Morris Nielsen, 89 died at his home in Delray Beach, Florida Monday, March 21.

He was born in Belden, Nebraska August 4, 1904, the oldest son of Dr. and Mrs. Morris Nielsen. His father was a physician in Belden, Sioux City, Iowa and Blair, Nebraska for over 50 years.

He went to work for the Babcock and Wilcox Boiler Company in 1924. During World War II, he was superintendent of marine erection, where the company installed steam boilers in a majority of the combat and merchant ships built at that time. The company later went into the atomic energy field.

He was elected president in 1957 and became chairman of the board in 1965. He retired in 1969.

Nielsen was a Benjamin Franklin Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of the arts, a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and served on the boards of a number of national and international corporations. He held the rank of “Knight of the Order of Merit” of the Italian Republic and was a Knight of Malta.

He received honorary doctorates from Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania; Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio and Lynchburg College in Lynchburg, Virginia. In 1965, he received a College-Community Service Award from Dana College in Blair.

He was preceded in death by his parents and two brothers.

He is survived by his wife, Terese; a brother, Vance and his wife, Margaret of Kearney and a nephew, Dr. Stephen Morris Nielsen and his wife, Nancy and their children, Kristy, Kathy and Peter, all of Omaha.

~~~ Obituary courtesy of the Washington County Genealogical Society. Newspaper clippings on file in the Blair Public Library at Blair, Nebraska.~~~