Julia A. "Julie" Morris

Julie Morris Biography Julie Morris was a New York City gal, one who loved the glamour and glitz of the Big Apple and was always the first one out the door for a dinner engagement or a Broadway show. The third child of Lillian and Virgil Crist, she was born in 1933 in Greenwich Village when the family lived at 194 West 10th Street. Virgil, or Poppa, as he was known to his grandchildren, was a mechanic and Lillian, Grandmother or Gram, was a housewife, though she later worked in one of the offices of Wanamaker's, considered one of the United States first department stores. Virgil and Lillian had both moved to New York City from upstate New York looking for better job opportunities. Eventually, Julie and her family moved to an apartment at 44 Perry Street where her parents remained until 1984. Julie lived in New York City for the first 28 years of her life but she would carry the aura of the Big City with her throughout her entire life. Her older siblings, Virgil Jr. and Virginia, as in all families, tolerated their younger sister as she grew up trying to act as though she were as "old" as they were. While her name was Julia, after an aunt she didn't much care for, her family called her Julie or Judy and that stuck, though Judy was the particular favorite with her brother and sister. As a child she attended public school (PS41) in Greenwich Village and loved roller skating in the street. She also loved the company of the family dog, Buddy, which meant her family could keep an eye on her by listening to her calling loudly, "Here, Buddy, Buddy!" When she completed high school, she went out to work at a variety of jobs, but the ones she enjoyed most were being a telephone operator and receptionist at Flamingo Films where on one occasion, she met Perry Como. This was such a thrill for the young Julie that she talked about it over and over with family and friends throughout the rest of her life. Julie was vacationing with some of her girlfriends in Newport, RI, during the summer of 1961 when she met Ned, who was in the US Navy attending Officer Candidate School (OCS). Theirs was a whirlwind romance of two weeks at the end of which Ned proposed and Julie accepted. Later, when he completed training, he journeyed to New York City and they were married in "The Little Church Around the Corner" at One East 29th street, NYC, in September 1961. There was no honeymoon, per se, however they did to go directly from the altar to Honolulu, HI, where they would spend the next 3 years "on the beach" as Ned completed his military service obligation. It was a lively time as Julie and Ned enjoyed the islands so very much and they got around as much as they possibly could, being young newlyweds. Moreover, this was where their first daughter, Nicole, joined them in August 1962. Both Ned and Julie longed to travel, see the world and visit exotic places. This and Ned's interest in foreign affairs, led him to join the U.S. Foreign Service in 1964; and after training in Washington, Julie and Ned struck off to his first overseas assignment which was in Leopoldville, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Those were exciting times for Julie and her family given that there was a civil war raging in the Congo. Their respective families were horrified that Ned and Julie would even think of taking their young family off to such a place. But, that was only the start. From there, they went on to Botswana in southern Africa and travelled extensively by car to South Africa, Mozambique and Swaziland, even visiting the Cape of Good Hope on one occasion. During one such trip to Krueger National Park in South Africa, Julie decided to open the sun roof of the family Peugeot right under the branch where a leopard lay resting in the sun! While the family was in Washington, D.C. in 1969, during a sojourn from foreign posts, Julie, to the delight of three of them, gave birth to their second daughter, Shana. By 1971, Julie and Ned were off again, this time to the Republic of Niger from which they would travel by road to Ouagadougou, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), and by plane to Abidjan in the Ivory Coast. Julie returned from one such harrowing trip caked with dirt from head to toe from her caravan having driven through an area that was barely road crossing desert for 14 hours. Following Niger, Ned was assigned to a year in school in Boston so Julie and her family moved back to America for a while. Julie was thrilled - where else could she have such an excuse to eat some of the cheapest lobster in the U.S.? After another brief stint in Washington, D.C., they departed again, this time for the Kingdom of Norway. There, they made a special effort to see as much as they could of that country - and beyond! - as they traveled throughout Scandinavia and those countries of Western Europe which they had not visited before. Julie