He provided friendship and counsel for the fatherless family. Half-Spanish, Father Morgan was an extrovert whose enthusiasm helped the Tolkien family. With the boys often ill and the mother developing diabetes, Father Morgan helped to move them to Rednal, in the countryside, for the summer of 1904. The feeling there was like that of Sarehole. Mabel Tolkien died there later that year, and Father Morgan was left with the responsibility of the boys. He helped them financially, found them lodgings in Birmingham, and took them on holidays.
In 1908 Father Morgan found better lodgings for the orphaned brothers on Duchess Road in Birmingham. Here Tolkien fell in love with another lodger, Edith Bratt. She was attractive, small, and slender, with gray eyes. Father Morgan (like King Thingol in Tolkien's tale of Beren and Luthien) disapproved of their love. He was fearful that Tolkien would be distracted from his studies, and ordered Tolkien not to see Edith until he was twenty-one. It meant a long separation, but Tolkien was loyal to his benefactor, the only father he had really known. When Tolkien wrote of their eventual engagement, Father Morgan accepted it without a fuss.
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