Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Dorothea CLOUD
Civic leader Dorothea C. Morse dies
By Gayle Ronan Sims
Inquirer Staff Writer
Dorothea Cloud Morse, 90, of Kennett Square, a leader in civic and Quaker issues and a legal administrator, died June 6 of Parkinson's disease at Kendal at Longwood, the retirement home where she had lived for 11 years.
In the 1980s, Mrs. Morse was clerk of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, the highest position in the largest Quaker body in the United States. Mrs. Morse was in a delegation of U.S. religious leaders who traveled to the Soviet Union in 1985. She was an advocate for peace and joined Quaker groups opposing atomic weapons. Her work and organizing skill strengthened the Friends General Conference.
The former Dorothea Cloud grew up in an 1872 Victorian house on a dairy farm in Kennett Township called Sunstone Farm.
"Our Quaker grandparents purchased this property in 1845," said son Robert. "In 1947, my parents moved to the historic [circa 1710] Bernard Wiley Swedish log house." Mrs. Morse lived most of her life there until moving to Kendal in 1997.
She won five of the six awards given to the 1935 Kennett High School class. She graduated summa cum laude in 1939 from Smith College and was the top student among 300 U.S. female students who studied at the Sorbonne in Paris from 1937 to 1938. The Nazi shadow over France disrupted her plans for graduate work at the Sorbonne in 1939.
She earned a master's degree in French at Middlebury College, where she met her future husband, Alfred Winslow Morse. They married in 1941. When World War II broke out, Mrs. Morse's husband was drafted by the Army and the couple moved to Hawaii, where she worked in a hospital and where their first child was born.
Mrs. Morse returned to Kennett Square after the war and took a job as a legal aide with a local firm, where she worked until retiring in 2002.
"My mother's unfulfilled dream was to earn a doctorate and teach French in college," said son Stephen. "She struggled to do it all in an era of repression of women in society. I thought all women were strong and driven because she was my model."
Mrs. Morse was a tireless community leader. She was on the board of the Bayard Taylor Memorial Library for 37 years, and was the first recipient of an award in her name in 1999. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, she chaired the Kennett Area Joint Action Committee, which promoted affordable housing for the local African American community. Mrs. Morse offered free legal help to many people.
Mrs. Morse chaired Kennett Township's Historical Commission, where she led the push to get National Historic Landmark status for Hamorton Village at Routes 52 and 1. She was a leader on the township Planning Commission and the Kennett Township Land Trust, to which she donated conservation-easement land owned by her family. In 1985, she was named citizen of the year by the Southeastern Chester County Chamber of Commerce.
"My mother was equally at home with down-to-earth or intellectual conversation, uproarious laughter at a joke or presenting a cogent book report at an American Association of University Women meeting," Stephen Morse said. "Her integrity was an inspiration."
In addition to her sons, Mrs. Morse is survived by another son, David; four granddaughters; and a sister. Her husband died in April.
A celebration of her life will be at 2 p.m. Aug. 23 in the Kendal auditorium.
Donations may be made to the Friends General Conference, 1216 Arch St., Suite 2B, Philadelphia 19107.
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