William Otho Morris

William Otho Morris was born on January 2, 1911, to James Walter Morris and Ethel Arrine Thompson at the McAdams Community in Walker County, Texas. He was the second of four children — after Robert Edward Morris (1907) and before Margaret Alline Morris (1913) and James Walter Morris Jr. (1921).¹

William Otho was known in the family as “Jack.” He grew up first at McAdams and then in Huntsville, where the family moved in 1913 when his father opened a barber shop downtown. He was fourteen years old when his father Jim Morris died of esophageal cancer on March 12, 1925, leaving his mother Ethel widowed with four children.¹

The Letter

On March 12, 1959 — the thirty-fourth anniversary of his father’s death — Jack wrote a long, detailed letter to a relative named James Morris. The letter, preserved in Margaret Craig’s Stories and Poems, runs to fifteen pages and stands as one of the most vivid documents in the family record.²

Jack recalled his grandfather Billy Morris in sharp detail — his farmhouse at McAdams, his work as Justice of the Peace, the rhythms of rural Walker County life at the turn of the century. He remembered sleeping on the floor with his brother R.E. as boys, and the move to Huntsville when their father opened his barber shop on the square.²

The letter’s depth and precision made it a primary source for the Morris family history, complementing his sister Margaret’s own research. Where Margaret compiled genealogical records and poetry, Jack supplied personal memory and narrative voice.²

Siblings

Jack’s older brother R.E. inherited their father’s gold-cased Elgin pocket watch with seventeen jewels — a family heirloom passed down at Jim’s death. His sister Margaret became the family’s great historian, compiling Stories and Poems. His younger brother James Walter Jr. served in the U.S. Navy in the early 1940s.¹