Craig Morgan Talks ‘Morgan Family Strong,’ Finding Comfort in Family and Faith After Son Jerry’s Death
In the year and a half since Craig Morgan's 19-year-old son, Jerry Greer, died in a water tubing accident on July 10, 2016, much has changed for the country singer and his family. Morgan, who initially turned to his woodworking hobby as he processed his grief, has since made that hobby into a family business, the Gallery at Morgan Farms, which offers handmade goods in the singer's hometown of Dickson, Tenn.
"For me, personally, I find my private moments," Morgan said in a recent interview with Taste of Country of continuing to mourn his son's death. "It's usually late at night, or real early in the morning, and no one's around, and I'll go out in the shop and cry."
Morgan's wife, Karen, along with their three surviving children, Aly, Kyle and Wyatt, also contribute to the business.
"Everything in our store is made by someone in our family, for the most part," Morgan's daughter explains. "We have pillows from my grandmother. My brother makes beard oil and beard combs. My brother's wife does paintings.
"My husband hasn't done anything yet, though," she adds with a laugh.
The Gallery at Morgan Farms pays tribute to Jerry with a stained glass window depicting the archangel Michael, patron saint of warriors, the sick and the suffering, as well as the namesake for Jerry's middle name. Also being sold in the store are rubber bracelets created for a foundation benefiting athletes at Jerry's former high school who have learning disabilities, according to People magazine.
"That boy loved his family and his friends more than anything, and nothing else got in the way of that," Morgan explains. It's fitting, then, that the surviving family would come together to turn a passion project into a business as a way of both moving forward and remembering Jerry.
Morgan's family is the subject of Up TV's new reality show, Morgan Family Strong, which premieres on March 1 at 9:30 PM ET. Morgan tells Taste of Country that his wife was the hardest to convince to film the reality series, but she has since grown to love the concept of documenting the family's journey through grief.
"I think we, as a family, hope that the viewers get the essence of faith," Karen explains, "and that you can do it, you can pull yourself together make something good, do something good for the world."
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