Obituary of Marilyn J Morris

Marilyn Joan Morris

A resident of Basking Ridge, NJ, for some 55 years and a lifelong Jersey girl, Marilyn Joan Morris, 85, passed away on April 18, 2018, at Fellowship Village. The only child of John, a chemistry teacher and audiovisual specialist in New York City schools, and Marion Ceglowski, a secretary, Marilyn was born in Newark, grew up in Hillside, and lived in Chatham, NJ. In her adult years, she fondly remembered riding the trolley from Hillside to go shopping in downtown Newark and cheering on the Brooklyn Dodgers with her mother at Ebbets Field. The valedictorian of her high-school class in Hillside, she pursued her education outside the Garden State. She became a Phi Beta Kappa at Northwestern University and earned a master’s degree in chemistry from Mount Holyoke College. In 1960, Marilyn married John C. Morris of Chatham. She worked as a chemist at Ciba in Summit before the arrival of the couple’s two children.

Marilyn later completed an associate’s degree in medical records at Union County Community College, where she was again a valedictorian. Until retirement, she worked diligently as a coder at Overlook Hospital, Summit. A long-time volunteer with her husband at Morristown Memorial Hospital, she also donated her time to the Community Theatre at Mayo, Morristown, and Shakespeare Theatre, Madison, as well as to the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church. A church organist in her 20s in Chatham, she, an alto, loved singing in her church choir and the Fellowship Village choir. She also enjoyed a mean game of Scrabble with her husband and daughter, Laura. Marilyn is survived by her husband of 57 years; son, Steven, of Boulder, CO; daughter, of Albany, NY; and cousin Raymond Cheston, of Manchester, NJ. A memorial service will be held on Monday, April 23 at 3:30 in the chapel of the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church, followed by a reception. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be sent to the Alzheimer’s Association, 225 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60601 (www.alz.org). To leave condolences online, please visit http://gcfuneralhome.com/.