Cecilia Morse

Background

She was born in Texas and married to attorney Charles Nathan Morse for 16 years until his death.

Career

She was the foundress of Saint Anthony Catholic School, the oldest parochial school in what is now the Diocese of Saint St. Petersburg, and one of the oldest Catholic schools in Florida. After her husband"s death, Morse moved to the Catholic colony of San Antonio, Florida in 1883 to try her hand at farming. Upon arrival the young widow was dismayed to find that there was no school for her six surviving children to attend.

Mistress

Morse famously retorted "The minds of the children now here won"t wait for more settlers." Morse first began teaching out of her home to fourteen students, including her own six children. With the support of visiting priest French East.J. Dunne (who himself would later become a bishop) classes were moved into the town church on April 29, 1884.

By November of that same year the first Saint Anthony of Padua School building, a 12" x 24" frame structure, opened with funds donated by Bishop John Moore.

Morse continued teaching at Saint Anthony until the Benedictine Sisters arrived in 1889 to take over the growing school. Dom Frederic is more highly regarded as the person responsible for encouraging Thomas Merton to write what would eventually become The Seven Storey Mountain among numerous other titles, while both were at The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky.

With the school fully staffed by nuns Mistress Morse returned to farming full-time.

As happened to a great many other Florida farmers of that era, the Great Freeze of 1894-1895 wiped out her entire citrus crop.

This unfortunate circumstance forced her to convey her property to nearby Saint Leo College to cover her youngest son"s educational expenses. With nothing left in San Antonio, and after a brief stay in Saint St. Petersburg, she moved her family to Tampa where she lived for the next 35 years. Her children were Ethel Morse (1866 – 1867), who died in infancy, Malcolm Edward Morse (1867 – 1895), Charles Colegate Morse (1870 – 1913), Ethel Mary Morse (1872 – 1948), Evangeline Saint John Morse (1874 – 1952), Cecilia Marie Morse (1876 – 1902) and Francis "Frank" Pius Van Pradellas Morse (1878 – 1956), a World War I veteran buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

The whereabouts of her grave was a long-time mystery until it was accidentally re-discovered by Diocese of Saint St. Petersburg historian, and Saint Anthony Catholic School alumnus, French

Len Plazewski in September 2009, while he was researching the graves of five pioneer priests of Florida.

Achievements

• Colony founder Judge Edmund Dunne tried to appease her by telling her that once more settlers arrived, a school would be built. Among those first fourteen pupils was a nephew of the town"s founder, who went on to become the first American Trappist abbot, Dom Frederic Dunne.