 | This article may be in need of reorganization to comply with Misplaced Pages's layout guidelines. Please help by editing the article to make improvements to the overall structure. (July 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Bernice Morrison (sometimes Berenice Morrison) (1856–1947) was an American heiress and benefactor of the Morrison Observatory.
Bernice Morrison was born in St. Louis, Missouri to William M. Morrison and Sara Catherine "Kate" Swinney (The famous Paddle Wheeler "Kate Swinney" was named after her). After both of her parents died at an early age, she was raised by her maternal grandparents, Captain William Daniel Swinney and Lucy Ann Jones who owned a tobacco plantation in Glasgow, Missouri.
Her name lives on in central Missouri because in 1874 she pledged $100,000 to Carr Waller Pritchett to build a world class telescope in Glasgow at the Pritchett Institute. The telescope and the Morrison Observatory were moved to nearby Fayette, Missouri during the early part of the 1930s. It stands there today as one of Central Missouri's hidden treasures as a fully functional piece of science history operated by Central Methodist University.
Also of some interest are her memoirs entitled Plantation Life in Missouri, which expose details of a mostly forgotten period of Missouri history.
References
- A Timeline of the Morrison Observatory
- Article on Morrison Observatory Archived 2010-11-28 at the Wayback Machine
  | This biographical article about a United States activist is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it. |
 | This biographical article about a philanthropist is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it. |