REX
MORGAN
by
Jeffrey Muenker
I'm writing
about my memories of Rex Morgan. As you know Rex was a TV personality
on WFIL in Philadelphia in the early sixties. I came to know Rex and
his family after we moved to Washington Township, NJ.
My
dad was in the same army outfit with Rex after WWII. Rex was a pretty
impressive man. I remember he was tall and powerfully built. Dad told
me he had played football for the Univ. of Penn as a lineman.
We use to go out to stay with Rex and his family at their home in
Newton Square, PA. He had the coolest house I had ever seen with a
secret passage from the upstairs to the basement. He had horses and
livestock in a barn, but the thing I remember most fondly was the
mule that would gulp down bottles of coke that were held up for it
in seconds flat. Rex had a coke machine out at the barn and we were
always buying cokes for the mule. He also had antique cars and fire
engines that I would play on. In his garage he had a cherry Stutz
Bearcat (circa 1930's) that was really cool.
My mother and my other 5 brothers were guest on his morning kids show
called Rex Morgan and Happy the Clown. I vaguely remember going out
on stage and being introduced by Rex. One Saturday Rex had a big horse
and carriage that he was using to take inner-city kids for stagecoach
rides around the block in center city Philadelphia. I got to ride
up front the whole day with him and I remember all the other kids
asking me why I didn't have to get off after their ride was over.
He would also do magic tricks for the kids.
I've seen some of the info that has been put on some internet sites
about Rex like that he was a hangman at the Nuremberg trial. I asked
my father about that before he passed away. Dad told me that Rex was
in the Army Quartermaster Corp. Funerals and burial service is part
of their duty. He told me it was Rex's outfit responsibility to dispose
of German Field Marshal Goering ashes after he had been cremated.
The army didn't want him buried in any permanent place where his remains
might become a cult destination so they went out and scattered his
ashes along the Rhine river.
We lost contact with Rex and his family after they moved to Europe
in the early seventies.
