Walter Griffin Morgan

Rev. Walter Griffin Morgan, 84, of DeQuincy, Louisiana took flight from the earthly life in his home, surrounded by his family, on December 22, 2017. He was a dedicated minister of the gospel and a member of First Pentecostal Church of Sulphur. He leaves behind his wife of 58 years, Lou Wilda Morgan (Van Winkle); two daughters, Trina Morgan and Denise Guinn and husband Don; two sons, Nathan Morgan and wife Ann, and Harlan Morgan and wife Sharla; ten grandchildren, Adrian and Jani Manuel, Jessica and Aric Fuselier, Allison Ruebush Tidwell, Patrick, Jennifer, and Garrett Morgan, and Caleb and Alaina Morgan; and five great-grandchildren, McKenna and Hayden Manuel, Wren and Ivey Katherine Tidwell and Anderson Bulla. He is preceded by two sisters, Sara Alice Williams and Elizabeth Jo Kendall and one brother, William Clark Morgan.

Rev. Morgan was born March 29, 1933 in the rural town of Mudella, Florida where he ran barefooted and tow-headed under the moss-draped oaks until the family moved to DeQuincy when he was eleven years old. There, he earned money delivering for the newspaper and the drugstore and, in his spare time, pranking friends and blowing up flagpoles. After his mother, Beatrice Morgan (McDougald), passed away when he was 13, he ran away to Florida and at age 17 joined the Navy. He tried to be a frogman, but the Pacific Ocean was too cold for a Florida boy. His father, William C. Morgan, passed away after he left the Navy, and Walter served in the Air Force Reserves before settling in Beauregard Parish, where he and Lou Wilda raised Trina and Denise on a quarter section of piney woods land that was white dust in summer and black mud in winter, heating with a pine knot fire and cooling with an oscillating fan, while he worked as a union electrician. The family traveled to the Northwest in the 1970’s to do church work, and established the Apostolic United Pentecostal Church in Chanute, Kansas in 1980, Nathan and Harlan following him step by step.

He returned to Louisiana and became pastor of Lunita Pentecostal Church in 1987 and retired in 2004, after which he continued blessing various churches as a guest minister and working in the electrical industry, participating in turnarounds and shutdowns until heart surgery slowed him down. Since then, he has lived quietly in the country with his “sweet mama,” making annual summer trips to Georgia to visit Nathan until traveling became too tiring. He remained active, walking the country roads under the pine trees, until recent illness limited his movements.

Rev. Morgan was known in his community and valued in his church for his outgoing and loving manner. He was respected for his dedication to the Christian life and the example he provided for others to see.

Friends are invited to visit with the family at the First Pentecostal Church of Sulphur, 606 W. Parish Road, Wednesday, December 27, from five to nine p.m.  Visitation will resume at the church beginning at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, December 28 until the time of service at 11:00 a.m.