Ralph Perrin Morse Jr.'s Obituary
Ralph Perrin Morse Jr. 1951 – 2025
St. Louis has lost a legend in the local music community, and his family has lost a kind, loving, and very unique brother and uncle. While his life was tragically and abruptly ended on June 27, 2025, he would have seen the positive side of his passing. He was driving in his shiny new Corvette, top down, on his way to a concert, undoubtedly smiling and singing along to his car stereo. One minute he was living his best life, the next he was gone. He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. He would, however, have been upset that a good Vette was destroyed.
Like any boy, Ralph’s childhood of experiments and adventures resulted in numerous scrapes, cuts, and burns. As he grew older and his toys and adventures grew bigger, he added broken bones into the equation. He was stitched and plastered together enough to graduate from Mehlville High School in 1969. Despite his poor grades in subjects that held little interest to him, Ralph was a certified genius. He had the MENSA card to prove it, but found it largely irrelevant.
After graduating, Ralph enlisted in the Air Force, which proved to be a bit safer. Ralph loved his country, and he applied his fascination with electronics as an Air Force Avionics Technician for the next 24 years. Retirement in May of 1994 brought him back to St. Louis where he could once again join in on games night with his 8 brothers and sisters and continue growing his local music family. He frequently volunteered at the USO, because he knew what it was like travelling far from the comforts of home to serve his country.
Ralph was a lifelong fan of music and had a wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling collection of record albums, arranged in alphabetical order, copied to reel-to-reel tapes by mood, thus creating his own playlists before technology caught on to the concept. He also had extensive collections of books about his favorite bands, memorabilia, and a walk-in closet filled with concert T-shirts, also arranged alphabetically. Of course, all these collections were documented in spreadsheets or put into databases, indexed multiple ways.
Although Ralph never had children, he loved his 14 nieces and nephews and they adored their Uncle Ralph, who was guaranteed to bring humor and fun to any family gathering. He also had various sports cars which received similar amounts of love and care. He picked up a Porsche while stationed in Germany and broke in on the Autobahn, sporting his infamous smile the whole time. Most importantly, Ralph was a humble, kind, optimistic, loving individual who wanted nothing more than to enjoy life, love those around him, and crank up the volume. Every day he saw the good in the people and circumstances surrounding him. His response to the recent tornado’s crude remodelling of his home was “it’s just stuff”. His uplifting spirit and infectious smile will be missed by all who knew him, and will live forever in all our hearts.
A Celebration of Life will be held on Thursday, August 21, 2025 at 6:30 p.m. at Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Boulevard, St. Louis, Missouri 63112. Details for the event can me found at: https://www.thepageant.com/event/ralph-morse-082125/
You can honor his memory by blasting your favorite music and singing out loud, and by donating to
these organizations that were important to Ralph.
American Red Cross (Disaster Relief Fund) www.redcross.org
USO www.uso.org
Air Force Aid Society (General Donation) www.afas.org
KETC (PBS): www.ninepbs.org
Please share your condolences, stories, and pictures of Ralph in his online guestbook at www.HughesFA.com
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What’s a lesson you learned from Ralph?
Share a story where Ralph's kindness touched your heart.
Describe a day with Ralph you’ll never forget.
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