Whenever I run into Morrie Seigal I am always amazed at his love for life and I am always especially amazed, even touched, by the fact that he remains a relevant public voice in this city well into the eighth decade of a lifetime spent here.
To know Morrie is to like him. His life here has been a dedication to public service, first as a schoolteacher, then as a school administrator and when he was done with his professional life, he began anew as a politician cum educational expert for the Chelsea public schools.
Morrie has retired after serving 28 years on the Chelsea School Committee. If serving on the CSC was an Olympic event, Morrie would be receiving a gold medal as his reward.
At all times during this long period of service, he always composed himself with dignity and aplomb.
He always seemed to have just the right words to reflect just the right feelings about the issues great and small over the years – and he always remembered his friends from growing up here and he remained loyal to those whom he considered his colleagues in government and his supporters in politics.
Morrie is not a sophisticated man. Rather, he’s very smart about whatever it is he’s put his energy into. He knows how to start things and he works hard to finish whatever it is he began.
He’s a finisher in a world of promises made but rarely kept.
Morrie is a proud Jewish man – and this says something about him as most Jewish men like Morrie are humanists who don’t see people by race or color or by ethnicity or country of origin or by what language someone speaks.
Morrie does not judge people but he knows people for what they are for what they present themselves to be to him, which is what always mattered most to him.
He is and will always be a truly ecumenical man in a city where English is a second language, where the median income is about half of anywhere else in this state and where ignorance and poverty make life so difficult for those just starting out in their lives in this nation.
Morrie Seigal’s Chelsea was an immigrant city when he and his brothers were growing up here.
Late into his life, Chelsea remains the epitome of the Melting Pot American city.
Morrie is being given a touching and thoughtful citation by the Chelsea City Council commemorating the gifting to this city of his life.
It has been a good life. He has helped hundreds of people in their quest to get their feet on the ground here. He has gone out of his way for others to do what he can.
He has created a legacy for himself that might never be matched, it is written on the citation.
The citation has it right.