Heber Smith Morris ’27

HEBE DIED Sept. 6, 1991. In '27's THIRTY-FIFTH YEAR RECORD he declared that his principal pastime was "the family," to which he could have added: cherishing its long tie to Princeton. An ancestor, Anthony Morris, was killed in the Battle of Princeton, Jan. 3, 1777, and Hebe named his son for that hero. Alumni relations have included Levi B. Smith 1824, Henry J. Morris 1884, Gordon B. Miller Jr. '49, and John C. Miller '57. Hebe was a dyed-in-the-wool Princetonian, if there ever was one.

His business career, devoted to insurance, might seem less exciting than his family history, but it also was adventuresome. It included the Indemnity Insurance Company of North America, taking him to Syracuse and Binghamton, N.Y., and to Philadelphia. In Washington, D.C., he served the Potomac and General Accident Companies as branch manager; and he was president of Heber Smith Morris Inc., his own insurance firm. During WWII he sold bonds and was a safety engineer in defense plants.

Hebe's strenuous business and family life was refreshed by the sophisticated devotion of the Church of Immanuel on the Hill, at the Episcopal Theological Seminary, Alexandria, Va. There he was surrounded by a community of religious-thinking people with national influence, led by a faculty of prestigious teachers and authors. The Class extends sympathy to Hebe's son Anthony ("Tony") and his daughters Jean and Margaret.

The Class of 1927