Stearns Anthony "Tony" Morse

1931 - 2024

Stearns Anthony "Tony" Morse

Pelham, MA - Stearns Anthony "Tony" Morse died on January 9, 2024, six days after his 93rd birthday.

Tony was born in 1931 to Stearns Morse and Helen (Ward) Field Morse in Hanover, NH, the youngest of four children. The family spent summers on a family farm in Bath, NH. Tragedy struck in 1937 when Tony's brother Stephen, 11, and a friend both drowned while fishing. The next year the family took a restorative trip from New Hampshire to Mexico and back, long before the interstate highway era. At the age of 11 or 12 Tony got his Social Security card so that he could work on the Bath road crew; as a teenager, he expected to have a career in forestry.

Tony matriculated at Dartmouth College in 1948. From 1949 to 1952 he spent summers working on the schooner Blue Dolphin, operated as an oceanographic research vessel on the Labrador coast by David C. Nutt. After graduating with a major in geology he was drafted into the Army and served for two years in post-WWII Germany, learning to ski and to love opera; immediately upon his return to the States, he returned to Labrador for further fieldwork. Breaking his leg in the field, he was transported by helicopter to the Grenfell Mission in Northwest River, where Dorothy Forbes was volunteering as a nurse's aide after her first year at Vassar College. The two were married in 1960.

In 1962 Tony earned his PhD in Geology from McGill University and joined the faculty of Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA, where the couple raised their three daughters, Elise, Anne, and Sophie. Tony continued to research Labrador anorthosites in the summers. Dorothy joined him for several of these excursions, living in a beaverboard cabin some 25 miles north of Nain with first two young children, then three, assisted by Benigna Semigak, from Nain.

In 1971 Tony took a position in the Earth Sciences department at UMass Amherst. The family moved to Massachusetts and Tony launched a decade-long research project studying the Nain Anorthosite Complex with a series of graduate students, now using a mobile base camp in the form of R/V Pitsiulak, which he designed based on the Newfoundland Long Liner work boat. Dorothy and their children lived aboard as well for part of several summers, and Anne and Sophie each returned in later years to work as assistants. In 1977-78 the Morses lived in Oslo, Norway, where Tony collaborated with colleagues at Universitetet i Oslo.

In addition to his exploration of anorthosites, Tony studied the nature of the Earth's core-mantle boundary and the thermodynamics of rocks and melts. His 1980 textbook Basalts and Phase Diagrams is a foundational resource in the field of petrology (the long-awaited second edition was in press at the time of his death), and he published almost 90 research articles.

In 2013 Tony, then 82, with Anne Morse and her daughter Emily, organized and led the Kiglapait Field Conference, a unique gathering in Labrador for 22 geologists from around the world. In 2019 he received the Mineralogical Association of Canada's highest award, for outstanding contributions to the mineral sciences of Canada. He was a Life Member of Clare Hall at the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, a Carnegie Fellow, a Senior Fellow of the Mineralogical Association of America, and a Fellow of the Geological Society of America.

In an era of increasingly siloed specialists, Tony was multifaceted. He was a lifelong outdoorsman: a field geologist, navigator, scything promoter and contestant, avid skier, builder, sugarmaker, hunter, and active manager of woodlands. He was also a rigorous scholar who conducted meticulous laboratory experiments, and a lucid and precise writer with a gift for exposition and unexpected analogies. A colleague recalls that "everyone wanted Tony to write their tenure recommendations" because his writing, while always impeccably correct, was never "geeky." He loved poetry, especially the works of Robert Frost, and could quote long passages by heart. In his 20s, prevented by bad weather from getting into the field in Labrador, he translated a Moravian missionary's account of the deadly 1914 influenza epidemic in Hebron from German to English. For many years he wrote reminiscences and essays for the Littleton (NH) Courier, many compiled into a slim volume titled Too Far North for Architects. His musical repertoire was seemingly inexhaustible. Friends and family remember decades of guitar playing and singing; until he had Bell's palsy in his 80s, his melodious whistle could also be heard in operatic arias and the themes from classical symphonies. In his 30s he learned to brew beer; in his 70s, he made pickles from pickling cucumbers he and Dorothy grew in New Hampshire; and in his 80s he experimented with oatmeal-raisin cookie recipes until he had the perfect lunch for daily trips to the office he retained in the depths of Morrill Science Center.

Tony enthusiastically mingled personal and professional life. In addition to bringing his young family back to Labrador year after year, he welcomed his children into his university office and invited colleagues home to meet the family. Numerous photos of his beloved daughters and their exploits, including a clipping about Anne's arrest for taking part in a protest at Seabrook, adorned the walls of his office. He was devoted to Dorothy, his wife of six decades, and ever so proud of his four grandchildren, David, Katie, Jacob, and Emily. He adored his cats, particularly the long-lived Merlin.

Always an ebullient presence-warm, open-hearted, tempestuous-Tony was also generous with time and encouragement for younger scholars, with a special warm spot for late bloomers. He championed the entry of women and members of minorities into fields too long dominated by white men. He believed science was at its best when it was full of humanity, while life at its best included plenty of scientific thinking. Together, the two were like a big house party, spilling out onto the lawn and lasting well into the night: effusive greetings and introductions, games of frisbee or poker, children underfoot, gusts of laughter, beer, singing, and above all, stories celebrating good science and good people.

Tony Morse was predeceased by his parents, Stearns Morse and Helen Field Morse; his siblings Stephen Morse, Richard Morse, and Sylvia Morse McKean; his sister-in-law Romola Chowdhry Morse and brother-in-law Ralph Forbes; his son-in-law Richard H. Gagné; his nephew Daniel Morse, and his great-niece Charlotte Bigham.

He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Dorothy Forbes Morse; his daughters Elise E. Morse-Gagné, Anne J. Morse, and Sophia F. Morse; his son-in-law Kevin Gregoire; his siblings-in-law Jed Williamson, Perry Williamson, and Tally Forbes; and his four grandchildren: David Morse-Gagné, Katharine Morse-Gagné, Jacob Morse, and Emily Morse. Also surviving Tony are 10 nieces and nephews; 19 great-nieces and great-nephews; 6 great-great-nieces and great-great-nephews; and countless others who considered Tony a beloved family member, friend, mentor, or father figure.

A memorial service will be held at Grace Episcopal Church in Amherst, Massachusetts at 1pm on April 6th. A graveside service will be held in Swiftwater, New Hampshire in the summer.