Dr. Ed Morris, a physician who had a powerful impact on Franklin, passed away on Sunday, July 13, after a five-year struggle with Alzheimer’s.
Morris, who was born in Charlotte, was attracted to Franklin in the late 1970s as the local medical community was growing. He established businesses and programs, practiced as a family physician and volunteered as a public servant in the following decades.
He attended the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and the UNC School of Medicine. According to Ed’s wife, Barbara, the two spent a few years in Galveston, Texas, as Ed completed his residency before deciding to return to North Carolina.
They wanted to be closer to family, Barbara said, and they loved the mountains, so after shopping around they found Franklin “the best fit” with friendly doctors and recent developments like a new recreation center and library. The couple settled here in 1978.
Dr. Morris spent the next 10 years practicing as a physician in Franklin before working with Barbara to open Franklin Health and Fitness in 1988, raising $1 million through four partners and 23 local investors to establish the fitness center. Barbara said Ed wanted to help provide a place for locals to pursue their fitness goals, as well as to establish an indoor pool where the high school swim team could both practice and host swim meets. Dr. Morris continued to practice medicine until 1993. The Morrises later bought out the partners to become sole owners of Franklin Fitness in 2003.
As part of the programs at the center, Morris founded a cardiac rehabilitation program as the third such stand-alone program – not connected to a hospital – in the state. Morris later became not just a physician but a patient after undergoing heart surgery in 2002, Barbara said. The program operated through the fitness center until the mid 2010s, when Angel Medical started its cardiac rehabilitation program and Morris closed the fitness center’s.
Morris also founded Franklin Physical Therapy through the fitness center in the mid 1990s, Barbara said it was later bought out by Randy Phillips, who changed the name to Nantahala Physical Therapy.
Ed’s son, Rodney Morris, became the general manager at Franklin Health and Fitness in 2008, managing some updates to the facilities before Ed and Barbara passed full ownership to Rodney and his wife, Maura, in 2013. Rodney went on to continue Ed’s legacy at the center, making regular updates to facilities and equipment as the needs and goals of its client base shift.
Ed served on the founding board of Community Care Clinic of Franklin as it split off from the Highlands clinic in 2010, continuing both to serve as a board member and volunteering at the clinic as a physician. Barbara said Dr. Morris decided to step away from the clinic in either 2019 or 2020 as he began struggling to remember the names of common drugs he would often prescribe patients, an early sign of Morris’ Alzheimer’s.
Morris’ friends, coworkers and family spoke warmly of him, touching on the common threads of his lifelong love of fitness and exercise and his service to the community.
Rodney said part of his desire to take over Franklin Health and Fitness came from watching his parents serve the community growing up. He also shared stories of playing with friends and siblings at the fitness center, using the racquetball court or indoor pool. He added that he and his father had gone on a lot of backpacking trips.
Morris ran the Boston Marathon twice and competed in triathlons, cycled and rowed.
Phillips said he ended up staying in Franklin because of Morris, because all his and his wife’s best friends had been introduced to them by Ed and Barbara.
“He practiced what he preached,” Phillips said. “He was a runner, he ate well, started the cardiac rehab program” and wanted to help “anyone who wanted to listen and help themselves.”
Ellen Shope, who served alongside Morris on the Community Care Clinic board, said Morris worked hard, using personal or political contacts to help secure funding for the clinic.
“Our kids were about the same age, they played sports together,” Shope said, adding that on occasion she would, as a nurse at the clinic, have to call him after hours to help people get medicine or treatment. “He was a very community minded person. He did a lot more than a lot of people know to help out the community.”
“I think he saw healthcare as an opportunity to teach,” said Clark Shope, who worked with him at the cardiac rehab program.
Clark said Morris would live his advice in his own life, exercising regularly and bringing healthy meals to share. “I believe he had two family members die early” due to heart disease, he said. “It seemed like that was part of what motivated him.”
Morris authored a fitness cookbook: “Fish, Fiber and Fitness: Magic keys to a healthy, vigorous, happy life,” in 1989. Barbara said he once hosted a cooking class based on the recipes in his book.
“He just thought it was the greatest thing,” she said. “He used his book to encourage other people to change their lifestyles too … He just really thought that, with a lifestyle change, you’ll live a happier and longer life.”
Morris enrolled in a clinical trial in 2021 to help test Leqembi, a new treatment for early Alzheimer’s disease. That drug was approved by the FDA in 2024.
Morris’ body was donated to the UNC School of Medicine Body Donation Program, “continuing his legacy of supporting education and health care for future generations.”
In addition to his wife, Barbara, Morris is survived by three siblings, three sons and seven grandchildren. His family requested that, in lieu of flowers, donations in Morris’ name be made to Community Care Clinic of Franklin.
NOTE: This article has been corrected with the correct name for Dr. Morris’ son, Rodney. The print edition of the paper had the name incorrect. The Franklin Press regrets the error.