Bruce Morrison

MORRISON FYMBO

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 9/7/2010 at 00:22:05

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

Bruce Morrison
By Mrs Bruce Morrison

Bruce Addison Morrison, born October 11, 1936, was one of two children born on Mearle and Mildred Morrison who at the time lived in Sioux City, Iowa. In the spring of 1940, the Morrison’s bought a farm to Glen Ellen Road in Sergeant Bluff so they moved.

Bruce began his formal education at the age of four at the Sergeant Bluff Consolidated School in Sergeant Bluff. He graduated from high school in 1954.

He began as an apprentice printer at the Sioux City Journal the following Saturday after graduation where his father Mearle and his grandfather Bernal Morrison both worked as printers. Bruce finished his apprenticeship and became a journeyman in 1959 and continued to work at the Journal.

In 1957 and 1958, Bruce worked nights so this enabled him to further his education. He attended Morningside College.

June 26, 1960, Bruce married Anne Frances Fymbo, born February 21, 1938, daughter of Lloyd and Frances Fymbo of Sergeant Bluff. She attended the Sergeant Bluff Schools also and graduated from high school in 1956. Anne attended Wayne State Teachers College, September 1956 to May 1958, when she transferred to Iowa State Teachers College to complete her education. She graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in June of 1960 with a teaching certification in art for all grades and home economics for junior high and high school. (Since Bruce worked nights and teaching is definitely a day job, Bruce requested that his new wife not sign a contract to teach full time. Thus, Anne did substitute teaching in the Sioux City School System until their first child was on the way.)

Bruce and Anne lived in an apartment in Sioux City until they moved to the house on the corner of 5th and B Street in Sergeant Bluff.

During the blizzard of 1962, Jeffrey Alan, their first child, was born on February 21, in the Methodist Hospital in Sioux City, Iowa. (A snow plow had to plow the way to Highway 75 so they could make it to the hospital.)

Their second child, Gregory Bruce, was born on March 5, 1964, also at the Methodist Hospital in Sioux City. This time the weather was beautiful with spring just around the corner.

In August of 1965, Bruce and Anne decided to build a house on an acreage located on the southwest corner of the Mearle Morrison farm on Glen Ellen Road in rural Sergeant Bluff. Their home was completed and they moved in during April of 1966.

Bruce and Anne’s third child, Laura Anne, was born on January 13, 1966, at the Methodist Hospital in Sioux City, Iowa. They move into their new home when she was just three months old.

The family was complete, they had a new home, job security with Bruce working at the Sioux City Journal, and things were going fine.

In early spring of 1969 Laura Anne began having problems with pain in her legs and arms. In May she was diagnosed as having acute lymphocytic leukemia. The diagnosis was the same at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The doctors put her on a regime of chemotherapy but she died June 2, 1970, and was buried in Memorial Park in Sioux City, Iowa.

On September 5, 1972, a fourth child was born to Bruce and Anne, Jay Edward. He was a delight to the whole family; Jeff then ten years, and Greg eight years really enjoyed their new brother.

Bruce continued to work at the Sioux City Journal (twenty-three years) till 1977 when he began a commercial printing business in Sergeant Bluff, Morrison Printing Company. He opened shop in April, 1977, in the office of the former dentist, Dr L H Fymbo (Anne’s father), located at 301 5th Street, Sergeant Bluff.

The printing business slow grew with Bruce and Anne working together. During this time, Bruce was very aware of the community’s bi-monthly newspaper called the Sergeant Bluff Booster. The news gathering was done by the editor Barbara Green.

Seeing the need for a weekly newspaper so on September 14, 1978, they began publishing the new weekly newspaper, The Sergeant Bluff Advocate. The newspaper provided a place for the local businesses to advertise and it carried the news and local events of Sergeant Bluff and Salix.

Bruce and Anne worked side by side gathering and printing the local news Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and then the rest of the week was spent taking care of their commercial printing business.

In the spring of 1979, the margin of profit became so slim for the newspaper that Bruce and Anne decided that the newspaper would be dropped from their business. Thus on May 31, 1979, the last Sergeant Bluff Advocate went to press.

Due to public pressure, the Morrison’s decided to resume publishing the newspaper again. The newspaper was distributed on the rural routes and in the communities of Sergeant Bluff and Salix, free of charge before asking for subscriptions. On July 31, 1982, the Morrison’s decided that the Advocate should be sent to subscribers only.

During these years, the Morrison family matured. Jeffrey graduated from Sergeant Bluff-Luton High School in 1980 and is presently attending Iowa State University, majoring in Fisheries & Wildlife Biology. Gregory graduated in 1982 and is attending ISU also (major undeclared). Jay is attending Sergeant Bluff-Luton Middle School in grade six.

Bruce and Anne continued to publish the Sergeant Bluff Advocate and work in the commercial printing business in the location of 301 5th Street in Sergeant Bluff, Iowa.