Alan Stewart Morrison

Alan Stewart Morrison was born in Los Angeles in 1933 to parents Sam and Lucille Morrison. Both he and his sister Linda recounted a difficult childhood, but found a loving and stabilizing presence in their maternal grandmother Estella Baddour, known to the family as “Nana,” whose story bears mentioning here. A plucky Midwesterner who was ahead of her time, Nana married Shickry Baddour, who was of Lebanese descent but claimed he was French. Together, they ran a drugstore in New York City, which required Nana to earn a pharmacy degree from Columbia University because, according to Alan, her recalcitrant husband refused to attain the requisite credential, so she took it into her own hands. Alan was not an effusive man, but he once described Nana as “the best person I’ve ever known.” 

As a kid, Alan got into all kinds of trouble, legal and otherwise. Authorities referred to him as “incorrigible” in official terms. When he was 14, he was evaluated by a psychologist, who reported a high IQ but also noted how “extremely unusual” it was to have such an “extreme scatter or range of successes” on such tests, and how this was “indicative in Alan’s case of inattention, distractibility, lack of motivation, and lack of confidence in himself.” By today’s standards, he would be considered “neurodivergent.” Alan spent his early teens bouncing around reform schools and had his first child, Cathy, at the age of 17. As a young man, he worked many odd jobs struggling to provide for his family. Later in life, some of these jobs provided material for funny stories that Alan included in his storytelling repertoire, along with tales of juvenile delinquency. He liked to tell odd stories. 

As a young man who was failed by our school system, college seemed unattainable, but Alan liked playing football and enrolled in L.A. City College so he could join the team. While taking English classes there, he discovered he was a talented writer, and did quite well in his studies. During those years, his friends were mostly misfit creative types on the fringe of the Beat Generation, including actor and poet Carl Thayler and anthropological fabulist Carlos Castaneda, who Alan frequented late-night movies with before Carlos became famous. He eventually transferred to Cal State L.A. where he took English classes with famed writers Dorothy Parker (in her latter years), Christopher Isherwood, and National Book Award-winner Wright Morris, who mentored him a bit. 

When Alan was 30, he had his second child, Brian, who became his constant companion. Later in his thirties, he trained as a psychiatric technician and met his second wife, a nurse named Martha Dolores Martinez, while both worked at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute. He started racing bicycles and took up photography. He loved film, art, and literature. Diane Arbus, Clint Eastwood, and Mark Rothko were among his favorites. 

At age 42, Alan finally completed his B.A. in English, hard-won after nearly two decades of part-time studies. Around that time, Alan had two more kids–fraternal boy-girl twins Jordan and Amanda. The family lived in the bohemian enclave of Topanga Canyon during the 1970s and ‘80s, which were some of the happiest and most stable years of Alan’s life. More than perhaps anything else, he really loved his kids. 

Alan spent most of his career working for the L.A. County Mental Health Department’s innovative mobile emergency team, responding to psychological crises in people’s homes on the streets, helping homeless people with severe mental illness. As someone who had a high tolerance for–and strong interest in–strangeness, he liked this work. He found beauty in strangeness. He continued to write poetry and take photographs throughout his life, and often featured the unusual characters he crossed paths with in his poems and photos. He never shared his artwork publicly, but those of us who love him find it stunningly beautiful. 

Alan is survived by his daughter Cathy Lee Witt, son-in-law Michael Witt, daughter Amanda Maria Morrison, son Jordan Carlos Morrison, their mother Martha Martinez Morrison, and nephews Chris Morrison and Patrick Morrison. Alan was an atheist who often pondered god, and we like to think he is reunited with his son Brian Samuel Morrison in the afterlife, if such a thing exists.

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