Arthur Morje

Arthur "Art" Morje Jr., of Nassau, NY, died on Thursday, February 6, at St. Peter's hospital in Albany. He was 85.

Art was born in Albany on May 7, 1928, the only child of Arthur and Bertha (Bott) Morje. He was raised on his grandfather's farm in Nassau, which has been in his family since the 1860s.

While growing up, Art learned to work on the family farm --- growing crops; tending the cows, sheep, and pigs; and driving draft horses to power the farm's equipment and mow the fields. He attended elementary school in Nassau and high school in East Greenbush, finishing coursework early in order to join the military in the waning months of World War II.

In the fall of 1945, Art enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in the Army Signal Corp, Alaska Communications System. He was stationed at Fort Lawton in Seattle, WA, and worked as a teletype operator handling messages from the U.S. Mainland to the Alaska Territory. Art was honorably discharged in 1947 and received the World War II Victory Medal..

Art's vocation was farming and helping farmers. He was a graduate of SUNY Cobleskill's agricultural program. He served 40 years with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Soil Conservation Service, first working as a conservation technician on projects such as the design and construction of farm ponds, grass waterways, and tile drains, and later working as an engineering technician on jobs that included major flood-control projects in Berlin, Windham, and the Adirondacks.

Art retired from the USDA in June 1989. He then worked many years part-time for Rensselaer and Columbia County's soil conservation districts, while maintaining, until 2004, a small flock of sheep on the Nassau farm.

Just as he had begun as a child in the 1930s, Art continued to mow the fields of his family farm every year, through the last summer of his life, when he was 85.

Art is predeceased by his wife of more than 40 years, Jean (Townsend) Morje, who died March 13, 1993.

He is survived by two children, Robert Morje of Columbus, OH, and Jean (Morje) Waggoner of Nassau, NY; and four grandchildren, Joshua Morje of Columbus, Sarah (Waggoner) Zimmermann of Burlington, VT, Caitlin Waggoner of Shanghai, China, and Ellen Waggoner of Denver, CO. A great-grandchild, also to be named Arthur, is expected in March.

Funeral service will be at the Thomas P. Mooney Funeral Home, 11 Elm St., Nassau, NY on Monday Feb. 10th at 7:00pm.

Relatives and friends are invited to the funeral home prior to the service from 5:00 - 7:00pm.

Art, a long-time communicant and usher at St. Mary's Parish in Nassau, will be buried at St. Mary's Cemetery, next to his wife.