×
×
homepage logo
LOGIN
SUBSCRIBE

Well-traveled anti-nuclear and anti-war activist and humanitarian Macy Morse, 98, remembered

By Dean Shalhoup - Senior Staff Writer | Jul 22, 2019

COURTESY PHOTO Macy and Paul Morse and their 13 children gather for a photo with former N.H. Gov. John King, who sits at center with the poster, during King's campaign for governor. Macy Morse was a King supporter and worked for his campaign.

HUDSON – Rare is the obituary that lists not only the loved one’s lifetime milestones, accomplishments and high points, but also proudly includes some of the person’s criminal acts – which many times involved going to jail.

But rarer still is the life of Macy Elkins Morse, the daughter of conservative Oregon farmers who would grow up to marry, have 13 children, become widowed at 49 then throw herself into a lifetime of political activism, embarking on a relentless pursuit of social justice that took her across the nation and around the world.

Morse, who came to Nashua in 1953 with her husband, Paul H. Morse and their first seven children, then later lived in Hudson and Portsmouth, was 98 when she died Thursday, having spent her final several months living in the Hudson home of her daughter, Suzanne, and Suzanne’s husband, retired Nashua schoolteacher William Hodge.

Calling hours are scheduled for 4-7 p.m. Tuesday at the Farwell Funeral Home, 18 Lock St. in Nashua. The family asks that anyone wishing to make a donation in Morse’s name can do so to American Friends Service Committee of New Hampshire (AFSC-NH); the group Beyond Nuclear; or to the Visiting Nurses Association of Manchester.

A protester’s protester, Macy Morse thought nothing of standing for hours with handmade signs delivering the “no nukes” slogan to anyone passing by, or into, the mammoth construction operation in the seacoast town of Seabrook.

COURTESY PHOTO Macy Morse, the longtime activist who died last week at age 98, speaks with then-presidential candidate Barack Obama at a campaign event in Portsmouth.

Morse, in her 50s at the time, was a leader of The Clamshell Alliance, the anti-nuclear group organized early on in the often contentious battle that pitted then-Public Service Company of New Hampshire and their political allies against seacoast residents and regional nuclear foes who predicted the construction of a nuclear plant would be a blight on the seacoasts of New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts.

As dedicated as she was to the anti-nuclear cause, reflected in her regular attendance at, and sometimes leading, rallies at the site, Seabrook was but one of many causes Morse adopted and nurtured.

According to daughter Suzanne, the first political bug to bite her mother was the presidential campaign of a young U.S. Senator from Massachusetts named John F. Kennedy.

Though born into “a traditional, conservative” family that included being a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), Suzanne Hodge said, she liked what she saw in a potential President Kennedy.

“She got really fired up about Kennedy,” Hodge said, and became a staunch supporter, first for the 1960 Democratic presidential primary, then for that year’s general election in November.

COURTESY PHOTO Longtime Nashua and Hudson resident Macy Morse, who died Friday at age 98, carried a "no nukes" sign while protesting the construction of the Seabrook nuclear power plant in the 1970s.

Locally, Morse helped run the 1965 mayoral campaign of the late Royal L. Dion, the owner of a dry cleaning chain who was ultimately defeated by the late Dennis J. Sullivan.

At the state level, Morse signed on to the campaigns of Democrats Gov. John King and U.S. Sen. Thomas MacIntyre.

But it was Morse’s civic activism for which she was best known.

She was among the organizers of the state’s first anti-Vietnam War organization, called the Nashua People concerned About the War in Vietnam.

As part of that initiative, Morse, her son-in-law William Hodge and their fellow activist, the late Ruth Mackay of Hudson, opened the Nashua Draft Information Center in a small rented room in the city’s Tree Streets neighborhood.

COURTESY PHOTO Smiling even while being arrested, longtime activist Macy Morse, who died last week at age 98, is taken into custody while protesting the Iraq war at then-U.S. Rep. Jeb Bradley's office in Dover.

As draft counselors, the trio and other volunteers would sit down with the young men who came in and “go over their options with them,” Hodge said.

The counselors did not “suggest one way or another,” Hodge said, meaning they didn’t urge potential draftees to resist or “go to Canada.”

What they did do was “go over the laws with them … told them what their alternatives were, such as student deferments, health deferments, what might happen if they were to join (the service) or if they chose to go to Canada,” Hodge said.

At the time, Morse was planning to travel to Vietnam to meet with her son, who had enlisted – and, of course, bring along her protester hat.

But the trip was cancelled when her son was sent back to the U.S. earlier than expected, according to Morse’s longtime friend, Cathy Wolff, who penned a tribute to Morse and read it aloud at Morse’s 96th birthday celebration in January 2017.

Wolff, who said she befriended Morse when Morse moved to Portsmouth in the mid-1980s, recalled Morse receiving an invitation from Greenpeace to represent the United States at an international conference on nuclear navies in Moscow.

Morse, 70 at the time, was chosen “because she had organized a watchdog group to track the transport of nuclear waste from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard,” Wolff said.

Years later, Wolff added, Morse told her she accepted the invitation because she decided “I was too old not to go.”

In 2006, Morse, 85 at the time, was arrested along with five other activists for staging a “sit-in” in the office of then-U.S. Rep. Jeb Bradley in Dover.

The protesters, who called themselves the “Dover Six,” refused to leave Bradley’s office, instead reading off the names of soldiers and civilians killed during the Iraq War.

According to a Foster’s Daily Democrat story at the time, a prosecutor at the protesters’ court appearances asked to be heard on Morse’s sentencing, given she had a prior record.

But Morse was undaunted, responding, “Jail time is not a concern,” according to the story.

Morse, despite her advancing age, was eager to take part in actions that supported her beliefs, those who knew her agreed.

She made headlines in April 1981 in one of her higher-profile actions – she was one of five protesters arrested for pouring ashes and a red liquid representing blood on the carpet and furniture outside the office of Secretary of State Alexander Haig at the State Department complex in Washington.

According to Wolff, Morse also splashed red liquid in then-U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and stenciled human shadows on the walls of the Pentagon.

“Acting on her beliefs landed Macy in jail in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Virginia, and, I think, Connecticut,” Wolff said.

While sitting in jail after the Pentagon action in 1980, Morse wrote a letter to her grandchildren, excerpts from which Wolff included in her tribute.

” … At my trial,” she wrote, “… I pleaded…for an end to the nuclear arms race so that I would see a peaceful world for my children and grandchildren…. I can only hope that my work will inspire others to work and to pray for peace.”

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256, dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com or @Telegraph_DeanS.

Newsletter

Join thousands already receiving our daily newsletter.

Interests
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *