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Thursday, March 28, 2024 - 09:52 AM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

First Published in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

I lost a longtime friend last week. He was laid to rest at historic Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, where he had been the organist for 29 years beginning in his youth. It is also where his parents and numerous ancestors found their final resting-place. Bill lived two very different lifestyles, transitioning from his rural youth to a senior business executive in adulthood. But Bill never forgot his roots and never really changed very much.

William Penn Morrow, Jr., was an only child and grew up in the “Dark Corner” of Greenville County near Gowansville.  His father was a surveyor and his mother a music teacher. One of his aunts living next door taught elementary school for more than 50 years. The elementary and high school he attended no longer exist. If he ever made less than an “A” no one knew it.

When Bill reached Jordan High School during the final year of World War II, he was the youngest and probably the smartest student in the class. Of the student-inspired mischief that occurred at Jordan, I don’t recall Bill ever being involved. He was always there, with his hands in his pockets and a big smile, enjoying every minute of it and knowing he was not guilty of being the perpetrator. He was very quiet, very clever and had a great, somewhat strange. sense of humor. He was studious, but not a “nerd” and always one of the boys.

At a young age Bill understood finances, economics and the free enterprise system.  He raised chickens and sold eggs. He sold potato and tomato plants to neighbors, and invested the money.

There was no lunchroom at Jordan High School, however there was an hour noon recess and a country store across the road. The boys would gather in and around the store and drink Cokes and Pepsis with peanuts in them and eat Moon Pies. On several occasions, Bill would be standing by the drink cooler and take his leather coin purse from his pocket and count the coins and put it back in his pocket and walk away.

One hot day I asked Bill why he didn’t get a drink. He explained that he had a savings account that paid interest and he was saving up his money to make a deposit.

When the Jordan class of 1950 graduated, there were 8 boys and 8 girls. After high school, we all went our separate ways. All of the boys volunteered and served honorably in the military. Bill served most of his time in Germany. Three of the boys graduated from Clemson, Bill Morrow graduated from North Greenville and Furman and was employed by Liberty Life Insurance Company for 43 years. When he retired in 1999, he had served as Senior Vice President and Chief of Actuary for 20 years.

By the early 2000s, all of the boys had returned to the area of their birth and retired. Someone suggested that we have lunch at Lakeview Steak House every third Wednesday of the month. Those gatherings became something we did not want to miss. We rehashed our high school memories and relived a lot of fun.

We recalled the day Mrs. Ellis; an elderly teacher, chased Bill Herman around the classroom, caught him by the shirttail and slid on the oiled floor banging her head. She didn’t move. Some of the girls cried. We thought she was dead until she began laughing.

On another occasion, Mrs. Ellis was chasing Bill Herman around the potbelly stove with a broom. She took a swing with the broom, knocked the stovepipe down and filled the school with smoke.

One day at noon, the school principal had bought a Coke and pack of peanuts and was crossing the parking lot heading for our classroom. Almost everyone in the class was watching when an unhappy parent came out from behind a car and knocked the principal down. He held on to his Coke, was crawling around looking for his broken glasses and spitting peanuts. The girls in our class, fond of the principal who was also the basketball coach, were crying and thought he was spitting knocked out teeth.

For several years there have only been four of the original eight at lunch. One day Bill excused himself and moved to a nearby table with a couple. “That is Lucian Lee,” he explained. “He worked with me at Liberty Life and his wife introduced me to Eleanor.” Bill was happily married to Eleanor Connors Morrow for 36 years.

We three remaining boys of the Class of 1950 will miss seeing our lifelong friend William Penn, who once deliberated on whether to spend six cents for a coke, roll into the Lakeview parking lot in his new BMW.

 

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