Adriaen Meredith Morse Sr.

Adriaen Meredith Morse was born on September 18, 1939, in Cravens, part of rural Franklin County, Arkansas (outside of Ozark, which is 40 minutes (on I-40) East of Fort Smith). Adriaen was the youngest of 3 children, all of whom their father, Ernest Morse, had reportedly named after characters in books that he enjoyed. When he was a child, the family lived in a small cabin that they rented from a farmer and which was reachable only by crossing a creek on foot. Like all children in the area, his early education was delivered in a one-room country schoolhouse, with older kids helping the younger ones learn. Adriaen graduated from Ozark High School in 1956, when he was 16 years old.

On his 17th birthday, with his parents’ permission, Adriaen enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. Following basic training at McDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, he served in Darmstadt, (then West) Germany, with a radio reconnaissance battalion. Adriaen never spoke at great length about what his unit did in Germany, because much of it was classified, but he did admit that part of their mission consisted of eavesdropping on communications between Russian and East German forces during military exercises conducted in East Germany. Adriaen was honorably discharged from the Air Force in July 1960.

Adriaen enrolled in the University of Arkansas in August 1960. Two months later, his father became very ill and required hospitalization. The funds Adriaen had set aside for his education went, instead, to assist his father with his medical bills. Unfortunately for Adriaen, the G.I. Bill that had been created for returning World War II veterans expired in July 1956 and, between 1955 and 1966, the “Cold War GIs” were denied the federal education subsidies, housing loans, and unemployment allowances that their predecessors received. Although this was rectified and made retroactive in the 1966 Cold War GI bill, it came far too late to assist Adriaen.

Adriaen went to work in a glass factory in Fort Smith, Arkansas, where he worked for approximately one year. Completely by chance, his father noted an advertisement in the newspaper for the U.S. Department of State, which was accepting applications and conducting interviews in Little Rock for an entry-level position as Foreign Service Secretary. Adriaen reported to the Department of State for his initial six-month training course in March 1962. By September, he transferred to the American Embassy in Brussels, Belgium, as a diplomatic pouch clerk.

In Brussels, Adriaen met the love of his life, Marguerite Alexandra Dobly (“Maggy”), a glamorous Sabena air hostess (flight attendant, these days). She was beautiful, cultured, fluent in French, Flemish, English, and German, and she thought he looked like a young John F. Kennedy (which he did). The two of them were married on September 24, 1964. Because at the time getting married to a foreigner required a Foreign Service member to offer to resign and be recalled to Washington, their honeymoon was not spent, as they had planned, on the Nile in Egypt, but rather on the S.S. United States steaming to New York. So Maggy entered the United States as a young bride in New York, as had thousands of hopeful immigrants before her. Over the ensuing two years, Adriaen’s resignation was turned down and Maggy became a U.S. citizen, which allowed Adriaen to be once again deployed abroad in late 1966.

Adriaen, accompanied and encouraged by Maggy, embarked on a distinguished Foreign Service career, which saw his promotion from Foreign Service Secretary to Foreign Service Officer in 1972, after he had been permitted to sit for the Foreign Service exam based upon the recommendation of the U.S. Ambassador in Kuwait. Very few FSOs are promoted in this way—just as rarely as “Mustangs” are promoted from enlisted to officer in the Armed Forces. Adriaen’s career took him from Washington, DC to Jakarta, Indonesia in 1966; to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1969; to Kuwait City, Kuwait in 1971; to Palermo, Sicily in 1972; back to Brussels, Belgium in 1974; to Stockholm, Sweden in 1978; back to Washington, DC in 1981; to Tel Aviv, Israel in 1984; to Port-au-Prince, Haiti in 1988. Adriaen retired from the Foreign Service in 1989, at the age of fifty. For the ensuing almost 20 years, Adriaen worked in various contracting roles with the Department of State and the White House, coordinating logistics and organizing the U.S. portions of various AIPAC and United Nations conferences around the world (including in Seattle, Cairo, Beijing, Shanghai, and Calgary) and on occasion stepping in for various Foreign Service posts that experienced a sudden vacancy and needed stop-gap help, such as when he traveled to Dushambe, Tajikistan, to fill in for an Admin Consul who had taken ill.

Along the way, Adriaen and Maggy raised two sons, Adriaen Jr., born in 1966 in Brussels while in transit to Djakarta, and Matthew, born in 1970 in Kuala Lumpur. Both sons grew up in the Foreign Service and received well-rounded educations at schools around the world. Adriaen Jr. graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1988 and Matt graduated from Navy in 1993. Adriaen became a Marine infantry officer and later went to law school under a USMC program and became a Marine judge advocate and now practices law with several partners at SECIL Law in Washington, DC. Matt became a Navy surface warfare officer and later led a special boats squadron, providing support to operations conducted by Navy Seals and other special warfare operatives, before leaving the Navy to pursue a civilian career. He recently retired from the U.S. government and now leads projects on behalf of a U.S. government contractor. Adriaen Jr.’s and Matthew’s children all loved their Grandfather and their Nonna very much.

Following Adriaen’s retirement from the Foreign Service, Adriaen and Maggy lived at the house they had originally purchased in 1981, 4437 Altura Court, Fairfax, Virginia. After both of their mothers passed away, they would split their time between Adriaen’s family home in Altus, Arkansas, and they traveled together to Belgium at least annually, where they owned, together with Maggy’s sister, Monique, a home in Brussels. They were finally able to enjoy the Egypt trip that they had planned for their original honeymoon, and they enjoyed spending time with their grandchildren whenever they could. After nearly 55 years of marriage, Maggy passed away from cancer in 2019, leaving a large void in the hearts of all who knew her, including Adriaen.

Adriaen continued to dote on his children and grandchildren until his passing on July 6, 2026, from renal cancer. He is survived by his sister, Christine Perceful in Fayetteville, Arkansas, his older brother, Anthony, having predeceased him. He will be remembered by all, including his sons, Adriaen Jr. and Matt, their wives, Maha and Katy, and his grandchildren, Sara, Sami, Jimmy, Alyssa, and Johnny.

He gave love in great measure and was loved immeasurably in return. He will be missed.

A Funeral will be held at Demaine Funeral Home - Fairfax, 10565 MAIN ST, FAIRFAX, VA 22030, US, on July 13, 2026, from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm.