MORGAN, Rita Belle Oberndorfer Morgan, a longtime Dallas resident who, along with her late husband, helped nurture Wichita Falls' burgeoning fine arts in the 1960s and later worked successfully in interior design and merchandising, died Wednesday at her Dallas home. She was 89. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1929 as an only child, her parents moved that same year to Wichita Falls, Texas, where her aunt and uncle, Carrie and Gene Liepold, lived. She graduated from Wichita Falls' Zundy High School in 1945 as a 15-year-old. Her parents made her wait until fall 1946 to enroll at the University of Texas-Austin, where she earned her bachelor's degree in 1950 as part of the school's celebrated Plan II program. Between her junior and senior year, she attended classes at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for history and literature. Planning on a journalism career, she earned a job with the former Wichita Daily Times newspaper. She met her future husband, the late Billy Stewart Morgan, while at UT. He had come down from Ohio for a spring festival and Rita stepped in as his date, because his original date was ill. Mr. Morgan, a tall skinny World War II vet from Ohio, who would later study petroleum engineering in Austin, fell hard for her. In July 1950, while she continued working at the Wichita Falls newspaper and he worked for a downtown Wichita Falls oil company, they continued dating, and six months later, married. While she primarily wrote obituaries for the paper, she also regularly covered news stories. Her favorite was reporting on widespread flooding from the confines of a bobbing rowboat. She left the paper in December 1951, when she was pregnant with her first child. Mr. Morgan later went into business with his late brother, Bob, creating Morgan Bros. Their original last name was Morgenstern, but in Texas in the early 1950s, such an overtly Jewish name wasn't good for business. The Morgans raised four girls, Lisa, Laurie, Layne and Lee, while being prominent members and leaders of the symphony, ballet, PTA and art museum. The family always hosted Jewish U.S. Air Force personnel stationed at Sheppard Air Force Base for Passover. Years later, Mrs. Morgan recalled that the quarter century spent in Wichita Falls was "a special time, and we all felt special when we lived there". In the mid 1970s, the Morgan brothers sold their business and retired. He and his wife moved to Dallas in 1976 and embarked on a prodigious travel itinerary, visiting every continent but Africa, traveling by boat, plane and train. Mrs. Morgan's favorite destinations were Egypt, Nepal and northern India's Kashmir region. She recalled a "dreamy"extended stay on a houseboat on Dal Lake in Srinagar, and even many years later she unsurprisingly could recount in great detail the interior furnishings of the boat. That was not unusual because she had a cultured and forward-looking sense of style and taste. Through friends at the Decorative Center, she spent five years as an interior decorator buying and selling fabric particularly handmade Fortuny furniture and antiques. Her extensive travels helped define her style. "I loved the things I worked with," Mrs. Morgan said in 2016. "Marble decorations, clothing, style, fabrics. It was just the perfect place for me." While on the board of directors at Dallas' Temple Emmanuel, she underwrote the "Significant Books" speaker series for several years during the 1980s, bringing in authors to discuss their work. Mr. Morgan died in 2010. Both were predeceased by their oldest daughter Lisa Morgan Nacol. Survivors include three daughters, Laurie Morgan Silver, of Houston; Layne Morgan, of Pittsburgh and Dallas; and Lee Morgan Brown, of Sonoma, Calif.; four grandchildren, Matthew Nacol, of Dallas; Josh Nacol, of Irvine, Calif.; Eric Lidji, of Pittsburgh; and Rachel Silver, of New York; and two great-grandchildren.
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