David Morris (1840-1914) was born in the Quaker settlement of Richmond, Indiana. In 1864 he married Rachel Chamness, and they took up farming at New Providence, Iowa, where they had six children. In 1883 the family moved by covered wagon to Washington County in Kansas, and in 1891 moved again, to the town of Lawrence, Kansas. They moved to the Quaker settlement of Whittier, California in 1894, where David Morris took up ranching. Five of their children reached adulthood. Albert Morris went to sea, and later lived in San Pedro and Long Beach, California. Bertha Morris (1869-1927) married Charles Hamburg of Whittier, California in 1892 and lived there until her death. Lenna Morris (1875-1961) also stayed in the Whittier area. She taught school and married Louis Williams, a citrus farmer.

Lizzie Morris (1867-1924) traveled to Alaska as a Quaker missionary to the' Eskimos at Deering Station, 20 miles below the Arctic Circle. She returned to the States in 1903 to marry William Gooden, and both returned to Alaska as missionaries. They later lived in Missouri and in California. Belle Morris (1872-1969) left Whittier for Kansas to work as a school teacher in Eudora, Kansas. In 1902 she married Thomas V. Masterson, (1886-1938) a Lawrence, Kansas teacher. They moved to Southern California shortly after, and Thomas became a school principal and prominent educator in Los Angeles.