Jessie Morgan is a lifesaver — literally!
Editor, environmentalist, landscaper, actress and Weaver’s Way employees
Jessie with Madelyn, the injured cat, and her two four-day-old kittens next to a statue of St. Francis of Assisi, the saint of defenseless
animals. (Photo by Len Lear)
by LEN LEAR
When she was five years old, Germantown resident Jessica Morgan (friends all call her “Jessie”), now 55, was given a cute puppy she named Jerry. Jessie fell in love immediately, but the puppy was not house-trained, of course, and proceeded to relieve himself often in the house in Summit, New Jersey, where Morgan grew up. After just one week, Jessie’s frustrated parents took the little dog back to the animal shelter from which he had been adopted.
“Many parents do not realize how quickly children can bond with animals,” said Jessie. “I was so hurt when they took Jerry back to the shelter, it has affected me to this day. It led to the animal rescue work that I have been doing my entire life.”
Jessie has literally rescued dozens of injured, homeless and abandoned animals, paying for emergency medical care and finding loving homes for the innocent victims of human abuse and callousness. She also trained a rescue dog, Murphy, a local celebrity who has taken part in coluntless rescue attempts, including 9/11 (and will soon be on a David Letterman segment of “Stupid Pet Tricks”). Since it is almost impossible for this good Samaritan to say no to an animal brought to her, Jessie currently cares for 11 dogs, 12 cats, two rabbits and several aquarium fish, all in her Germantown home. Needless to say, the costs are astronomical, and the care is 24/7. Jessie, of course, is hard-pressed to pay the bills from her modest income as a dog trainer, pet-sitter and dog-walker.
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Although Jessie (who has never been married) was always a magnet for neglected or abused four-legged creatures, she did not initially plan on making animal-rescue a full-time career. After graduating from Boston University with a degree in theater, she lived in New York City for 15 years, capturing some acting roles off-off Broadway and as an autopsy room investigator in the movie, Wolfen, about werewolves.
“I rented the movie a year ago and saw myself for the first time,” she said. “I was clothed, but the other ‘bodies’ in the autopsy room were naked. If I hadn’t known it was me, I would not have recognized myself.”
Jessie also waitressed and worked as a veterinary technician to make ends meet. After moving to Germantown 25 years ago to be with friends (“New York was too stressful”), Jessie worked at Weaver’s Way Food Co-op in West Mt. Airy for 10 years. She started their environmental committee, which now runs their recycling program. “I loved working there, but I felt it was time to leave. After all, you can only stock so much broccoli.” (She should have switched to asparagus.)
At one point in 1988 Jessie was also a cook on a Greenpeace freighter that sailed to New Zealand in an effort to stop nuclear testing there. For six years Jessie worked for local landscapers Mark Goodman and Heidi Schusterman and eventually ran her own landscaping business. She gave it up, however, because “I got too old; it was too hot much of the time, and the physical labor became too difficult.”
For six more years Jessie worked for the Germantown Courier and Mt. Airy Times-Express, starting as a free-lance correspondent specializing in environmental issues, later becoming a full-time staff writer and then an associate editor for two years. A mini-stroke in 1998 made it very difficult for Jessie to take notes or write, effectively ending her career in journalism.
“I decided then that I might as well do what I really love the most,” she explained, “and that is working with animals, so I began doing pet-sitting. I have had more than I could handle from day one because of the word-of-mouth. In addition, there are all the injured and stray animals that I find or that are brought to me ... This work does not pay the bills, but I was used to that as a writer.”
While in New York, Jessie found homes for about 20 animals, and while in Philadelphia she has rescued 40 or 50. “I want to stay small,” she explained, “because it is so overwhelming and emotionally draining.”
Probably Jessie’s most unusual rescue was of a chicken she found walking on a street in Germantown. All in all, she has rescued three hens and a rooster (not from Super Fresh), giving them to a friend in Germantown who keeps chickens. “There’s nothing like having a steady source of fresh eggs,” said Jessie, who pointed out that chickens can live about eight years in captivity.
Jessie was a vegetarian on and off for 20 years but finally gave it up because “I just feel better physically if I eat meat.”
Jessie’s most celebrated rescue dog is Murphy, now 9, whom she bought for $8 from two children on a Germantown street corner who were trying to sell him for $20. When Morgan took the black-and-tan mutt to an obedience class, she realized he was extremely intelligent and responsive. As a result, she eventually had him trained and certified as a search-and-rescue dog with the West Jersey K-9 Search & Rescue.
Murphy, now semi-retired, has been on many searches for suicide victims or people who were missing. He did find pieces of bodies on two occasions that turned out to be the people he was looking for.
Of course, Jessie will never forget her experiences with Murphy for several days near Ground Zero shortly after 9/11 in a search for bodies, both dead and alive: “This was what Murphy and I trained three years for. As Murphy and the other rescue dogs stepped onto a pile of debris, the rakers would stop and watch. Each piece of something found by a dog would elicit a cheer from the otherwise somber workers, many of whom lost friends and comrades.
“Three minutes into our first shift, Murphy alerted me. He dug into the ground, barking at what looked like a chunk of mud the size of a small paperback book. Our technical support person picked it up and wiped off wet dirt to reveal flesh with healthy-looking skin and a man’s dark body hairs. As it was whisked away, the realization hit me that I had just seen my first casualty of war. I wondered what he looked like. I wondered if he kissed his family before he left for work on 9/11.
“The risks to the dogs were considerable. I agonized over taking Murphy, who is a member of my family, into an area containing asbestos ... We can heal the dogs’ cuts, twists and bruises, but they work with their noses, so they could not wear air filters, like we did. ... I ached over the future of the dogs working there, but when the call came, how could any of us not go?” (Jessie learned to be a professional dog trainer from Deb Norman, “a great dog trainer and people trainer” with the Y2K9 dog-training organization in Wyndmoor.)
Jessie and Murphy were supposed to be on a David Letterman Show segment of “Stupid Pet Tricks” a few months ago, but when they were in the New York TV studio, they were informed that they were being “bumped” by the rock star, Sting. They will be going back to the show in August to tape a segment, which will air later this year.
(When the Local finds out the date of the airing, we will publish the details.)
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