Esther Marion Morrow peacefully passed from this life to her heavenly home, at 97 years of age, on Monday, Sept 18, 2023, at the Idaho State Veterans Home, in Lewiston.
She was born to John J. Gregg and Gladys Nelson Gregg at Merriman, Neb., July 22, 1926. In 1933, the Greggs moved west to Buhl, Idaho; then the next year, north to Grangeville.
Esther attended the Baptist Church, accepted the Lord Jesus as her savior and was baptized at 10 years old. After several years, the family settled near Harpster, on the Joe Wimpy place. In the 1890s it was a stage stop on the wagon road from Stites through Harpster to the gold fields. After Highway 13 was built in the 1930s, the Kooskia school ran a bus up the river, so the Greggs continued to go there.
Esther graduated high school in 1944 and went to work for Henry Telcher in the Auditor Recorder office at the Idaho County Courthouse in Grangeville. He encouraged her to go to Linfield College. In 1946, she returned to Lewiston Normal School and met the requirements for an Idaho teacher’s certificate. Her first year teaching was at Grangeville, and during Christmas vacation, she and Donald Morrow were married at the Grangeville Baptist Church.
They were happily married 63 years with two sons, Gary and Dwight. She was a homemaker, very devoted to her husband and two sons, and to making their lives happier.
When the boys were school-age, Esther continued teaching at Stites and Kooskia. Don and Esther built their home on South Fork of the Clearwater River on the north side of Harpster, living there 56 years. They spent a lot of time building and enjoying their “M & M’s Cabin” together at Mallard Creek. She loved gardening and canning, needlework, quilting, pine-needle weaving and playing the piano and organ for her own entertainment.
She taught classes in the local area including Bible schools, child evangelism, and Sunday school at the Community School House in Harpster, until ALACCA was established in 1969, and continued to work there.
The Morrows were members of the Idaho State Historical Society, SHPO, establishing the Idaho County Historic Preservation Commission in 1997, and they were instrumental in organizing the Friends of Elk City Wagon Road because it was a Lasting Legacy project for the State Centennial in 1990. Esther was president of the Idaho County Historical Society in the 1990s when she began the Brown Bag Lecture program. She served for years on the Horizon Committee which directs the activities of the Bicentennial Historical Museum in Grangeville.
She is survived by two sons, Gary and Dwight (Denise); three grandsons: Rich, Ron (Angie) and Chris (Danyel); nine great-grandchildren; one great-great-grandson and two great-great-granddaughters; four sisters, and numerous nieces and nephews.
She is preceded in death by her parents, three brothers, and three sisters and two half-brothers.
A celebration of life has taken place. Trenary Funeral Home of Kooskia was in charge of arrangements.
