Chester Stephen Morgan, Jr., 91, of Oak Ridge, went to Heaven on Saturday, Aug. 17.

He is survived by his wife of 59 years, Helene Bartels Morgan.

He was born on Oct. 20, 1921, in Houston, Texas, the oldest child of Anna May Smith Morgan and Chester Stephen Morgan of Hillsboro, Texas.

After attending Hillsboro Junior College, he graduated from Rice University with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering in February 1944. Later that year, he started Naval Indoctrination School in Plattsburg, N.Y. Further training was in the new science of sonar in Key West, Fla. He then served on a destroyer escort patrolling in the Pacific. In 1946, as the highest ranking officer of a decommissioned ship, he was given the ship’s flag. In 1950, he graduated with a doctorate in physical chemistry from Rice and started working at the Celanese Research and Development Laboratory near Corpus Christi, Texas. [Read more…]