School & Community News

Graduate of the Class of 1940

Amy Philena (Polly) Morris Williams;
Born July 13, 1922 in Coweta, Oklahoma, Philena was the third of six children born to George Finley Morris and Osa Mae Wheeler Morris.
Upon graduation from Coweta High School in 1940, she attended Northeastern State Teachers College, Tahlequah, Oklahoma but the outbreak of WW2 and the death of her father cut short her enrollment at college and she immediately joined the war effort as a steno for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Pryor, Oklahoma starting a life-long career in government service.
In February 1944, Philena married Wiley Brice Williams of Porter, Oklahoma, a second lieutenant in the 8th Air Force and after his return from England, Philena and Wiley lived in Stillwater, Oklahoma while he completed his degree at Oklahoma A&M.
Upon his graduation in 1950, they moved to Fort Worth where Philena was employed at the Forth Worth Children’s Museum when it was located in the R.E. Harding House at 1306 Summit. She returned to government service in 1951 working for the Office of Price Stabilization and later the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, the U.S Army Corps of Engineers General Depot and finally the General Services Administration in downtown Fort Worth. Philena retired in 1979 as the Administrative Assistant to the Regional Director of GSA in Fort Worth.
Philena and Wiley enjoyed retirement in Clifton, Texas, until Wiley’s death in 1997. Philena then moved to Arlington, Texas in 2001 and in 2011 to C.C. Young Memorial Home in Dallas.
Always active in her children’s activities, Philena insisted on setting the perfect holiday table, playing piano, sewing, family vacations and telling stories of life during the depression and war years.
She was preceded in death by her husband; her brothers, Howard G. Morris, Lauren G. Morris, Robert E. Morris, George W. Morris and her sister Mary E. Morris Gafford.
Philena is survived by son and a daughter-in-law, Trent and Laura Williams and son, Dennis Williams, five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, a sister-in-law, Wanda Morris, and many nieces and nephews.
Services were Saturday, August 30th at Clifton Funeral Home in Clifton, Texas.