The Morgan Long Family
Our Family:
Top Laft: Margie, Charles, Mary Anne Bottom Left: Betsy, Mom, Dad
Dear Family, Friends & Kind Readers,
In going through their old photos, files & clippings, it was amazing looking at all of the materials our parents created. Recipes, wine articles and pottery abound! It made sense to gather and share them as all are timeless and it is a shame to let their efforts go by the wayside.
Our parents led colorful lives, and the bio's below give an overview of the highlights, including them meeting President LBJ & Ladybird Johnson, Dad's involvement with nuclear testing in Los Alamos, NM, and Mom presenting President Gerald Ford with a piece of her redware art.
My siblings & I hope that you not only enjoy this celebration of them and our family, but that it all may continue on by bringing joy into your lives!
With warmest wishes,
Betsy Long
Dotty (Dorothy) Morgan Long (aka "Mom")
Dotty was an excellent chef and a master potter. Professionally, Dotty was a renowned caterer and cooking instructor, receiving many awards, and induction into Les Dames d'Escoffier, a by-invitation-only philanthropic organization of women leaders in the fields of food, fine beverage
and hospitality. She was an officer and award-winning member of Le Confrérie de la Chaine des Rotisseurs, the world's oldest, largest and most prestigious food and wine gastronomy society. She was also a member of the American Wine Society, German Wine Society, American Institute
of Wine and Food, and was a certified wine judge.
She grew up in the suburban Main Line area outside of Philadelphia. It is called this because the towns are strung along the main train line of the Pennsylvania railroad which comes out from Philadelphia along Lancaster Avenue. Many of these towns have Welsh names because in the late 1600's, William Penn sold this tract of land to Welsh Quakers. So it is no surprise that her family lived there as the Morgans have Welsh origins.
She earned her B.S. in Chemistry from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, an interest inherited from her father who was an inventor with over 60 patents. Those included day/night car mirrors, heated windshield glass for WWII planes, and many of the bright colored ‘60’s clothing dyes that came from Impatiens plant flowers (you will recognize the colors). Mom would talk about how he would have them try foods in little pots with various preservatives he was working on to see what worked best; Mom said there were some really disastrous results that tasted gross, LOL!
She grew up doing ceramics with her mother, and Mom later had her first shop in Long Branch, New Jersey in the 1950’s, DEL Ceramics. Over the years, she also became interested in making pottery from scratch. In the early ‘70’s, she opened a crafts and pottery studio in Devon, PA off of Lancaster Pike.
This area is also known for all of its colonial history. Dotty got the name for her business, Old Eagle Studios, from the Old Eagle School, a one room school house from the late 1700's that was near our home. As a master potter, she began producing reproduction redware for Independence Hall, Valley Forge and other parks along with many historical colonial homes. She presented a reproduction redware pitcher she made to President Gerald Ford at the Valley Forge National Park Bicentennial celebration in the summer of 1976 which is now at the Smithsonian Institute. She moved her shop to a store on Bridge Street in Phoenixville, PA and started Long Family Potters. Her husband Alton and daughter Margie were very involved in the reproduction redware, as were her daughter Mary Anne and Charles, her son.
On the culinary side, in 1973, Dotty and daughter Betsy started a catering business under Old Eagle Studios, handling weddings and events and Dotty was teaching cooking classes in her home. Over time, Alton, Mary Anne and Margie became part of the team as well.
The majority of the recipes in the cookbook on the Food page came from the cooking classes she taught in her home and at the Main Line Night School and includes warm moments of her colorful life.
Al (Alton) Long (aka "Dad")
A proud Texan, he was born in Liberty, TX and spent most of his childhood in New Braunfels, TX, a German town outside of San Antonio.
He married Dotty in 1955 in Pittsburgh, PA, and they raised their family in Wayne, PA before retiring to Tiverton, RI in the late 1990’s. He was very dedicated to his family, and he and his wife Dotty made sure their children got to experience the history, cultures and geography of the US and the world. He also enjoyed making redware pottery with his wife, Dotty.
Al earned his Bachelors and Masters Degrees from Carnegie Tech University, Pittsburgh, PA in Nuclear Chemistry, where he was also a bagpipe and French Horn player with the Kiltie Band. He later in life earned a Masters Degree in Organizational Dynamics and Strategic Planning at the University of Pennsylvania. He was also a graduate of the Defense Systems Program Management College in Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
He was a veteran who served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Signal Corp, stationed at Fort Monmouth, NJ, initially working in intelligence and then was assigned to do research in Nuclear Weapons Effects on circuitry at Los Alamos. It was during this time that he fell in love with Native American pottery.
In his professional career, he was employed as a Sr. Engineering Manager at Burrroughs/Unisys for Computer Engineering. He had the opportunity to work on the creation of the ILLIAC IV computer which was the largest in the world at that time and helped to install it at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was also offered an opportunity to become a White House Fellow and he and Dorothy had the opportunity to meet LBJ and Lady Bird Johnson in the White House.
He was an experienced wine educator, public speaker and certified wine judge. He served as the Past President for the American Wine Society and was a member of the AWS Premier Cru Chapter. He was a member of the Rhode Island Academy of Wine, the German Wine Society, the Portuguese Wine Society, the Wine Society of Wine Educators, American Institute of Wine and Food, and the Pennsylvania Wine Association. He produced many wine, beer and food events, and was a regular contributor of wine articles to the Morning Call in Allentown, PA, the Suburban in Philadelphia and the New England Wine Gazette. Additionally, he served as the Vice-Conseillor of the Rhode Island Le Confrérie de la Chaine des Rotisseurs.
He was a member of the Elizabethtown, PA Masonic Village Lodge, was a Baron of the Magna Charta and a Son of the American Revolution, assisted in the discovery of the element, Aluminum 26, and was listed in "American Men of Science".
He and his wife Dotty were very active and committed to fighting for and educating about LGBTQ rights.
He attended the United Methodist at the Elizabethtown Masonic Village Church, and in his earlier years, was very active at St. Matthew’s United Methodist Church in Valley Forge, PA where he served on many committees and was Church School Superintendent. At the Portsmouth United Methodist Church in RI, he helped create a program to support homeless families; he was also a Boy Scout Master in the Valley Forge area. He enjoyed being a teacher that taught chemistry and physics at Monmouth University in Long Branch, NJ; was PTA president in Wayne, PA and was a well liked substitute teacher in the Portsmouth and Bristol-Warren school districts in Rhode Island and was known as "Mr. Owl".