Friends and admirers know Lorraine Hairston Morton as the fiery, exuberant and youthful mayor of Evanston.
They have no idea how old she is.
Morton, who is retiring this year, will turn 90 on Dec. 8.
“She’s never told me that,” said Darlene Francellno, who has been the mayor’s secretary for 11 years. “Well, she obviously looks great for her age.”
Some said she doesn’t act her age.
“She can dance until dawn,” Ald. Elizabeth Tisdahl (7th) said. “She goes to parties, and she’s the life of the party.”
The 16-year mayor’s life borders on unbelievable: the youngest of nine children, a Northwestern graduate student at age 19, Evanston’s first black public school teacher and now one of the oldest mayors in the country.
“She’s just Lorraine,” said Morton’s daughter, Elizabeth Brasher, an employee at NU’s Infrastructure Technology Institute. “No matter where you meet her and what setting you put her in, she’s just Lorraine.”
Classes and courting
Sitting in her expansive office, Morton spoke for more than an hour and a half about her past.
“I’ve had a good life,” she said. “The Lord has blessed me and provided me with so many experiences.”
Born in the North Carolina countryside in 1918, Morton got a childhood reputation as a dancer, singer and actress. She said she briefly considered a career in the spotlight before deciding to teach.
Morton, like each of her siblings, was a first-generation college graduate. After studying at the unaccredited Winston-Salem Teachers College at 18, she attended NU’s School of Education and Social Policy.
Morton’s time in Evanston earned her a master’s degree in education and also introduced her to her husband, James. They met during her first week at NU and married that December, on the anniversary of her parents’ marriage.
She vividly remembers her favorite place to study – a discussion room on the top floor of Scott Hall.
“It had a bed and blankets,” the mayor said. “So I’d do my studying and then get a nap so I could go courting (with James).”
Breaking the barrier
James Morton was drafted into the U.S. Air Force after graduation in 1942. His service took the couple to army bases in states across the South.
They returned to Evanston in 1953, and Lorraine Morton took a job teaching at the all-black Foster School.
In 1956, the pair had their first and only child, Elizabeth.
Upon returning from maternity leave, Morton approached Superintendent Oscar Chute to ask to teach at Nichols Middle School, a recently integrated school that only employed white teachers.
“I’ll never forget the look on his face,” Morton said. “He smiled as if to say ‘at last.'”
In 1957, Lorraine Morton broke the color barrier by joining the Nichols staff.
“It went fine because I knew how to teach,” she said. “It never once occurred to me that I’d have a problem.”
She soon became the school’s language arts department chair and the team teaching chair.
Then, in 1974, James Morton died of a heart attack.
“To lose a husband is never an easy thing,” said Brasher, then a high school senior who had to report the death to her mother. “I think she hid most of her grief from me.”
Morton continued to teach.
In 1977, a school board member asked her to become principal of Haven Middle School. At the time, misbehaving pupils led to a school “in disarray,” Brasher said. The previous principal had lasted just six months.
Morton stayed for 12 years.
“When she was put in charge of running Haven as principal, she ran it,” said industrial arts teacher Lee Kulman, whom Morton hired. “Her style of leadership was very much autocratic.”
Kulman recalled a school musical that Morton decided to participate in.
“She rode out on the stage on a Harley motorcycle in fishnet stockings,” he said of Morton, who “had to be about 70” at the time. “And then she danced all around.”
“Do something for someone”
Mayor James Lytle appointed Morton, still Haven’s principal, to fill the vacant fifth ward city council seat. She said she “gave it all” to both positions for eight years.
In 1989, Morton retired as principal and continued to serve as alderman.
Four years later, friends began asking Morton to run to replace the retiring mayor. She resisted the offers for weeks.
Finally, 14 days before the petition was due, former student Marvin Walker approached Morton with a saying that she once used in class: “Do something for someone.” A few days later, she became the fifth candidate to join the race.
Morton garnered 52 percent of the vote in a runoff election, becoming both the city’s first black mayor and first Democrat mayor.
In three re-election attempts, Morton twice won unopposed and in 2005 gained 73 percent of the vote.
“She’s the kind of person who relates very well to all kinds of people,” said George Mitchell, president of Evanston NAACP. “She’s been a good face for the community.”
Her legacy
Morton said she was most proud of the level of downtown development and economic growth in the city during her tenure.
“She created an environment that convinced developers that Evanston was a place that they wanted to be,” said former alderman Stephen Engelman (7th).
Morton also worked to improve the city’s tense relationship with NU, defending the university in a time of particularly poor relations.
“What would we do if we didn’t have Northwestern?” she said. “It’s such a great asset. Without Northwestern, I guess we’d be a hick community or non-existent.”
Morton received an honorary NU law degree last spring.
The ‘energizer bunny’
The only topic the mayor doesn’t like to discuss is her age, said friends, most of whom said they didn’t know how old Morton is.
Morton is “one of the oldest mayors in the country,” said US Conference of Mayors representative Carlos Vogel.
Her age is hard to believe, Ald. Delores Holmes (5th) said.
“I’m always amazed at her energy,” she said. “I tell her she’s like the Energizer bunny – she just keeps ticking and buzzing.”
Morton said she only operates at full throttle.
“You don’t know how long you’re going to live,” she said. “But if you don’t make it useful, I don’t know why you’re here.”
The mayor has no post-retirement plans. She said her only goal is to get up in the morning, get coffee and read the paper without feeling rushed.
“There is a sacrifice when you take public office,” she said. “I’ve missed so many things with my daughter and grandchildren. While I have some life in me, I’m going to spend time with them.”
Morton has already had a profound impact on the city, said Evanston/Skokie School District 65 Superintendent Hardy Murphy.
“I think, in many ways, the personality of the city reflects Lorraine’s unbridled optimism,” he said. “She’s been an inspiration to us all.”
