Lake Forest-Lake Bluff History Museum

Willard Morrison

Before her Hollywood days, actress Kim Novak (Miss Deepfreeze 1952) was a model for the company.

Deepfreeze initiated a frozen food home delivery service. Local residents Sam Rogondino and Thomas Christophero drove the trucks, shown here in downtown Lake Forest.

470 King Muir Road, Lake Forest.

Willard Morrison (1892-1965) was born in Lynn, Massachusetts. His father purchased an early car and by the age of 12, Willard Morrison was teaching people to drive and fix their cars. While at Boston University, he supported himself as a mechanic. He applied these skills to his first inventions which were improvements to the styling and safety of automobiles.

Looking for a practical solution to avoid the number of trips to the grocer to feed his large household, Willard Morrison developed a home freezer right in his own basement. Soon, friends were asking him to make a freezer for them. He convinced the Detroit Motor Products Corporation to invest in this product, and the Deepfreeze home freezer was born. Over 400,000 were produced in the 1930s and 1940s at the plant in North Chicago. During World War II, it was used to harden bullets, making them stronger and more successful at piercing armor.

Pictured below is Lake Forest’s Menlo Park. Willard Morrison and his expanding family moved to Lake Forest in 1930 and lived first at 650 Northmoor Road. In 1943, they moved to 470 King Muir Road, where Mr. Morrison had a research lab in the backyard.Willard Morrison had six children: Edwin and Bill with his first wife Ruth Ansell who died in childbirth, and Maxine, Harold, Lois and Donald with his second wife Lois Mae Weidman.

Willard Morrison earned 159 patents in a variety of industries. The title of a 1943 article in Forbes Magazine, “Morrison: Idea Man in Shirtsleeves,” is testament to his ability to solve everyday problems, both at home and in business.

Morrison’s prototype “bug” car, with its wrap-around bumper, was a familiar site at the high school when son Harold drove it. Only one was manufactured.

LNG Changes the World. Willard Morrison was a pioneer in the liquefaction and transportation of methane gas. At the request of the Chicago Stock Yards, he developed a refrigeration method to store liquid natural gas (LNG) and transport it from the Gulf of Mexico. His invention included an innovative barge lined with balsa wood. Experiments proved that transport was no more hazardous than for gasoline. The intended route, via the Mississippi River, was soon abandoned. Lucrative markets for LNG were instead developed in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. A Japanese colleague noted that Mr. Morrison was the man whose vision gave “comfort and convenience to nine million homes in every corner of this island nation from the rugged mountains to isolated islands.”

Willard Morrison invented the air-conditioned bed which operated with a compressor and cooling coils hung over the bed. He wrote a fairy tale for his children about two youngsters who are sick with the measles and go into a special cooled bed operated by a fairy princess called “Mother.”

Willard Morrison: Idea Man in Shirtsleeves