Robert Morris papers

After serving in the United States Army for twenty-five years, Robert Morris (1915-2001) was appointed vice president of University National Bank. He served as both director of its military and executive departments and as manager of the College Park branch. Shortly after becoming manager in 1972, he received a call from American author Katherine Anne Porter, who requested a $10,000 loan. His reaction to her was immediate: "To me her voice seemed like that of a young woman--charming, fresh, gracious, even sexy. She was all feminine in an era before feminism mutated into man-bashing militancy." She said that she needed the loan because she sometimes "overspent or was too generous with my donations to others," despite her $3,000 monthly royalties from her successful full-length novel, Ship of Fools. Porter was not known for her frugality, and her letters to Morris often describe her finances as "muddled." But without hesitation Morris approved the loan, recalling, "that transaction was the beginning of our relationship--if that is the correct word to use--though perhaps the word 'association' would be more accurate--considering the metamorphosis of the word 'relationship' into the tawdry thing it is in today's connotation. My tenure as branch manager was soon terminated but Katherine Anne would deal with nobody but me."

Though Morris never encountered Porter in person, prior to their association he had been, and remained, an avid reader and fan of her work. At the time of the loan, Porter resided in a high-rise apartment in Westchester Park, a College Park, Maryland, complex and was a depositor in the University National Bank. Shortly after securing the loan, Porter travelled to New York city for a two-week engagement at Columbia University, where she wrote the letters to Morris. Sometime after their association ended, Morris moved to the very high-rise building in Westchester Park where had Porter lived from 1970 to 1980, in part, because it once had been her residence.