Victim in Woodside hills accident was a Renaissance man

North Fair Oaks resident Stephen Morse had many jobs over his 66 years. He worked at an amusement park. He crafted one-of-a-kind devices for a commercial design house. His alma mater, San Jose State University, displayed his artwork in the university museum. He designed roller coasters and medical devices, including one about the size of a grain of rice.

Morse died Sunday, Sept. 9, in an accident in Woodside. For reasons not yet known, the Vespa motor scooter he was riding veered into oncoming traffic on La Honda Road near Grandview Drive and collided head-on with a truck, his wife Margery Morse told The Almanac. A celebration of his life is being planned, she said.

Morse was a native of Palo Alto and attended Addison Elementary School and Palo Alto High School, his wife said. He lived with his family in the Professorville neighborhood and sailed with the Palo Alto Yacht Club.

At San Jose State, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in sculpture, he found work as a security guard at the university’s art museum, then as a staff artist at the Frontier Village amusement park in San Jose. He made modifications to rides and sets, including animated figures for the ride known as the Lost Dutchman’s Mine.

In his career, Morse specialized in making prototypes, his lifelong friend Kim Venaas said. He acquired 19 patents while working for his last employer, St. Jude Medical, Venaas said.

A musician, Morse performed as a percussionist for a time with the California Pops Orchestra, which Venaas leads as musical director and conductor. Morse also served on the orchestra’s board of directors.

As a sculptor, Morse created finely wrought mechanical fantasy objects, many built around the theme of time and clock faces.

The opportunity for Morse to design roller coasters came along when he accepted a job with Arrow Development. His wife recalled her husband’s account of the invitation to the job: a phone call from someone at Arrow who said that the company needed “somebody who could do what you do,” she said.

The couple met at Southwall Technologies in Palo Alto, where Margery was a draftswoman. (She is now a mechanical designer at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park.) “As soon as I met him, he had this big smile on his face,” she said. They married three months later. She recalled being attracted to his “sailor hands” and his mustache.

Their shared aptitude for things mechanical sometimes came in handy, as it did on their second date when they went sailing. Sailboats entering or leaving the Redwood City harbor must use their engines to move about. The engine on Morse’s boat wouldn’t start, so his date suggested spraying the lubricant WD40 in the carburetor. That did the trick, she said.

Her husband loved tools, she said, and knives collecting them, making them and sharpening them. With both their careers focused on mechanics, they would often talk about work, she recalled. “We always shared what we were working on, the frustrations and so forth,” she said. “We were married 28 years. That’s pretty good.”

He owned six motorcycles and motor scooters, his wife said. In retirement, he acquired two tattoos, she said: a tiger that stretched from his shoulder to his forearm, and a griffin on his other arm to honor a family name.

Morse became a prolific painter, so much so that his wife said she asked him to stop because they had no more room in the house for his works.

Morse had a bit part in the 2003 movie “Swing” in which he played a saxophone in a nightclub band. One highlight of that experience: He was standing around on the set and the actor Jacqueline Bisset walked over and stood next to him. This happened, his wife theorized, because her husband “was probably the most handsome man in the group.”

Morse knew how to have a good time. Venaas recalled the two of them once being treated poorly at a Peninsula country club restaurant and walking out with the white tablecloth. They ended up at a Jack in the Box, where they made appropriate use of the cloth. It became a thing: On outings they would don tuxedos, take the tablecloth and crystal goblets and candelabra, and celebrate, Venaas said.

In addition to his wife Margery, Morse is survived by brothers Kenny of Portland, Oregon, and Doug of Chico, California.

Margery Morse suggested that donations in Morse’s memory be made to the California Pops Orchestra, Save The Bay, and Planned Parenthood.

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