Samuel Nathaniel Morris

Samuel Nathaniel Morris, a well-known evangelist in his time, was born 6 March 1900 in Paducah, Texas.  He had a rough childhood, having a mostly absent father and frequent changes of residence.
     At age 18, he began attending church and soon felt a call to preach.  Basically without formal education, he took college preparatory classes at Wesley College, then attended Simmons College, from which he graduated in 1927. He later earned an MA from brown University.
     Sam married in 1922 and began preaching at Baptist churches.  In 1930, after receiving his MA from brown, he returned to Texas and became the pastor of First Baptist Church in Stamford.  He moved to Del Rio, Texas in 1930 and became a full-time temperance broadcaster on the Mexican station XEPN.  These broadcasts were hugely successful, gaining a world-wide audience.  His autobiography was titled The Booze Buster.
     Morris ran for senator in Texas in 1941 and again in 1948.  He died, in San Antonio, on 13 January 1988 and is buried there in Sunset Memorial Park.

-- Data from the website “Find-a-Grave”

     Morris founded the Abstainers National Insurance Company in Oklahoma in 1956, to sell auto insurance.  Before then, Morris had organized an abstainers-only insurance company in Iowa, but lost control of it.  The ban on alcohol extended to office employees and share holders, as well as to drivers and company board members.

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