Sidney Brock Morris died peacefully at his home on Chappaquiddick Island on July 9, 2024, after a long healing journey. He was 75, and hadn’t stopped learning since the day he was born: a quintessential lifelong learner. His desire for children to have the chance to discover and explore their unique interests led him to create numerous structures and opportunities for learning over his 50 years as an educator on Martha’s Vineyard.
Sidney was born on June 2, 1949, in Philadelphia, the third child of Virginia Brock Morris and Effingham Buckley Morris Jr. He spent the first six years of his childhood on his family’s Silver Springs Farm, near Norristown, Pa., where he had the freedom to roam, spend time with the animals, and enjoy farm life along with his brother Anthony and sister Virginia (Ginio). His father, a former Cavalry officer, was a banker, and had two grown children, Bucky and Julie, from his first marriage to Julia Pemberton Lewis. His mother ran a children’s farm camp at Silver Springs, where children came from the suburbs to experience the joys of farm life. After his father died when Sidney was 6, the family moved to Chestnut Hill, Pa. Then, when Sidney was 10, they moved to Pittsburgh after his mother married Horace (“Mouse”) Moorhead. Sidney gained four more siblings: Richard and Caroline Scott, Mouse’s stepchildren, and John and Mary Moorhead, Mouse’s own two children with their mother, Caroline Hunnewell. Sidney attended St. Edmund’s Episcopal School, and then went to boarding school at Andover Academy in Massachusetts.
After fine-tuning his major through three different colleges to a focus on Soviet and East European studies (this was 1970), Sidney and some other students spent two months driving a VW microbus and camping across the western USSR, from Finland to the Black Sea. He then dropped out of college in his senior year, since the classroom paled in comparison to exploring the world. His next destination was Africa, a place about which he knew nothing. He had acquired a five-ton truck he named Maxwell from the professor who had organized his trip through the USSR. In it he traveled thousands of miles through 13 African countries over the course of two years, with a varying number of companions, including an orphan chimp named Kobi.
Soon after, Sidney returned to the U.S. to study at UMass Amherst, where he designed his own teacher training degree. A puppy he had picked up at the pound caught the eye of a young woman in his education class. Before he knew it, he was moving to Chappaquiddick Island. Margaret Knight became his wife, and the house she had started became the home they continued building over many years. They lived there together for 50 years, raising their children Lily and Elliot; building additions, sheds for animals, and eventually a house for Elliot, which Elliot and Sidney built together.
Over the years, Sidney worked as a carpenter, photographer, coffeehouse manager, tractor driver, film editor, community center coordinator, sailboat captain, and teacher,, among other things.
Sidney’s first educational endeavor on Martha’s Vineyard was the Sant Bani School, an independent elementary school he started. After the Sant Bani School, he was a technology teacher in Island public schools, and part of the Challenge to Change team. He was instrumental in creating the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School, and was a teacher there for more than a decade. Sidney worked as education director of the FARM Institute, following in his mother’s footsteps, running the summer camp. He started an oxen training program there, and built a greenhouse with the help of numerous volunteers. Inspired by his time sailing in an open pulling boat with Outward Bound in his early 20s, he developed a maritime adventure program called Vineyard Voyagers, with the mission of giving Island youth the chance to have significant encounters with the sea. He was also involved with the creation of the Chappaquiddick Community Center, among many other organizations and initiatives on the Island.
Sidney loved animals, and had a special connection with dogs — while on a recent walking trip in Wales, he made a census of all of the dogs he met along the way. He also loved vans, especially Chevy Astros and VW microbuses. Up until the year before he died, Sidney was piloting the Wanderbus (his final Astro van) with children who planned their own adventures around the Island. He built a mobile maker space, called the Dream Wagon, to tow behind the van.
Sidney was preceded in death by his parents; his siblings Anthony Morris, Bucky Morris, Julie Morris Disston, and Caroline and Richard Scott. He is survived by his wife, Margaret Knight; children, Lily K. Morris and Elliot Morris; sisters, Virginia Morris and Mary Moorhead; brother, John Moorhead; and by nieces, nephews, and many cousins.
There will be a celebration of life for Sidney at the Agricultural Hall in West Tisbury on Sunday, Oct. 13 at 5 pm. Donations in his name may be made to the Chappaquiddick Community Center or the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society.
