Obituary of John C Morris

John C. Morris, Jr. Born in Southampton, New York, John C. Morris, Jr., was a resident of Basking Ridge, New Jersey, for almost 60 years. He died peacefully on September 15, 2020, at Morristown Medical Center with his daughter, Laura, by his side. The son of John C. Morris, Sr., a patent attorney for Bell Labs, and Rhoda M. Edwards, a homemaker, both of Sag Harbor, Long Island, John and his sister, Rhoda, grew up in Rockville Centre, New York. He attended South Side High School and Cornell University, where he was a member of Kappa Delta Rho fraternity and earned a Bachelor of Architecture. Drafted into the U.S. Army, John served in 1956–58 in the Signal Corps and was stationed in Karlsruhe, Germany. When leaving Germany, he had a VW Karmann Ghia shipped home, which he later replaced with a Beetle. He met Marilyn Ceglowski in New Jersey, after both sets of parents had moved to the Chathams. They married in 1960. The arrival of their first child, Steven, came while John was again serving on Army active duty, this time in New Jersey, at Fort Monmouth, in 1961–62. A superb technician, John was a key figure behind-the-scenes at the Kuhn, Drake, Hessberger (Summit); HLW (Basking Ridge office); and NK (Morristown office) architectural firms. He developed the details, shop drawings, and specifications to ensure that commercial buildings would be constructed to endure. John was a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the New Jersey Society of Architects. John was a committed do-it-yourselfer and an avid hobbyist. He was active many years in The Model Railroad Club (Union, now part of the Union County park system), designing pro bono the club’s building expansion begun in 1993. For his contributions, he was named Club Architect Emeritus and was granted a lifetime membership. Along with his wife, he was a long-time volunteer at Morristown Memorial Hospital, where the couple was dubbed the “dynamic duo”; Community Theatre at Mayo Performing Arts Center (Morristown); Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey (Madison); and the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church, among other organizations. John was also a champion blood donor who believed giving of himself to aid others was vital. John and Marilyn moved to Fellowship Village in 2015, where he was described as a “spitfire.” Marilyn predeceased him in 2018. John is survived by his children: Steven Morris, of Boulder, Colorado, and Laura Morris, of Albany, New York. Both are grateful to the staff at Fellowship Village for the care of their parents in their last months. A graveside ceremony will be held at Somerset Hills Memorial Park in Basking Ridge, on Monday, September 21 at 11 a.m. Memorial donations may be sent to The Model Railroad Club, Inc. (https://www.themodelrailroadclub.org), or the Alzheimer’s Association (https://www.alz.org). To leave condolences online, visit http://gcfuneralhome.com/.