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(f>- ^ of X) 'Duchess Arlene' soars above race ARLENE, from Page 5B company would even create a diecast model airplane called "Duchess Arlene." But at the time, Morris said she didn't think much about the honor of having a plane named after her. She was busy planning for life after high school. in time, she would carve her own place in Iowa history. Morris enrolled at the University of Iowa—then the State University of Iowa — where she said she took "too much sociology, some psy¬ chology, 20th-century literature, and French." She wasn't allowed to live in the segregated dorms. So she moved into an old Victorian house in Iowa City that the Iowa Colored Wom¬ en's Club had purchased for black female students. Years later, Morris said, secret rooms were discovered in the basement of the house, making it seem Likely that it had once been part of the Underground Railroad. "Here we were having parties," she said. 'We didn't know we were dancing on our history." One summer when Morris was in college, her aunt and uncle invited her to stay with them in Chicago if she could find work. Thanks to her typing skills, she was able to get a job in the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago. Morris started out in the general typing pool but was soon moved to the office of two physicists — one black, one white. She can't re¬ member the name of the white physicist but said the black man was Ernest Wilkins Jr., a brilliant mathematician who earned a Ph.D. at age 19. In the Metallurgical Laboratory, Morris spent her days typing on an aluminum foil-like paper. Most of what she typed made no sense to her. About the only thing she rec¬ ognized were the names of scientists. Morris had no idea she was working on the Manhattan Project, that the work being conducted in her office was part of the develop¬ ment of the atomic bomb. She didn't find out until the news was an¬ nounced at a staff meeting. "Some people cried because it SPECIAL TO THE REGISTER Pilot and plane: Robert Williams, above, of Ottumwa and Luther Smith of Des Moines v^ere among the famed Tuskegee Airmen of World War II who went to Alabama to enroll in the Negro Pilot Training Program at Tuskegee Institute. was such a powerful thing," she said. "Even some of the scientists cried because of what they were working on." Morris went back to school and a short time later the war ended, flooding the University of Iowa campus with returning soldiers. One of them was James B. Morris Jr., a law student studying for his master's degree in political science. The son of a prominent black Des Moines family, James won four Bronze Stars with his segregated Army combat unit in the South Pa¬ cific but nearly died of malaria. This time, Morris married her soldier. After they had both finished school, the couple moved to Des Moines where James became the first black assistant county attorney. In Des Moines, Morris found a community that was very segre¬ gated socially, If blacks wanted to belong to clubs, they had to create their own. So Morris, who by then was a mother of three sons, got together with some friends who also had children and they created a social organization called the Winthrops. It was partly because of her sons that Morris became involved in the early 1960s in a community group called the "Know Your Neighbor" panel. Composed of a dozen or so women of different racial and re¬ ligious backgrounds, the group was dedicated to fighting prejudice. "Know Your Neighbor" panelists traveled thousands of mdles and shared their life stories with more than 55,000 people, including a 1965 speech in Washington, D.C., before U.S. Chamber of Commerce members. Morris told group after group about the grade-school teacher who used the n-word in class when talking about slavery. She ex¬ pressed her fears that the racism her sons encountered would leave psychological scars. Baring her soul in this way didn't come naturally to her, she admitted in a 1964 interview. "In order to do a good job, I must break the habit of a lifetime — that of keeping my true and hurt feel¬ ings hidden," she said. Also on the panel with Morris was Des Moines philanthropist Maddie Levitt. Levitt said Morris has always impressed her as a "woman of valor." "I think she is a quiet giant," Levitt said. "She does her thing without a lot of outside approval. On the Web For more information on: THE TUSKEGEE AIRIVIEN: www.redtail.org THE MANHATTAN PROJECT: www.atomicmuseum.com/tour /manliattanproject.cfm UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO METALLURGICAL LABORATORY: www.atomicarchive .com/HistorysitesMetlab.slitml ERNEST WILKINS: www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/ PEEPS I IOWA AIR NATIONAL GUARD ^ McKinley Ave. OES r^OII^ES AIBPORT NX, Tuskegee Airmen memorial Army Post Road Area Shown "' J D Z3 CD LI¬ THE REGISTER She sort of marches to her own drummer." When Robert, her youngest son, was in first grade, Morris went back to school to get her master's degree. She graduated from Drake University in 1967 and became a psychologist — likely the first black woman psychologist in practice in Iowa. She went to work at Broadlawns Medical Center, where she stayed until she retired. She gave psycho¬ logical tests, evaluated families and conducted individual and group therapy. If people were surprised to see a black woman asking about their mental state, they hid it well, she said. "If people said anything, I didn't know it," she said. "Generally, peo¬ ple were pretty pleasant, I thought." These days, Morris enjoys spending time with her grandchil¬ dren and attending a Reminis¬ cences writing group. She de¬ scribes it as older women writing about their lives. It's a sign of how much attitudes have evolved that the racial makeup of the group is no longer relevant. Morris said she sees signs of how far blacks have progressed every¬ where — on television, in housing, even in employment. For the EXichess Arlene, growing old offers at least one reward. 'When you live long enough, you see the changes," she said. Reporter Mary Challender can be reached at (515) 284-8470 or mchallender@dmreg.com University of Iowa Libraries. University Archives