Mary Eleanor Morgan, “Eleanor” to just about everyone, was born April 21, 1895 in Yokohama, Japan, where her father, Reverend Alexander Morgan, was doing missionary work. She had three siblings, Martha “Mattie” Morgan, born 1881, Neuel Morgan, born 1883, and Lawrence Morgan, born 189o.

Her mother, Katherine Bryan Morgan, married her father after the death of his first wife in 1883, and they soon after sailed for Japan. They returned to Goldsboro, North Carolina in 1898, where both of their families had been rooted for generations. And this is where Eleanor grew up.

“Mama” in the garden with her famous flowers

Eleanor graduated from the North Carolina State Normal College in Greensboro in 1916, and then made her way west to Oklahoma University in Norman, to join her brother Lawrence, who had a professorship in the English department, and to work toward her Master’s Degree.

She had just completed her studies when Lawrence was drafted into service at an officer’s training camp in late 1917, and so she was recruited to assume his professorship teaching poetry. Because of her new position, she sough lodging at the Brandenburg boarding house, which let rooms specifically to the female faculty of OU. There she was roomed with Spanish professor Helen Phipps, with whom she felt an instant, sisterly bond.

The steps of the Brandenburg house

Helen often spoke of her beloved younger brother Erwin, and Eleanor in turn of her beloved older brother Lawrence. The Brotherly Adoration Society did indeed exist, and it planted the seeds of Eleanor’s strong emotions when Erwin paid a surprise visit to the house on his way home after the war. And Helen really did hold out hope that the two would fall in love. But it took a few years for her to know that she’d been right all along!

The calling card that Eleanor sent to Erwin in one of her letters (handwriting is Erwin’s)