Mary Halcyon (Morris) Wells, 87, of Enumclaw, Wash., died after a brief illness on July 25, 2020.
Mary, best known as Hallie, was born in Mooreland, Okla., on November 8, 1932, to Grace (Dunbar) and Vernon Morris. Because of the Depression and the Dust Bowl, several of the Morris family rented a train cabin and moved en masse to Boise, Idaho. In Boise, Hallie’s father owned the Mobile gas station near the Capitol building and Hallie’s mother ran the home adjoining the station. Hallie and her older sister, Verna, enjoyed the library, swimming, and visiting Vernon’s rustic island in the middle of the Snake River.
In school, Hallie met Gary Wells, and the two were inseparable from then on until Gary’s death in 2008. Hallie and her friends were active in student government at Boise High School, and she graduated with honors in 1950. She married Gary Wells in 1951 while he was a student at Northwest Christian College (now Bushnell University) in Eugene, Ore. Soon they welcomed Linda Carol in 1952, then David Morris in 1956, Timothy Mark in 1957, Jonathan James in 1958, and Janet Sue in 1962. Their second child, Diane Louise, died a few moments after her birth in 1954.
Hallie Wells was Gary’s professional partner as well as the homemaker for her family of seven. Hallie typed Gary’s undergraduate and graduate papers which enabled him to pastor several Disciples of Christ churches as he earned his bachelor’s and two master’s degrees. Hallie and Gary founded the Oakdale, California, Disciples of Christ church, then moved to Santa Cruz and pastored the Garfield Park Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) from 1965-1981. The couple then moved to Springfield, Ore., where Gary took a part-time position at Northwood Christian Church and Northwest Christian College, and Hallie worked in the college’s library. In every church Hallie led women’s Bible studies, and every day Hallie prayed for each of her family members.
Hallie will forever be remembered for sewing baby jackets for all newborns in the churches she attended, as well as sock monkeys for her children and grandchildren. She loved to laugh. She loved her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren unceasingly and openly.
In August 2020, a small gathering of close family met in Buckley to memorialize both Hallie and her son Tim, who died in February 2020. Her ashes were buried next to her husband and near her parents in Boise.
Any remembrances can be given to the Gary Wells Scholarship Fund at Bushnell University, or to Northwood Christian Church’s Building Fund, or to “Samaritan’s Purse.”
