The Adventurer

Helen Morrison reminisces about her teaching career and travels, and the day she met her husband, Pat. 

Words by Terrell Manasco | Images by Blakeney Clouse

 She was picking up her mail at the college post office when he spotted her. She was a Middle Tennessee State University freshman, he was an education major. Brimming with confidence, he strode over to where she stood, cornered her, and commenced flirting. 

“He scared the stew out of me!” Helen Morrison says, bursting into laughter. “He was really nice, but he was a flirt.” 

Helen and Pat Morrison didn’t date until the end of her junior year, and only after she’d tried to set him up with her roommate. 

“I don’t want to date her, I want to date you,” was his reply. 

Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, the middle of three daughters, Helen decided early on she wanted to teach. “I had a fantastic sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Popejoy,” she says. “She made history come alive.” 

After Pat and Helen married in 1968, the couple began their own teaching careers. Pat landed a coaching job at Walker High, and the couple moved to Jasper the week after their honeymoon. 

Helen taught second grade at Boldo Elementary for two and a half years. There were few textbooks at the time due to low funds, but she had a 1948 spelling primer. “I loved every minute of it,” she says. 

Helen left teaching for a while in 1971 when their son, Chris, was born. She returned in 1977 and taught sixth grade at Maddox Middle School. “I thought they are going to be so mature! Joke!” she laughs. “But they were young enough that they still wanted that hug in the morning.”

She also helped Pat coach cross-country and track for a few years, which she calls a “fun experience.” Local businessman and publisher Al Blanton remembers fondly his experience of having both Helen and Pat as his coaches. “I was never a great runner or track athlete, but the Morrison tandem made it a great deal of fun,” Blanton said. “I always looked forward to practice and developed a great relationship both Helen and Pat through the years. I have the highest respect for both of them.” 

Helen retired from teaching in 2000, but the fruits of her labor are still evident. “The biggest blessing I've ever had was having former students come up to me in Walmart, etc., and say, ‘I want to thank you for what you did for me,’” she says. “One girl said, ‘I want to thank you for making me interested in reading. You made it fun.’”

Retirement doesn’t seem to have slowed down Helen down. She has taught Sunday school in the past at New Prospect Baptist Church and now sings in the choir.

Today at the Morrison home a piano sits nearby, its wooden grain illuminated by the morning sunlight. Asked if she plays, Helen chuckles. “I play for me.”

Helen loves traveling and has been to every state—the 50th and last one fell in line with her and Pat’s 50th wedding anniversary. The couple has taken Alaskan cruises, visited Little Bighorn National Battlefield Monument in Montana, Devil's Tower in Wyoming, and Yellowstone National Park. During a Baltic Sea cruise, they visited Stockholm, where Helen, who is of Swedish descent, has distant relatives. 

Helen has now been married to Pat for 52 years. She says that being married to him is quite the adventure because “there's no telling what he will do.”  

As the interview is concluding, Pat, who has been working in his museum, returns and promptly offers a slice of lemon cake. Listening to their playful banter, it’s clear that flirting is still alive and well in the Morrison home after all these years. 78