JAMES ALLISTER MORRIS

The following bio was taken from page 315 of the book entitled “Rusk County History” compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

 Transcribed by Claudia Schuster

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Cemeteries of Tx

 James Allister Morris, known by his friends as J. Al Morris, was born August 8, 1874, in the Bethel Community about eight miles south of Henderson.  J. Al Morris was the fifth child of Confederate Captain and Mrs. James Calvin Morris and the first of the children to be born in the State of Texas, the family having moved to Texas from Bowden, Georgia, in 1872.

 Captain J.C. Morris died in 1879, leaving his widow and six children to manage the family farm.  Because of his responsibilities on the farm, J. Al Morris had little opportunity to seek a formal education.  It can be said, however, that he was a self-educated man who attended school at Bethel.  He became an avid reader of poetry and works of classical literature.

 J. Al was one of the last of the children to marry, but it was inevitable that he would do so after he met Lottie Lee Russell, daughter of Reverend and Mrs. John Lawson Russell, at a church function.  Reverend Russell was then serving as pastor of the Church Hill circuit, but he preached occasionally at Bethel.  Lottie Lee Russell was a graduate of Chapel Hill Female College located near Brenham, Texas.  She was an accomplished pianist and always went with her father on his circuit for the purpose of playing the piano to accompany the singing.

 J. Al Morris and Lottie Lee Russell were married on August 17, 1912, at the Methodist Parsonage in Henderson with Reverend C.A. Tower officiating.  Reverend Tower, grandfather of Senator John Tower, was pastor of the First Methodist Church in Henderson at that time.  The couple made their home in the Bethel Community where they became actively engaged in farming.  Here they reared their eight children, five sons and three daughters.

 In 1936 the J.A. Morris family moved to 1904 Jacksonville Drive in Henderson and the children continued their education in the Henderson Public schools.  J. Al continues to pursue his varied interests even in semi-retirement.  He tried his hand in politics in 1954 by announcing his candidacy for Justice of the Peace.  His unique announcement, too lengthy to be reprinted here, was carried by the local and regional press and gained national recognition when it was reprinted in the “New Yorker Magazine”.  J. Al lost the election, but he won a few battles along the way.

 On August 17, 1972, J.A. Morris died at the age of ninety-eight and was buried at the Bethel Cemetery where his father, Captain J.C. Morris, had been the first to be interred there ninety-two years earlier.  Mrs. J. Al Morris died on June 25, 1978.

Children of J. Al and Lottie Lee Morris are: Colonel Donald Keith Morris of Colorado Springs, Colorado, the only child not residing in Texas; Russell Dale Morris of Orange; Mrs. Jack Thrasher of Henderson; Mrs. George Dent of Houston; Ned Corley Morris of Kingsville; John Wendell Morris of Henderson; Al Kenneth (Kenny) Morris of Henderson; and Mrs. William F. Cooper of Longview.

 Submitted by Ned C. Morris