Respected Colusa County Librarian Remembered

By Stacey Zwald Costello, Library Director

Through the glass double door entrance to the main branch library in Colusa, there is a room directly to the right named the “Morse Conference Room.” The Morse Conference Room is a very busy public meeting space, used for programs such as Friends of the Library author evenings, yoga classes, the Literacy Program’s weekly English Conversation Club, and much more.

The room was named after Ella Packer Morse, Librarian of the Colusa County Free Library for 29 years, from 1925 to 1954. Morse was the daughter of Clara Jones and Albert M. Packer. Born near Colusa on July 22, 1898, she spent her entire life attending local county schools. Morse was a graduate of the inaugural class of the UC Berkeley Library School in 1919.

On July 31, 1927, Ella married Guy Morse, the grocery manager of J.J. O’Rourke’s Department Store, owned by prosperous Colusa merchant and city councilman J.J. O’Rourke. The small, evening ceremony was attended by friends and family before the two went on their honeymoon to Southern California. Upon their return, Ella and Guy moved into their Oak Street bungalow.

During her library career, Morse served as chairperson of the California Association of Children’s Librarians as well as President of the Colusa Business and Professional Women’s Club. Her other memberships included being a part of the Deborah Rebekah Lodge No. 7 and the American Library Association.

Morse was respected as one of California’s Outstanding Librarians by the California Library Association. She died in October 1954, just one month after retirement. She was laid to rest at the Colusa Community Cemetery. Her successor, Sally Harrington, worked with Ella for 27 years and called her “the finest woman I have ever known.”

In honor of the memory of Ella Packer Morse and in gratitude for her generous bequest to the Colusa County Free Library, the conference room at the Main Branch Library was dedicated to her in 1988.

The Morse Conference Room can be reserved by members of the public for informational, educational, cultural, and civic activities, including discussion groups, panels, lectures,
conferences, seminars and films.

For additional information or to reserve the room,
call 530-458-0371.