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Fay TILLER Morgan, Armenia Tax
Collector
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Several of you sent me this article as soon as it appeared JAN 2005
in Towanda Daily Review. Thanks to all of you. Written by Don
Amidon.
ARMENIA TOWNSHIP -- Ending a career spanning several decades of
service from the top of Armenia Mountain, Fay Morgan resigned as township tax
collector -- a post she held for 18 years.
Not entirely through with public service, she remains the township emergency
radio coordinator, which normally consists of three daily checks to the Bradford
County Communications Center from a CB hanging in her living room.
Morgan's is a story that began in Dumbarton, Va., a small town that is
getting swallowed up by nearby Richmond. A quick wit and friendly demeanor seem
to be some of her defining characteristics as she plays a joke on you and offers
a cup of coffee almost in the same sentence.
"I was born when I was very young," she says with a smile and produces her
birth certificate from her purse. Asked why she carries it around draws the
reply: "I don't know. Maybe that is why this thing is so full!"
The octogenarian has spent the majority of her life right on top of the
mountain, though, having gone back and forth from Virginia in the Great
Depression era and finally settling on the east side of the hill in 1947 with
her parents.
A mother of eight, she has lived in the same house since 1954 after marrying
James Morgan and having seven children on the family farm. James Morgan and his
brother Harold both worked on the dairy farm, although James drove school bus
and later worked spreading lime for farmers, she said.
Fay Morgan also drove school children for about 30 years and has helped her
son, Wayne, drive a school vehicle he owns. Other jobs included 20 years in the
food service department of Troy Area School District, with 10 of those as a
manager. There was also cleaning houses -- and taking the Troy school census for
several municipalities in days when there were such things.
"I don't miss the work," she said. "But I do miss seeing and knowing the
kids."
The tax collecting began when James Morgan and she went their own ways and
Fay says she took the job because she needed to supplement her income, having
taken it over from her sister in-law.
Continually failing eyesight forced her to make the decision to retire in
October. Township supervisors appointed Pam Alexander in her place, who worked
with Morgan a few times to get the feel of things.
"I enjoyed it a lot," Fay said. She uses a machine that can magnify
documents, an "Aladdin Genie Pro," and impose the image directly over a section
of computer monitor, where she keeps a spreadsheet to enter data.
That system worked for some time until there began to be an occasional error
in her calculations, she admits, which is unacceptable to Morgan. Computer
savvy, she interfaces two different computer systems on her work station and
wrote her own program using Basic.
Her two favorite pastimes are genealogy research and Bible study, she said.
Morgan has boxes and envelopes heaping with paperwork -- and helped log several
cemeteries on the mountain into Joyce Tice's extensive collection of Bradford
County genealogy research on the Internet.
As far as the Bible is concerned she will go into detail about a section and
has strong opinions about what it means. "It is a fascinating book," Morgan
said. "I have a passion to learn more about the Bible."
"You can read it over and over and still learn something new. You can apply
almost anything in there to modern life too," she said.
