Elizabeth Morton
Oct 13th, 2025
Elizabeth “Skee” Garvey Morton, 91, passed away at her home from heart failure. She was born in Akron, Ohio to Benjamin St. John Garvey and Elizabeth “Betty” Hinckley Garvey, of Barnstable and Wayne, Pennsylvania.
Skee graduated from Radcliffe College with a degree in English Literature and met her husband Roy (d. 2015) while he was an undergraduate at Harvard. Roy’s naval posting took them to New Orleans, where they lived until he was discharged. They moved to Somerville, New Jersey where their son Ken was born. Over the ensuing decades Skee, Roy and Ken moved back and forth between Wilton, Connecticut and Vienna, Austria as Roy took opportunities to go overseas as part of his employment at IBM. During these years, Skee, Ken and their cats would spend summers in Barnstable Village. Upon Roy’s retirement in 1990, Skee and Roy moved to Yarmouth Port.
She is predeceased by her sister Eleanor Garvey (d. 2019) and survived by her son, Ken Morton, of Barnstable, her nieces Lillian and Bethany Morton, and her cats Phinneas and Philippa.
Skee was a woman of grace and dignity - wise, determined, and pragmatic. A teacher of subtle life lessons, she was steadfastly moral and true to her convictions. She played tennis, jogged before it was a fad, and danced. She was an interior designer, a writer of an unpublished mystery that takes place on Sandy Neck, a painter of watercolors, a quilter, and a consummate hostess. Like the rest of her family, she was a friend to all cats.
Skee was cousin to the artist Edward Gorey, whose home in Yarmouth Port is now a museum and where she was a docent. One of Edward’s works, The Deranged Cousins, is dedicated to her and Eleanor, making Skee the last surviving member of this not actually deranged trio.
She was a lifelong and dedicated congregant and volunteer at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. She volunteered at the Historical Society of Old Yarmouth and the Barnstable Historical Society.
A funeral service will be held at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church 3055 Main St, Barnstable on Saturday, November 15, 2025, at 10:00am.
In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation to the MSPCA or to one of the area land trusts.