Caroline Beatty Morse

Caroline Beatty Morse died November 17, 2019, after a long illness. She was 96 years old.

She was known universally as “Pug,” a nickname inflicted on her by age eight by her older brother, the late John C. Beatty, Jr. As Jack told it, his very young self was annoyed to have a younger sister who, he thought, looked like a pug dog. Jack quickly outgrew his annoyance, but the nickname stuck.

Pug was born August 15, 1923 and grew up in Portland, Oregon, and never lost affection for the Rose City. In 1941 she moved to Watervliet, NY when her father was recalled into the army and assigned as the vice commander of Watervliet Arsenal.

After graduating from the Emma Willard School, she attended Smith College, graduating with a degree in history. While at Smith her roommate set her up on a blind date with Anthony Morse, Jr. They were married July 21, of 1945.

A move to Schenectady, NY followed the end of WW II, and their first child, Anthony III was born in 1947. Two years later the family moved to Weston, Massachusetts, their home for the next 51 years. In 1951 their daughter, Caroline Margaret was born, completing the family.

All her life, Pug was an excellent athlete. In Weston she and Tony played tennis constantly with a large cohort of tennis-playing friends. In 1957 she and Tony paired with old friends form Schenectady, Clee and Phyllis Dodge, and she and Clee won the 1957 Weston Golf Club Sports Fest.

In the 1975 she and Tony bought a Cape Dory 28 sailboat, which they moored in Marion, Mass. They sailed that boat, and later a Cape Dory 32, for the next 25 years.

In 2000, she and Tony permanently traded the snowy New England winters for the year-round warmth of Fernandina Beach, Florida. Being less agile than necessary for a fast-paced game of tennis due to a hip replacement, golf became the new sport, and Pug continued to play into her early 90s.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Tony, in 2007. She is survived by her son, Tony, and his son and daughter-in-law, Reed and Sara Caraballo; by her daughter, Lin, and her husband, Steve Leverette, and their son, Alec, and daughter Courtney