A Lifetime of Giving
Morris Edwards has been a lifelong resident of New Castle and Henry County. He graduated with the Class of 1952 from New Castle High School and with a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance from Indiana University in 1956.
His memories of his childhood in New Castle are those of a family home which included his uncle, Judge John Morris, as well as his parents and sister. Due to the presence of two males in his home, he had a Dad who taught him about hunting, fishing, and golfing and an Uncle who showed him the world through travel and a love of reading. Growing up in a large house on Main Street put him within walking distance of the schools, everything in downtown and the family business. He felt these factors were instrumental in how he would live the rest of his life.
Upon completing his degree, he returned to New Castle to become a second generation owner/operator of the family business, Edwards Jewelers. One of the things his uncle taught him was his responsibility to his community and from the moment he returned, he became involved in civic and social groups. He served as President of the New Castle Improvement Group, co-chaired Building the Downtown Mall, and enjoyed his membership with the New Castle Chamber of Commerce as a director, a president and in 1970 as Citizen of the Year. He is an avid golfer and has been all of his life and served several years on the Indiana Golf Association Board of Directors.
At the age of thirty, Morris was asked to become a director of the First National Bank and continued until the bank merged with Bank One where he also served as a director until 1996. But for Morris, his most rewarding association was when he was asked to fill his uncle’s position as director on the board of the New Castle Community Foundation, which with his guidance later became the Henry County Community Foundation. He became a leading salesman for the Foundation, serving as Board President on three different occasions. Little did he know that relationship would last for so many years as he is still very ingrained in the events of the Foundation.
When Morris came on the Board of the Foundation, it was in its infancy with only $400,000 in assets. With his help and guidance, it has grown to $28,000,000, and he has watched it become one of the greatest assets to the community. Believing in the Foundation from the start, Morris established funds to honor his parents by benefitting the Unrestricted Fund for Community Grants; and for his in-laws the Carpenters to benefit the Henry County Saddle Club. He raised funds to honor those who had been dear to him and started named funds within the Unrestricted Fund for their legacies. He encouraged adult children to honor their parents, even when the children were no longer Henry County residents. He established a charitable gift annuity for him and his wife to add to their retirement income and to leave a charitable legacy within the Foundation to the Endowment Funds of the Presbyterian Church, the Judge John H. Morris Scholarship Fund and to the Unrestricted Fund for Community Grants.
Morris has served in many capacities within the Foundation, as board member, as finance committee member, as development member, and most importantly as a mentor to the staff, to donors, to new board members. He also pushed to get a Youth Grants Committee (TASC) established within the Foundation and Henry County became one of the earliest Foundations in the State of Indiana to do so. He was instrumental in getting Bank One to turn over trusts so the Foundation could administer the grantmaking while Bank One continued with the investments. This was done during a Lilly Endowment Matching GIFT initiative which was significant to the growth of the Foundation.
He feels his greatest achievement is in knowing the people in the community and encouraging their donating to the charity of their choice through the Foundation which enhances their view of philanthropy. He has also passed those ideals on to his family. He and his wife Shirley have been married fifty-three years and have two daughters, Susan and Cathy, and four granddaughters, Jennifer, Stacy, Claire and Kate. As the girls have matured to adults, they too have become donors to the Foundation and have a love of community passed on to them through their father.
When asked the single most important thing he felt the Foundation was doing, he stated charitable gift annuities which are unique to charities and he feels not enough people are aware of.
Asked how he would like to be remembered he said “I want to be remembered as the kind of person my dog thinks I am”.
Those of us connected to the Foundation will remember him for much more.
