Clarence Sug Morgan

Morgan is very active in the Butler County area, preserving history and helping with veterans and the elderly.

MORGANTOWN - Nyla Morgan's yard is full of flags today.

Included are flags from each of the armed services, a prisoner-of-war flag, the Kentucky flag and, of course, Old Glory.
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Morgan, 84, is the widow of a military man, Clarence "Sug" Morgan.Her late brother, Glendle Hammers, was in the Army.
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Morgan is a life member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary.

Veteran's Day is important to her.

"We owe the veterans so much for our freedom," she said.

On Friday, Morgan worked with Morgantown businesses to decorate their store fronts for the holiday.Today, she is presenting a Veteran's Day program at a nursing home.

"I've just got two pet things now," she said."The veterans and the Indians.The Indians welcomed the Pilgrims.The Pilgrims would have starved to death if it wouldn't have been for the Indians.And what did we do to them?They're on those reservations and in poverty, and we did that."

Morgan's dining room is filled with patriotic images and information about Native Americans.
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Morgan and the boy, whom she only identified as being from Morgantown, moved to Indiana.
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Morgan had been to beauty school in Bowling Green after graduating from Butler County High School.She'd once had a shop above a restaurant her mom and dad ran in town.

In her parents' home, Morgan's business boomed.

"There was no such thing as an appointment in that day," she said."They'd sit all day and wait for a perm and Mama would fix lunch for them."

Morgan longed to have a real shop of her own, along with a restaurant and hotel.But raising the money was tough.The Morgantown Deposit Bank, however, came through for her, and Nyla's Hotel and Restaurant was born.

A beauty shop was upstairs with hotel rooms, but now Morgan had a different dream.

"In the meantime, I had joined the Mormon Church," she said."I had never been places.I wanted to go out to see the (Mormon) temple" in Salt Lake City.

Morman elders had visited Morgan and talked to her about joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.Until that time, she'd had no specific faith, though she came from a long line of Baptists, including her paternal great-grandfather, Amos Russ, who founded many churches in Butler County.

"I said an ugly word and one of (the Mormons) said, ‘You used the Lord's name in vain,'" she said."That put me to thinking.I had two little girls and I didn't want them to use bad words.That did it right there for me – for somebody to care enough to bring my attention to what I was saying."

Once again, Morgan had no money to fulfill her dream.Business was slow at the hotel and she was just beginning to pay off her loan.But Morgan decided she had to go to the temple.It was, she thought, the right thing to do.

Morgan scrimped and saved enough money for the trip and left wondering if she was jeopardizing her business.

That's when "a miracle" happened, she said.

"When I got back, there was coal strike and the rooms were full," she said."They were sleeping in shifts and waiting for rooms ...

"That's always been a sign to me to do what's right and stay close to the Lord."

It wasn't long before Morgan met and married "Sug" Morgan, who had lived away from Morgantown for years but had moved back to supervise construction on the Green River Bridge.

Morgan said he was a wonderful man, who also became a Mormon.He died in 1986.

But Morgan says she wasn't sad when her husband died.

"He was so sick," she said."I don't think death is something to get upset about."

Other things had upset Morgan much more.

For years, she said, she was bitter about her first husband's infidelity.

"But I've got two daughters," she said she learned to focus on."And he fathered them, so there's not bitterness in me now."

Now, Morgan has 12 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.A large portrait of her with her family hangs above a fireplace mantel in her parents' home, where she still lives across from first Baptist Church on Main Street.

Both of her daughters, Brenda Joyce Anthony and Glenda Dawn Rollins, whom Morgan says are "beautiful," married Mormon boys and live in Utah, a state for which Morgan has a special affection.
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Morgan had Butler County records converted from hard copy to microfilm, then took the records to Utah for inclusion in the Mormon church's genealogical database.

"They were too important to mail," she said.

They were important to Morgan because the people of Butler County were there for her during a time when she wondered if she could make it without their help.

"I guess one of the reasons I do things for Butler County is because the people here helped feed my little children," she said."They patronized me."

Tours of Nyla Morgan's home, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, are available by appointment.For more information about a tour, call (270) 526-2300 or (270) 526-4325.