Mary Ellen Morrison, July 30, 1940 — May 04, 2019

Mary’s Obituary This obituary is over forty years overdue. Given the medical treatment at the time, Mary Ellen Morrison should have died of breast cancer in the early 1970s. By the grace of God, she passed into the light on May 4, 2019.

She used that time to become a mother to far more people than her own children. Our family is a story of the family she gathered around her. It began with her doing her high school algebra homework with her niece Debbie on her lap.

By the time of her diagnosis, she and her late husband, John Morrison, Jr., had two young children, Johnny (now Jo Jo) and Suzie. After her recovery, she threw herself into working with the resettlement of Vietnamese refugees. Among those was a young boy, Thanh, who became our brother and later gave her a grandson, Matthew.

With the second wave of Vietnamese refugees came the Kieu family and separately Quy, who gave her a granddaughter Huyen (Lisa) and now a great-grandson, George. A Tanzanian foreign exchange student, Mark, became like another brother, with three more grandchildren. Suzie added to the circle of love a granddaughter, Danielle.

Upon retirement to Unicoi, TN, there were yet more adoptive grandchildren, Janey and Richard, and a whole new bunch of children to share her love with through Todos Los Ninos de Dios, a ministry of the local church. This list of names could be twice as long and still omit people who called her Mom or Grandma. Many of us were captured in her prolific art and photography, or were the recipients of her knitting, sewing, and crafts.

Her motto: “I can make that”. And she could. With a family like ours, we cannot begin to list all of those who mourn her passing, but there are four in particular to hold in your prayers: Carol and Richard Payne, her sister and brother-in-law, Doris McNeeley, her sister-in-law, and Robert Haynor, her companion on many adventures, including Ireland, Russia, Australia and an African safari.

Visitation will begin at Berlin Center UMC, 3042 Peck Lake Rd, Saranac, at 5:OOpm on Tuesday, May 14, with services at 6:00pm, followed by a reception, and internment the next morning at 10:00am in Saranac Cemetery. This will be a celebration of Mary Ellen’s life and bonus forty years. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to UUMC Hispanic Ministry, 702 Virginia St., Unicoi TN 37692.

Arrangements in care of Lake Funeral Home in Saranac.

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