Feb. 13, 2002 – Mark Alexander (Alex) Morrison, 41, of New Brighton, N.Y., and St. Thomas died Jan. 30 in Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze, N.Y., after a battle with cancer.
Born in New Orleans, La., Morrison also lived in Virginia and Tennessee before moving with his family to Manhattan in 1967. He moved to New Brighton in October 1992 and relocated to St. Thomas in 1995. At the time of his death, he had been living with his mother in New Brighton while undergoing treatment for his illness.
Morrison attended Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, N.H., on full scholarship, then trained as an apprentice with a master electrician and became a self-employed electrical designer. He operated his own business, "Alextrician," on St. Thomas.
He was a passionate reader and favored mysteries, science fiction and history. He enjoyed sailing, swimming, parasailing and fishing. He had become interested in computers and digital photography in the last few years, mastering both and flooding family and friends with photographs and e-mail.
A budding writer, Morrison wrote fiction and poetry and was working on a novel when he was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. He then began a written record of his experience as a cancer patient, and his courage, talent and humor shone through his work.
He loved music, movies, drawing, anthropology, plants, snow, driving too fast, cooking, eating, animals, all sports, and spending time with the people he loved. He was a magnet for children, and the many people who became his friends were drawn to him and loved him unreservedly, his family said.
"He was simply amazing and beautiful," said his mother, Joelle Morrison, "and the world is a better place for his having been in it. There is no way to say how much we will miss him."
In addition to his mother, he is survived by his daughter, Alexandra Wren; three brothers, Jean Christophe, Joshua and Joseph; two sisters, Rachel Morrison and Amy Williams, his father, Jean Antoine Morrison, and his stepfather, Jerome Cox. He had many close friends on St. Thomas who were a source of support throughout his long illness including Bill Wilson, Roger Lakins, Todd and Jen Wilson, George and Amalia Morrissey and others too numerous to mention.
A memorial service was held in New York on Feb. 3 at St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bouwerie Parish Hall, Manhattan. The Crestwood Memorial Chapels, Manhattan, handled the arrangements, including cremation.
A service will be held on St. Thomas at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday at the St. Thomas Reformed Church, Nye Gade at Crystal Gade. His ashes will be brought to St. Thomas and scattered in the sea he loved at a later date.