George Morrell came to Chicago in 1883 to oversee the Morrell meatpacking business which had expanded from Liverpool to Chicago in 1870. After the death of his first wife, George married Agnes (Sager) Rearden about 1882. George and Agnes Morrell were accompanied by children of prior marriages since the family was to stay in Chicago for three years. Agnes Morrell was a descendent of the Sager family of Catlow (near Colne), Lancastershire, with strong ties to the Methodist Church dating from John Wesley, a visitor in the Sager home during his evangelistic journeys in England. During their stay in Chicago the George Morrell family attended Trinity Methodist Church on Chicago's south side. This was also the Church of the Roberts family since Martin Keith and his daughter Judith (Keith) Roberts were Methodists.