Carol Morrison, East End environmental activist, dies at 90

To her friends, Carol Morrison was an activist, concerned about environmental issues in Montauk and the Hamptons. But to her family, she was Aunt Carol, always involved, like a big sister.

"She was very much a part of our lives growing up," Liddy Baker, 69, Morrison's niece, said Wednesday from her home in South Kent, Conn. "She was always there for us."

And she was a lot of fun - daring with a sense of adventure. Baker remembered once when her aunt wanted to learn to sail and took a small sloop, along with Baker and Baker's sister, out in Moriches Bay. She ended up sailing the sloop right into the dock.

Morrison, who lived more than 40 years in Montauk, died Oct. 22 at a rehabilitation center in South Kent where she had been recovering from a fall. She was 90.

Morrison fell in love with Montauk in the mid-1960s, her niece said. "In 1967 she bought a house there and decided that's where she wanted to live," Baker said. "She rented out her apartment in Manhattan for a year, just to be sure, and then, after that, she just stayed in Montauk."

Born in Cranford, N.J., Morrison went to Kent Place School in Summit, N.J., and Vassar College, where she graduated in 1942 with an economics degree. At first, she worked in human resources but then was hired by Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., a Manhattan financial services firm.

After she took the job, a colleague assumed Morrison was a new secretary. "They asked her to type something up," Baker said, "and she told them, 'I don't know how to type.' "

She worked there more than 30 years, retiring as a financial analyst in 1980.

Living out east, Morrison became involved in Concerned Citizens of Montauk, an environmental group, and for 10 years she was the group's president. "The area around Montauk in the 1960s was farming and fishing," Baker said, "not tourism. As she saw open land being threatened, that's when she really became involved in the environment."

For the last two years, she spent winters near her niece, in a South Kent apartment. She also had a sense that she had lived "a good life," her niece said. At checkups with her doctor, she would say, " 'I've had a wonderful life. I'm ready to check out. Just tell me when.' "

Morrison is survived by six nieces. Her remains were cremated. A memorial service is planned for May at Saint Therese Lisieux Catholic Church, Montauk.