Justine Morgensen

Morgensen, Justine Saylor
Justine S. Morgensen (95) finally got the window seat she requested for her trip to heaven on October 13, 2015. She died peacefully surrounded by her children at West Park Hospital Long Term Care in Cody, Wyoming. Justine was the youngest child of a pioneering Arizona family. Her father, Benjamin Franklin (Frank) Saylor, had been living in Arizona Territory for several years when he returned to Morrill, KS and took Sadie Schoch as his bride on September 29, 1895. Two months later, he brought his bride back to Arizona Territory and they established a permanent residence in Tempe, where their seven children were born. Justine (born Gladys Justine Saylor on February 11, 1920) was the last and only one to be born after Arizona became a state. Justine excelled in school. She attended Tempe Grammar School, Tempe Union High School, and received a degree in Business Administration from Arizona State Teachers College (now Arizona State University) in 1941. She was editor of her school paper and a member of Pi Omega Pi, an academic commerce club. Her first job after college was as a 6th grade teacher in Winslow, Arizona. On December 21, 1941, she married Richard Charles (Dick) Morgensen, who she met on the tennis courts while in college. When WWII broke out, the young couple moved to San Diego, where Justine went to work in an aircraft factory and Dick joined the Merchant Marines. Their first child was born there. After the war, the young couple returned to Arizona where they started a welding business and later established the first Volkswagen dealership in Arizona. Justine's bookkeeping skills and business acumen were instrumental in making their business a success. They had three more children before divorcing in 1967. After her divorce, Justine went back to work, first at Valley National Bank and then at Merrill Lynch Brokerage. Justine instilled in all her children a strong work ethic and fiscal responsibility. She will be most remembered for her smiling, generous nature, and as the mother that all the neighborhood kids gravitated to. Justine believed strongly in the Golden Rule and in "silver linings." She always had a smile and a kind word for everyone she met. Justine was preceded in death by her parents, her siblings; Ethyl May Saylor, Cloyd Franklin Saylor, Baby Saylor (still born), Charles Nelson Saylor, Naoma Grace Schuck, and Susan Pearl Griffith, and her youngest daughter, Jo Ella Queen. She is survived by her son, John Daryl Morgensen of Fernley, NV and her daughters, Lorna Jean Maples, and Sue Ann Morgensen (Raymond Lee) of Cody, WY, as well as two grandchildren, Kevin Patrick Maples (Beril Guvendik) and Alisa Justine Maples (Hayden Jacobsen) and one great-grandchild, Emre Christopher Guvendik Maples of Oakland, CA. Justine requested cremation. A private memorial service will be held for her at a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory can be made to the West Park Hospital Foundation.