Nancy (Kearns) Morris

LIBERTY - Nancy K. Morris, Youngstown community leader, matriarch and artist, died Tuesday, July 25, 2017, after a fall. She was 89.

A well-known figure in area civic organizations, she remained fully engaged in the community until recent months. A longtime leader at St. John’s Episcopal Church, a veteran board member of the Youngstown YWCA, and an advocate for abused women, she was tireless in her service to others. She was equally devoted to her extended family and wide circle of friends, as a ready listener and confidante, a meticulous host of genial dinner parties and warm holiday celebrations in her home. A trained artist, who painted for most of her life, she was recently honored at the 35th annual YWCA Women Artists exhibition, which she co-founded in 1983.

Nancy Kearns Morris was born on June 22, 1928 in Rochester, N.Y., the daughter of Wilfrid and Margaret Todd Kearns.  She attended the Harley School and the now Allendale Columbia School in Rochester before leaving home for Connecticut College, from which she graduated in 1950. She continued her studies at the Art Students League in New York City, and was soon hired as a graphic artist for the National Broadcasting Company. She lived for a time at the Barbizon Hotel for Women, a residence for single young women pursuing careers in New York.

A scheduling mix-up at a summer weekend time share on Fire Island led to her serendipitous meeting with Jack Morris, a commercial pilot and U.S. Army Air Corps World War II veteran. They were married in less than a year and moved to Youngstown to begin a family. Her new husband joined his family’s lumber business as she began the simultaneous pursuits of raising children and becoming a dynamic participant in civic organizations throughout the community.

She eventually became president of the Junior League of Youngstown and remained a sustaining member throughout her life. She was active in the family business, The A.G. Sharp Lumber Co. As a perennial board member of the YWCA of Youngstown, she oversaw numerous projects, including the opening of two shelters for abused women.

At St. John’s Episcopal Church, she was similarly active, becoming the first female senior warden of the Vestry, chairperson of various commissions and co-founder with her husband of the St. John’s Soup Kitchen, now known as The Red Door Café, serving meals to the less fortunate for more than thirty years. She and her husband were also founding members in the late 1960s of the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity (ESCRU), a civil rights organization. She was a current board member of the Mahoning Valley Historical Society for the past years.

Nancy Morris’s paintings were displayed over the years at multiple regional juried art exhibitions, including the Annual Area Artists’ Show at the Butler Institute of American Art. Primarily a watercolorist, her work included still lifes, studies of light, and meditations on family and ancestry. In recent years she also became an avid writer, working closely with the Scribblers writing group in Youngstown.

Her family garnered her fiercest devotion. It was her proudest achievement as well as the source of her greatest sorrow, as she lost two of her five children during her lifetime. The pain of those losses surely informed her deep empathy for all she met, especially those suffering difficulty and deprivation.

Her husband, Jack, died in 1997, another major loss. But in 2003, she married her longtime friend, Bill Scragg, with whom she enjoyed 14 years of loving companionship and who survives her.

Nancy is also survived by her son, Daniel Morris and his wife, Jennifer Galloway, of Alexandria, Va.; her daughter, Melissa Morris Watson and her husband, Bill Watson, of Poland; her son, Christopher Morris and his wife, Gretchen Morris, of Rumson, N.J.; and a daughter-in-law, Lisa Herrick of Washington, D.C.

Her son, John Todd Morris, died in 1964, and her son, David Morris, died in 1996.

She leaves seven grandchildren, Sarah Herrick Morris, Nicholas Herrick Morris, Caroline Watson, Jack Watson, David Watson, Annabel Morris and Matilda Morris.

A celebration of Nancy’s life will be held on Saturday, Aug. 26, 2017.  A 10 a.m. service will be held at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 323 Wick Ave. in Youngstown.
Friends may call from 9 to 10 a.m. at the church, prior to the service.

The family requests that contributions be made, in lieu of flowers, to one of the following: St. John's Episcopal Church, designated to the Red Door Café, 323 Wick Ave., Youngstown, OH 44503; or The YWCA of Youngstown, 25 W. Rayen Ave., Youngstown, OH 44503.

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