not quite two. The women were going shopping and decided to let Kize babysit. That would have been fine except that Kize had taken apart that kerosene engine out in the pump house to change the piston rings. He watched out for my safety, but he could not very well keep me from helping him reassemble the engine. When my mother came back, both me and my little white suit were covered with grease and carbon.

Kize was the family athlete, probably participating in sports more than all of his three brothers put together had. He demonstrated a similar tenacity in pursuing a girl friend.

Reba Lokey was fourteen when her widowed father moved from the neighboring town of Stuart to open a variety store. Kize, who was sixteen at the time, hadn’t noticed her until a church gave a back-to-school weiner roast down at the river. He was so impressed he had his friends afterwards conduct her date directly to his home while he walked Reba home. “He was so nice,” an aged Reba reminisced. “He drew up a bucket of water and washed the sand off my feet." It had never occurred to her that this kindness was probably just an excuse to get his hands on some part of her. The poor girl never had another date with anyone else. They were married the day she graduated from high school.

When in 1933 the newly elected Roosevelt declared a bank “holiday” to weed out failing banks, only one of the five banks in Hughes County survived to reopen-the First National Bank of Calvin. The owners decided that the only proper thing to do now that they had the only bank around was to move to the county seat in Holdenville. My father refused to move, partly because he thought the bank was being disloyal to leave Calvin, partly because he didn’t care for the position they were offering him (farm appraiser), but mainly because he detested the city of Holdenville and did not want to live there.

Kize, now twenty-two and with a wife and new baby, couldn’t afford to be so choosy. Still the bank did not seem to have a secure position for an old-the-job trained bookkeeper. They had taken over one of the failed banks in Holdenville and were trying to find places for its employees as well. The president, scratching around for something to keep Kize busy, asked him to go over the books of the failed bank to see if there might be some assets that were still salvageable. Presumably the state bank inspectors had already been through them. While plodding through the books, Kize detected an embezzlement scheme that the president and his girl friend, one of the tellers, had been operating. So, it wasn’t just poor investments that had caused the bank to fail! The two were sent to prison, and Kize’s position was secure from then on.

Paranthetical: Y

Source S758

Abbreviation: Morse, Wiliam H., Household

Title: Morse, Wiliam H., Household

Author: U. S. Census 1880

Text: Household Record 1880 United States Census

Search results | Download Previous Household Next Household

Household:

Name Relation Marital Status Gender Race Age Birthplace Occupation Father's Birthplace Mother's Birthplace William H. MORSE Self M Male W 48 NY Farmer --- --- Nancy E. MORSE Wife M Female W 40 NC Keeping House NC NC William W. MORSE Son S Male W 18 MO Farming NY NC Elnora MORSE Dau S Female W 13 MO NY NC Louella MORSE Dau S Female W 11 MO NY NC Kizer E. MORSE Son S Male M 9 MO NY NC

Source Information:

Census Place District 234, Polk, St. Clair, Missouri

Family History Library Film 1254714

NA Film Number T9-0714

Page Number 369D

Household Record 1880 United States Census

Search results | Download Previous Household Next Household

Household:

Name Relation Marital Status Gender Race Age Birthplace Occupation Father's Birthplace Mother's Birthplace Rosa MORSE Dau S Female W 5 MO NY NC Sarah MORSE Dau S Female W 7 MO NY NC Cordelia MORSE Dau S Female W 2 MO NY NC

Source Information:

Census Place District 234, Polk, St. Clair, Missouri

Family History Library Film 1254714

NA Film Number T9-0714

Page Number 369D

Note: This does not completely agree with the "Morse Family" source.

Paranthetical: Y

Sources

"United States Census, 1870", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M4XV-RP8 : 13 June 2019), Wm H Morse, 1870.

"United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M6FZ-JTN : 26 August 2017), Sarah Morse in household of Rosa Morse, Polk, St Clair, Missouri, United States; citing enumeration district ED 234, sheet 369D, NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), FHL microfilm 1,254,714.

"Missouri Births, 1817-1939," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QLLL-G3NF : 2 September 2019), Nancy E Tanner Morse in entry for Olie Morse, 16 Aug 1884; Montgomory, Missouri, United States, Birth; Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City, FHL microfilm 007578700.

"United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M3CP-RK5 : accessed 21 January 2020), William H Morse, Leesville Township, Henry, Missouri, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 86, sheet 14A, family 287, NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1972.); FHL microfilm 1,240,858.

"United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M2YW-CV9 : accessed 21 January 2020), William H Morse, Leesville, Henry, Missouri, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 93, sheet 9A, family 194, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll 783; FHL microfilm 1,374,796.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/29479511/nancy-elizabeth-morse