Delores (Dee) Morris

Delores Eckman Morris passed away on July 28, 2021. She was born Delores (Dee) Laverne Eckman on August 13 (or perhaps August 12), 1930, in Houston, Texas. You see, it was a hot Texas summer day, she was born at home and there were already several older siblings. So, there was naturally some confusion about which day she was born, and which day was actually on her birth certificate. She was the last child born to Ernest and Ella Eckman.

Dee graduated from high school in 1948 and was accepted into pre-med at what is now Rice University. She wanted to be a surgeon. (Medicine was typically a man’s field.) Ultimately, she would become a realtor. She had to forego her college plans because her father got sick, and she had to stay home and help her mother take care of him.

She met and married Earl Morris in 1954. Earl was a pilot, first in the Air Force and then a commercial pilot, and Dee decided to get her pilot’s license, too. (Flying planes was typically a man’s field.) Dee received her pilot’s license and became a member of The Ninety-Nines, a female pilots club founded by Amelia Earhart, and raced airplanes in competition.

Earl and Dee owned and operated a small airfield, Dee’s Flying Service, outside of Houston. She and Earl and their son David moved to Montgomery in the early 1970s when Earl became Mayor Emory Folmar’s private pilot.

Dee decided to become a realtor. It was typically a man’s field at the time. She helped form the Montgomery Chapter of the Women’s Council of Realtors and held several local and statewide and even national offices in that organization. In 1998, she was awarded Realtor of the Year and Woman Realtor of the year for Alabama. In 2009 she served as President of the Alabama Board of Realtors.

Dee discovered she also had a talent for teaching and for yoga. She taught real estate and real estate ethics classes and became a certified yoga instructor.