Sally Wieschendorff Morris

1939 - 2021

April 23, 1939 - June 11, 2021 Sally Morris, 82, devoted daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, civic and church leader, and lover of the arts, passed away peacefully in her home on Friday evening, June 11, 2021, surrounded by her family. Sally, daughter of the late Willard and Evelyn Wieschendorff, was born in Chicago and spent her early and joyful childhood years in Appleton, Wisconsin. Her father was a sales manager for Dearborn Chemical Company, and in 1949, he was transferred to manage the company's western operations in Los Angeles. The family moved to San Marino, California where Sally and her younger brother, Jim, completed their primary and secondary education. Sally enrolled at the University of Redlands in 1957, pursuing a double-major in education and political science. At the U of R, she was active in service clubs, the Delta Kappa Psi sorority and spent a semester studying government at American University in Washington DC. At the U of R she met and fell in love with her future husband, Pat. Sally and Pat were married in 1961, the summer following her graduation. They moved to Stanford University where Pat was attending law school and Sally began her teaching career in nearby San Carlos. In 1964, Sally and Pat moved to San Bernardino, Sally to teach middle school and Pat to practice law. They fell in love with their adopted hometown, purchased their first and only home where they raised their two children, Katie (1966) and Jim (1968) and have lived out their professional, civic engagement and retirement years. Eschewing the limelight, Sally always chose to quietly center her life on family, education, church and social justice. She seldom spoke of her 31 years of weekly deliveries of surplus food from Inland Harvest to feed the hungry at Salvation Army and Frazee Community Center in San Bernardino. Similarly, over the past 20 years, she gently and quietly led dozens of volunteers at the First Presbyterian Church of San Bernardino to weekly collect, pack and handout hundreds of bags filled with groceries to needy families. For 25 years Sally also organized, trained and led scores of volunteers for the Superior Court's "Students in the Courthouse" program that brought tens of thousands of students to the Central Courthouse to learn about our nation's legal and justice system. She co-founded a nonprofit to assure children and youth confined in Juvenile Hall would celebrate birthdays, holidays and graduations. In 1990, after working with former President Jimmy Carter on a Habitat for Humanity project in Tijuana, Sally co-founded the San Bernardino Area Chapter of Habitat for Humanity. As a patron and supporter of arts and education, Sally helped found "Community Arts Productions" which annually produces the Nutcracker ballet at the California Theatre, and for 27 years, she served as a docent for the San Bernardino Symphony's "Music in the Schools" program. Sally also served her alma mater, the University of Redlands, in multiple volunteer roles including President of the Alumni Association. For Sally, however, these visible roles in public service were simply an outgrowth of her deeply held conviction that personal gifts should be dedicated to betterment of the common good. Sally's unheralded volunteer work was a daily manifestation of that inner belief, whether through teaching in the classroom, leading Girl Scout troops, sponsoring and resettling refugee families, leading youth and women's church groups, imparting "life skills" to high school students at SBHS, overseeing the operations of a group home for abused children, and most importantly being a devoted grandmother to her four grandchildren. Sally's most joyous moments were those times spent, surrounded by her family, at home, at their family desert cabin or rafting wild rivers and backpacking across the High Sierras and North Cascades Mountains. Her most peaceful and restful moments were spent in the quiet companionship of her husband, with whom she shared a deep and abiding love as they sojourned across decades of change, wonderment and surprise. Their enduring friendship remains, altered only by absence, advancing in a silent internal conversational way. Sally is survived by her husband, Pat, her daughter Katie Willis of San Bernardino, her son Jim (Dawn) of San Bernardino, her granddaughters Maggie and Abby Willis, her grandsons Aidan and Owen, her brother Jim (Cathy) of Santa Rosa, and many loving nieces and nephews. A memorial service for Sally will be held on Thursday, July 1, at 3:00pm at the First Presbyterian Church, 1900 North D Street, San Bernardino. In lieu of flowers the family suggests memorial donations to the First Presbyterian Church Food Distribution Program.