Dorothy Morse

Dorothy White Morse passed away in her home on Ortega Road in Albuquerque, on November 28, 2024, at the age of 84. Her final days were free of the usual medical interventions that accompany so many of our deaths. She was a believer in going out on one’s own terms, not the terms of doctors and hospitals. In the months before her death, as she was failing, she wrote to her family, “safely living isn’t my idea of good living.” As one who lived her entire life on her own terms guided by a set of bedrock principles, she made certain to die as she had lived – calling her own shots.

She was born in El Paso, Texas, on March 3, 1940, to Travis White and Dorothy Boehm. Travis was El Paso’s City Attorney for over three decades and his daughter was enormously proud of him. Dorothy lived with her father in El Paso until she was 13 and then moved to Roswell, New Mexico, to live with her mother and her two brothers, Tito French and Fred French. She attended New Mexico State University and, shortly after graduation, married Ted Morse in 1962. They moved to Albuquerque where she remained for the rest of her life. Her marriage to Ted ended in 1985, and she went on to create a thriving business with Adobe and Roses Bed and Breakfast. A consummate hostess, gardener, and cook, she ran Adobe and Roses for another 30+ years. She also met Armen Chakerian who would be her life and travel partner until her death.

As a child of Depression era parents, she abhorred wastefulness, respected frugality, and was never idle, but she was also remarkably generous and kind. She was a doer. In equal doses, she not only admired people who could build and fix things but also egg-headed intellectuals. She was a wonderful mother and grandmother, loyal to her large circle of friends. She loved adobe homes, and either bought or built and rented six homes along Ortega Road. She was an accomplished equestrian having competed in hunter-jumper tournaments throughout her young years, trained in Mexico City where she became fluent in Spanish, and competed for a chance to ride with the 1960 US Olympic equestrian team. She was a lover of chickens and, especially, her Golden and Lady Amherst pheasants. She was a decades-long patron of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, and a lover of musicians, artists and potters. She volunteered in the special needs classrooms at her daughters’ elementary school, and worked several tax seasons with H&R Block helping people prepare their taxes. She was a beautiful combination of the practical and artistic. And in the end, to the surprise of her family, she became an avid fan of the NFL.

Dorothy is survived by her life partner, Armen Chakerian; her daughters, Coco Ballew (husband Will) and Catherine Fox (husband Tim); her Ballew grandchildren William (wife Brooke) and Anna, and Fox grandchildren Ella, Sophia, and Anaclaire; her brother Fred French, his wife Diane, and their children, spouses, and grandchildren as well as the children of her late brother Tito French, Chris and Jon French, and their families.

 A celebration of life will be scheduled in the spring, at her home, when her beloved garden is in bloom. If you would like to be notified when a date is set, please email dorothymorsememorial@gmail.com.