Eugene Wilmer Morrison was born May 27, 1904 in a house in Marion on west Main Street located in the block across the street from the C&EI railroad station and about a block east of there. He was the son of Frank E. Morrison and Classena Wilmer.
When he was real small they moved to 701 N. Van Buren St. on the southwest corner of N. Van Buren and Boulevard. He lived there until the summer of 1921 when he was 17 years old and they then bought the house at 515 S. Market St.
He went his first 6 grades in Jefferson School on East Boulevard. That school later burned while he was president of the school board. He attended Junior High in the old Washington School. That school was torn down while he was still on the school board and replaced by the building on East Main where the old Logan building was located. The Williamson County Courthouse is located on the property the old Washington School occupied. Gene and both his daughters, Jacqueline and Sally, all had the same teacher, Fannie Barham in Junior High.
He and both daughters attended and graduated from the same High School on West Main; Gene in 1922, Jacqueline in 1947 and Sally in 1957. Since 1922 the school building has been enlarged many times and now holds the Junior High.
His boyhood friends were mainly Owen Stotlar, Alonzo “Lon” Baker, Gordon Franklin, “Punch” Dupont, Walter Johnson and Frank Davis.
Eugene’s hobbies included raising rabbits and “show chickens” which he would show at the county fair. He loved trains and anything electric. He made electric lamps and “wired” most everything. His father was C&EI Station Agent from 1903-1923 and Eugene would work there summers and after school, sweeping and doing all sorts of odd jobs.
He entered the University of Illinois in the fall of 1922 and enrolled in electrical engineering. He attended the U. of I. for two years and then stayed out a year and worked in the Home Oil Co. which his father and uncle formed in 1923. He returned to the U of I. in the fall of 1924 and enrolled in general business in preparation for going into business with his father, uncle and cousin.
Students weren’t allowed cars at U. of I. when he attended, but Eugene was allowed one the last semester of his senior year as he was trying to sell some service stations to Pearce Pennant. One evening Gene and Mary drove to Danville, saw a big “open house” sign at a big home, and decided to go in and ended up at an undertakers convention.
They used to attend dances at White City park in Herrin. Big name bands like Wayne King, Jack Little, and many others. The park went out of business a few years after they were married. Mary noted that they had, “Awfully good times over there, but lots of “bootleg” liquor.”
Gene graduated from the U. of I. in June 1927 and immediately started working for Morrison Bros Home Oil Company.
He married Mary Transue on February 14, 1928 in Summerfield, Marshall County, Kansas, daughter of James Transue and LuLu McCloud.
His first daughter, Jacqueline, was born in the Herrin, Illinois hospital in 1929. At that time Marion’s only hospital was a Miners hospital. Eugene looked at the walls in my room and there were strange holes in the plaster. He inquired what they were only to find out that during the gang wars a few years prior, one gang chased the other into the hospital and those holes were bullet holes. Also, the hospital had no regular nursery so you took your own baby basket and at night the babies were put in a room close to the waiting room.
Their second daughter, Sally Morrison, was born in 1939.
Gene liked boats and when Crab Orchard Lake was built (finished about 1940) he was one of the charter members of the Crab Orchard Boat and Yacht Club and spent most Saturday and Sunday afternoons on Crab Orchard Lake boating, not fishing. At first he had a 16’ wooden boat with an outboard motor and a few years later bought a Penn-Yan inboard with a 45 HP Gray Marine engine. Each winter he would bring that boat in and store it upstairs in the Home Oil building where they had their office at 108 N. Van Buren Street.
That building was at one time the Goodall horse and mule barn. It extended from N. Van Buren St. on the west to Union on the north and to the east 50′ or so to where the foundation still stands. The office was in the west side of the building. The rest was used to store cars and at one time Jim Parker also sold Firestone tires in there. The building had a freight elevator to the upstairs and Eugene would store his boat up there, plus the Morrison’s had odds and ends of furniture and also Jacqueline’s bicycle up there.
On June 24, 1951 in the wee hours of the morning they got a call that the building was on fire. The first thing Eugene said was “I’ve lost my boat”. The building was a complete loss. No one knows what started the fire unless it was something around that freight elevator or by a lightning storm we had the night before.
The building was only insured for $40,000 so the present building was built with that $40,000. Six stored cars were lost in that fire, including his father, Frank Morrison’s, 1927 Hudson and a car belonging to Delos Duty. The new building was opened in late 1951 or early 1952.
Gene’s father, Frank, passed away in June 1957.
Gene was the last of the Morrison’s and sold the company in 1972 to the Knapp brothers of Zenia, IL who owned Union 76 stations and changed the Morrison’s Sinclair stations to Union 76. The Morrison Home Oil Co. had owned many stations in Southern Illinois and Western Kentucky. After the Ohio River flood in 1937 when most of the bulk plants floated down the Ohio they gave up the stations in Kentucky.
Eugene served on almost every board of the First Methodist Church. He had 50 years perfect attendance in the Marion noon Lions Club. The Lions Club started a Gene Morrison perfect attendance award in his honor in 1985, the year after his death He was a charter member of the Community Savings and Loan of Marion. He served as Vice President the first ten years and then President the next ten years after which he chose not to be President because of his failing health.
Eugene loved to garden as a hobby. He used to plant flowers and vegetables in almost all of the back half of their south lot at 603 Pleasant Court. He always had beautiful tulips and jonquils, besides all sorts of annuals like zinnias, marigolds etc. They had sweet peas on the fence that stretched across the lot from the back door to the fence on the south edge of the lot.
Eugene Morrison died on March 10, 1985 in Marion.
Mary T. Morrison, 95, of Marion passed away at 12:43 AM, Tuesday, December 28, 2004 at Fountains Nursing Home in Marion.
Funeral services were held at 1:00 PM, Thursday, December 30, 2004 at the Blue Funeral Home in Marion with Reverend Victor Long and Reverend Forrest Sloan officiating. Burial was in Rose Hill Cemetery in Marion.
Mrs. Morrison was born on May 12, 1909 in Summerfield, Kansas to James and LuBelle (McCloud) Transue. She married Eugene W. Morrison on February 14, 1928 in Summerfield, Kansas.
He preceded her in death on March 10, 1985. Survivors include daughters, Jacqueline Pennington of Chesterfield, MO, Sara Rittenhouse of Pine, AZ; grandchildren, Tim and Catherine Pennington, Carla and Bob Duffy, Mark and Jane Pennington, Andrew and Mica Pennington, Sarianne Rittenhouse, Charles E. `Gene` Rittenhouse, Tilgham Rittenhouse; six great grandchildren, three step-great grandchildren and one step-great great grandchild; one niece and six nephews.
She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband; one brother; and two sisters, and one brother-in-law.
Mrs. Morrison had been a member of the First United Methodist Church in Marion since 1930. She was a Life Member of the Marion Memorial Hospital Auxiliary and a Girl Scout Leader. She was a member of the Marion Women`s Club and Past President of the Marion KN Club. She loved to sew and she loved volunteering at the Hospital.
(Extracted from notes written by Mary Morrison in March 1998; Marion Daily Republican, December 2004; compiled by Sam Lattuca on 01/09/2014)