Ray was two year younger than Agnes and she therefore lorded herself over him until he grew bigger and wouldn't take her teasing and sarcasm. He and Big Sister Agnes were as close as siblings can be.
Agnes tells many anecdotes about Ray in her timeless classic book "No Life for a Lady." It's hard to pick just one of those vignettes but I think my favorite is what I call "Ray and The Horse Thieves." WOWzer, now that's a story!
Mom Ada insisted on sending her offspring off to name brand schools. Ray got shipped off to Michigan and that's where he learned to play football. Ray was a cowboy first and foremost so it had to be an adjustment to learn how to run, block and tackle. But Ray learned so well he's now in the NCAA College Football Hall of Fame. Seriously.
Here's Ray's best football story--at least that we have found...so far. It's a really good thing Ray didn't actually kill anyone that day! This is from a 1926 account written by W.W. Wheeler for "The Santa Fe New Mexican" newspaper.
"W. R. Morley, of Datil runs cattle and sheep over 475,000 acres. He is the New Mexican who as a young fellow got mad in New York because for three days no one would speak to him. He took his fury out on the Columbia football team, in consequence became the "Red" Grange of the time-Ray Morley, Columbia captain and all-American halfback, 1900 and 1901. Morley was born in New Mexico on the ranch he now owns. He decided to be a mining engineer and in 1899 went to New York City to enter the Columbia School of Mines.
"I found New York City nothing like New Mexico when it came to making friends. I spoke to a young fellow in the boarding house. He looked at me and edged away. I tried to talk to students on the campus and they would promptly walk off.
"There among four million people I was lonelier than I had ever been. After two days of it I saw in the paper a call for football candidates. I felt better then, for I was sure that Ton the athletic field I would find company. Before night I was following football players around like an orphan calf after a cow. They gave me the cold stare, just like the others.
"I couldn't eat any super. I went to bed but couldn't sleep. After hours of tossing, feeling that I couldn't stand another day, I decided to leave Columbia and go instead to the School of Mines at Houghton, Mich. But toward the end of that sleepless night I began to get mad, REAL MAD
"Then came another decision. I made up my mind to go back to the football field and kill off as many players as I could before leaving. I packed my trunk, arranged for an expressman to get it and bought my ticket for Michigan. Then I went out to the athletic field and demanded to be put into the play. The coach told me to go back and sit down until called for.
I asked again. Before long he called me out. The rest of that afternoon began some Columbia football history. Morley was put on the scrub team. Time after time he hurled himself furiously into the regular lines. Within ten minutes three of the first team players had been carried off the field.
"Here!" the coach shouted. "You get over on the first team and report to training quarters tonight."
Morley snorted. "I am through with all of you," he said. "I have done what I wanted to do and I am leaving this place tonight."
"Have dinner with me," the coach invited. Morley declined. The coach went with him to his boarding house and ate with him. He followed to Morley's room. When the expressman came for the trunks the coach sent him away and stayed with Morley until morning. Finally Morley agreed to stay and play football. The team made a brilliant record. In 1900 and 1901 Morley was captain and in both years Walter Camp pronounced him the best hall-back in all America."
To fully appreciate Ray's Life Story, you must real "No Life for a Lady" written by his Big Sister Agnes. Then you will realize it was The Cowboy Way that hardened Ray for a rough and tumble life of whatever came his way. We found an excellent article about Ray written in 1917. We excerpted it and put it into PDF format here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11DJttjK9SN4DkMFYpMsgZPpMsPkiiPVl/view?usp=sharing
The entire 1926 article by W.W. Wheeler is well worth reading, too. It is located here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11DJttjK9SN4DkMFYpMsgZPpMsPkiiPVl/view?usp=sharing
The entire 1926 article by W.W. Wheeler is well worth reading, too. It is located here:
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/98049217/full-ray-morley-story-1926/
Perhaps ray never thought about it but one of his great contributions to the telling of The Morley family Story was the 1920 relocation of his boyhood home to the Datil roadside of the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway. Agnes helped Ray run The Navajo Lodge, as it was named. When Ray died in 1932, Agnes took on a bigger role and became much more involved in day-to-day operation of The Lodge. The final chapter in "No Life for a Lady" recounts how Agnes one day met an old man who stopped at the Lodge. The old man reminded her of a childhood vignette she had forgotten. "It was then that this record began to formulate itself," Agnes wrote, "that I began to want to put into some semblance of permanent form the story of the girl who had vanished, and her life, the life that was not for what the world calls a lady."
We will undoubtedly find more documentation of Ray's Life & Times. When we do, we will add that material to this post.
Perhaps ray never thought about it but one of his great contributions to the telling of The Morley family Story was the 1920 relocation of his boyhood home to the Datil roadside of the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway. Agnes helped Ray run The Navajo Lodge, as it was named. When Ray died in 1932, Agnes took on a bigger role and became much more involved in day-to-day operation of The Lodge. The final chapter in "No Life for a Lady" recounts how Agnes one day met an old man who stopped at the Lodge. The old man reminded her of a childhood vignette she had forgotten. "It was then that this record began to formulate itself," Agnes wrote, "that I began to want to put into some semblance of permanent form the story of the girl who had vanished, and her life, the life that was not for what the world calls a lady."
We will undoubtedly find more documentation of Ray's Life & Times. When we do, we will add that material to this post.
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