Stearns Anthony "Tony" Morse

1931 - 2024

Stearns Anthony "Tony" Morse

Pelham, MA - Stearns Anthony "Tony" Morse, of Pelham, MA and Bath, NH, died on January 9, 2024. Tony was born in 1931 in Hanover, NH, the youngest of four children of Stearns Morse and Helen (Ward) Field Morse. Stearns was a long-time professor of English and Dean of Students at Dartmouth College; Helen and several friends co-founded the Hanover Co-op. The family spent summers on a family farm in Bath, and also lived there one year during the Depression so they could rent out their house in Hanover. Tragedy struck Morses and Roys in 1937 when Tony's brother Stephen, 11, and Fernand Roy both drowned while fishing in the Wild Ammonoosuc River. 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 had an after-school job in Hanover helping a friend fill cartridges for sale to local hunters, and he expected to have a career in forestry.

Long before matriculating at the College on the Hill in 1948, Tony was already active in the Dartmouth Outing Club, working at the Ravine Camp and finger-picking folk songs on his guitar. From 1949 to 1952 he spent summers working on the schooner Blue Dolphin, operated as an oceanographic research vessel on the Labrador coast by ex-Naval Commander David C. "Beany" Nutt (Dartmouth '41), of Etna. Tony's grades were rock-bottom until he started to study geology with John Lyons and Dick Stoiber. He liked to say in later years that he had majored in geology and in Outing Club, and that he had graduated last in his class, in stark contrast to his older brother Richard, who had been class valedictorian. After graduating Tony was drafted into the Army and served for two years in post-WWII Germany, where he reconnected with his Hanover High ski coach, Don Cutter, and joined the ski team. Immediately upon his return to the States, he returned to Labrador for further fieldwork. Breaking his leg in the field in 1957, 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. That winter he invited her to Dartmouth's Winter Carnival, and 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. He continued to research Labrador anorthosites in the summers. Dorothy joined him for several of these excursions, living in a cabin in Port Manvers Run with first two young children, then three; she was assisted by Benigna Semigak, of Nain, while Tony and his students wrestled with cranky rock drills in the field. 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, with the addition of a small laboratory for initial analysis of rock samples. Dorothy and the children lived aboard as well for part of several summers, and Anne and Sophie each returned in later years to work as assistants.

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. With his mentor, Dartmouth professor Dick Stoiber, he co-authored two books on the microscopic identification of crystals. 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. He received the Mineralogical Association of Canada's highest award, as well as numerous other professional awards and fellowships. In 2013, with the assistance of Anne Morse and her daughter Emily, Tony organized and led the Kiglapait Field Conference, a unique gathering in Labrador for 22 geologists from around the world.

In an era of increasingly siloed specialists, Tony was multifaceted. He was a lifelong outdoorsman: a field geologist, navigator, hand mowing promoter, avid skier, builder, sugarmaker, hunter, and active manager of woodlands. After returning to the States from Germany he taught skiing at the Ford Sayre Ski School. As a youth he had learned to use a scythe, and in his 70s he adopted the Austrian scythe and sharpening techniques. He competed (as did a daughter and granddaughter) in hand mowing events at the Addison County Fair, as well as at Sterling College and in Lyme, NH; later he involved his whole family in spearheading the resurgence of hand mowing exhibitions and contests at the North Haverhill Fair. His musical repertoire was seemingly inexhaustible. Friends and family remember decades of folk and popular songs, in several languages, accompanied by acoustic guitar; his melodious whistle could also be heard in operatic arias and classical symphonies. A rigorous researcher, he was also a lucid and precise scientific writer and a gifted lecturer, with a penchant for unexpected analogies. He loved poetry, especially the works of Robert Frost (his father and Frost were friends), and could quote long passages by heart. For many years he wrote reminiscences and essays for the Littleton (NH) Courier. Throughout his career, Tony 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 at a political protest, adorned the walls of his office. He was devoted to Dorothy, his wife of over six decades, and ever so proud of his four grandchildren, David, Katie, Jacob, and Emily. He adored his cats, particularly the long-lived Merlin.

An ebullient and sometimes tempestuous presence, Tony was generous with encouragement for younger scholars, having a special warm spot for late bloomers, and championing 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, of Hanover and Bath, NH; his siblings Stephen Morse, Richard Morse, and Sylvia Morse McKean; his sister-in-law Romola Chowdhry Morse and brother-in-law Ralph Forbes; his cousins John Field and Sarah Field; his son-in-law Richard H. Gagné; and by a nephew and a great-niece. He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Dorothy Morse, of Pelham, MA; by his daughters, Elise E. Morse-Gagné, of Springfield, MA; Anne J. Morse and her partner Kevin Gregoire, of Craftsbury, VT; and Sophia F. Morse and her partner Laura Spray, of Poulsbo, WA. In addition he is survived by his four grandchildren David Morse-Gagné and his wife Emily Macmillan; Katharine Morse-Gagné; Jacob Morse; and Emily Morse. Also surviving Tony are his siblings-in-law Henry P. McKean, Jr. of New York City; Jed and Perry Williamson, of Hanover; and Tally Forbes; his cousin George Field, and George's children and grandchildren; the descendants of his cousins John Field and Sarah Field; his cousins by marriage Sylvia Field and Len Rahilly, of Hanover; 10 nieces and nephews; 19 great-nieces and great-nephews; six great-great-nieces and great-great-nephews; and countless others who considered Tony a beloved relative, 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 August.