loved it! She became a gourmand, often remembering her journeys by recalling what tasty morsels were eaten along the way. She especially developed a love of the Norwegian dish Gravlax, a marinated raw salmon. Norway was her favorite post, though she always said that her favorite vacation destination was France and particularly the city of Paris. In 1980 Ned was sent off to Afghanistan which was an exceptionally dangerous post since the Soviet war there had just begun. Consequently Julie and her daughters were not allowed to go and instead resided in Baldwin, Long Island for two years before Ned was assigned to Kingston, Jamaica. Sadly, Nicole was old enough to strike out on her own and left the family for the San Francisco Bay Area, only visiting Kingston briefly. Naturally enough, this was not Julie's preferred option. However, to her great joy, the assignment in Jamaica began eleven uninterrupted years overseas when she, Ned and Shana would be assigned to four different posts beginning with Kingston and followed by Montevideo, Uruguay, Seoul, South Korea, and Quito, Ecuador. Thus, her travels continued as they visited Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Santiago, and Iguazu Falls. It was at this point that Julie's second daughter, Shana, went off to Maine to attend Bates College. As a mother standing poised before a suddenly empty nest, this could have been difficult. Thankfully Seoul brought the Far East into Julie's life as she and Ned drove around South Korea visiting many temples and villages. While in Asia they also explored Bangkok, Thailand, and Singapore. When Julie and Ned were assigned to his last overseas post they found themselves in Quito, Ecuador. Twice they visited the Galapagos Islands which they found both lovely and filled with birds and creatures they had not seen before and would see nowhere else in the wild. Julie took great joy in the pleasure of the senses - she loved good food, enjoyed parties with friends and acquaintances, would flourish into spontaneous dancing, and stayed up until the wee hours of the morning in order to be the last one to leave family conversations. But she was first and foremost a housewife, often taking great pains to be part of her daughters' lives by seeking to be part of the "gang." She loved listening to music, especially Broadway show tunes, Frank Sinatra, and the crooners of the '40s, '50s, and '60s. Julie had a beautiful voice and would spontaneously burst into song at the drop of a hat to the joy or chagrin of whomever she was with. She got a kick out of watching movies and could identify numerous actors and actresses of her era in addition to current and up and coming performers. Not only did she recognize faces, she would often surprise people by being able to identify actors simply from the sound of their voices. Julie delighted in reading Gourmet magazine which led to lots of experimentation in the kitchen! She had a life-long love of figure skating, deriving great pleasure from watching the sport, in spite of having broken her kneecap on one occasion when trying it herself. Julie would relish reading mysteries and romance novels and one of her favorite things to say, with a smile and a nod, was, "You've gotta live a little!" Ned and Julie retired to Albuquerque in 1993 to be with their daughters. During the first eight years after their settling here, Julie and the family would share lots of laughter. Even in retirement, they continued to travel, taking road trips around the United States for up to six weeks at a time, until she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Her last years were spent in a nursing home, where the family faithfully visited her for more than seven and a half years and where she passed on July 23, 2013, her family at her bedside. She will be sorely missed. Official Julie Morris Obituary in ABQ Journal Tuesday August 6th and Thursday August 8th, 2013. Julia A. "Julie" Morris passed away on July 23, 2013 after a long illness. She was born in New York City, daughter of the late Virgil C. and Lillian Crist. Julie enjoyed over 30 years traveling the world as a Foreign Service wife, raising her children, sightseeing, and eating good food wherever she went. She loved music and would periodically burst into song or flourish a little spontaneous dance number. Julie's irrepressible joie de vivre will be greatly missed, especially by: her husband of 52 years, Ned; her daughters Nicole and Shana; sister Virginia Kata of Summerfield, Florida; brother and sister-in-law Virgil C. Jr. and Jean Crist of Sarasota, Florida; and 9 nieces and nephews. "I've got the world on a string/I'm sitting on a rainbow/Got the string around my finger/What a world, what a life... " There will be a memorial service at the First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque, 3701 Carlisle Blvd NE, on Sunday, August 11, 2013 at 3:30 p.m.