Harry Havelock Morse
From the Paradise news column of the Weekly Monitor newspaper¹ on January 8, 1902 –
“The large number of teachers and students who have been with us for the past two or three weeks are returning to their schools.“
Source: Weekly Monitor Vol. 29, No.41 (January 8, 1902)¹
Almira Bernice Phinney Morse and Joseph Chipman Morse had four sons. The loss of their third son, Harry Havelock (1883-1918) was traumatic.
The four brothers were all home at the same time for Christmas 1901.
William Inglis, 27, had finished his studies at the Episcopal Theological School, throwing in a year of post-graduate study in philosophy and ethics at Harvard. He was a scholar, teacher, and pastor, working in 1901 as an English teacher and chaplain at Westminster, an exclusive private school for boys in Simsbury Connecticut. His career as the new young Rector at the Church of the Incarnation in Simsbury was just around the corner.
Vernon, 24, was studying at Harvard Medical School.
Ewart, the youngest son, was a little boy waiting at home to see his older brothers.
This is the story of Harry…
One of these boys is Harry, with his mother and two of his brothers. The youngest, Ewart, was probably not born yet.
Harry had come home from Acadia University for Christmas and was at Acadia a year later, in 1902, as a sophomore however, according to the records available, he did not graduate. He seems to have returned home to farm with his father.
He was a prolific poet, a composer of elegant and contrived Victorian pieces so popular in his date. Like his brother, William Inglis, Harry was drawn to the tragedy and romance of the lost Acadian world in Nova Scotia and he authored “Jean Breau: A Romance of Early Acadie, 2 vols.”
Harry would eventually move to Lynn, Massachusetts where he lived with his brother, William Inglis, and his wife, Susan, on Ocean Street. The ocean was, and still is, a huge part of life in Lynn. (William Inglis would write poetry about the ocean from the window of his Rector’s study at the Church of the Incarnation).
The house at 170 Ocean Street in Lynn Massachusetts was substantial, roomy, and as was the way of that era, called for servants. Sophie Petronella Bjerke was one of three women who had been with the Morses for some time; she was just thirty or so when Harry came to live with them. Harry and Sophie fell in love, and this caused a family rift. Harry moved out.
They married on December 28, 1917. Harry, 34, listed his occupation as “journalist” and Sophie, 31, as “waitress.” They might have gone on to recover the essentially loving relationships with the rest of Harry’s family, to build a new life and raise a family on their own terms, but there was a war on.
Sophie was feeling increasingly desperate. Harry had registered for the draft and was sent to Missouri to train; his company due to go overseas in the summer of 1918. Sophie was terrified of being separated from him, as she told her sister.
On July 27, 1918, Harry and Sophie’s bodies were found in the sea off Bar Harbour, Maine, their drowning the result of a pact to die together, as Sophie’s sister told authorities, and as the investigation and evidence concluded. They are buried together in Bar Harbour – a personal and family tragedy within the encompassing tragedy of a world at war.
Little was said about the event, though Harry’s memory was cherished. That was the way of that era. The silence was deemed respectful.
Harry Havelock Morse and Susan Ensign Morse (his sister-in-law) home for the summer visit to Burn Brae. Here they are paddling near their home. The family loved nature and outdoor activities and took many pictures of their outings. c.1916
These lines are from “Yaw Yklim: A Medley” published by his brother W.I. Morse in Ricordati, a memoir of his early life with his brothers, including poems of Vernon Chipman and Harry Havelock Morse, published in 1925, by Nathan Sawyer &Son, Boston and dedicated to his parents. William Inglis would go on to survive all his brothers and he felt that loneliness all the rest of his life.
Written by Barbara Bishop