Thomas Moonlight Murphy Obituary

Kansas City Star, January 25, 1953

Tom M Murphy Rites

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THE SERVICES WILL BE HELD AT
2 O’CLOCK SATURDAY.

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Many of the Pallbearers Are
Members of the University Club
of Which Murphy Was
a Leader.

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Services for Tom Moonlight Murphy, insurance broker who died yesterday at St. Mary’s Hospital, will be held at 2 o’clock Saturday at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Fortieth and Main streets.

Cremation will follow. The family requests no flowers. It is suggested that any memorial contributions be sent to the Children’s Convalescent Center, 4052 Warwick boulevard.

[scan photo]

Operation in April.

Mr. Murphy, who was 65, had been a patient at the hospital since early last month. He underwent a major operation in April and since last fall had been confined most of the time to his home, 500 Knickerbocker place.

Most of the pallbearers are members of the University club, reflecting the leadership the insurance man had given the Baltimore avenue organization for many years. He served as president from 1943 to 1945, on the Board of Directors for seven years, as chairman of the House committee, and as everything from stagehand to star the annual club production of satire and song, the Nit Wit Follies.

Few men were better known on the downtown scene. Mr. Murphy was the gregarious sort. He was a big man, was a big voice and booming laugh. The pure buoyancy of his spirit provided him with a certain fame and he was considered a master of the art of telling a humorous story.

Mr. Murphy settled in Kansas City in 1908 upon graduation from the University of Nebraska. He had obtained a law degree, with his formal classroom education augmented by a measure of personal tutelage by William Jennings Bryan and his brother, Charles Bryan.

Protégé of Bryans.

As an undergraduate Mr. Murphy was something of a protégé of the Bryans. Both William Jennings Bryan, a national leader of the Democratic Party, and his brother, who served as governor of Nebraska, were close friends of Mr. Murphy’s father, Edward E. Murphy.

His first work here was as an employee of the old law firm of the late Sen. James A. Reed and John H. Atwood. Then in 1911 he went to the old National Surety company. It was here that he took the first step toward the eventual establishment of the insurance brokerage business.

On October 24, 1911, he married his Nebraska University sweetheart, miss Mayone Thompson, of Omaha. In 1912 his company sent him to Buenos Aires to open its first South American branch. He was there until 1914. Then he returned to the Kansas City office and continued with the company until 1923.

In that year Mr. Murphy established his own insurance brokerage business, specializing in surety bonds. He remained active, in spite of two operations in recent years for the removal of cataracts from his eyes, until the illness which struck him last spring.

Through the years the University club remained one of his primary interests. He became the first president of zone No. 1, comprising four states of the Nebraska alumni Association when that group was reorganized in 1940. Another interest was St. Paul’s Episcopal Church of which he had been a member of many years.

Mr. Murphy was born in Leavenworth Kas. His father, who died in 1928, was a Democratic leader, a friend of Woodrow Wilson and most of the national Democratic figures of this time. The father served for years as Democratic National Committee men from Kansas.

Name From Grandfather.

Tom Moonlight Murphy acquired the middle name from his grandfather. His mother was Miss Agnes Moonlight, the daughter of Col. Thomas Moonlight, an illustrious figure of the Civil War years in the Pioneer era in the West.

Colonel Moonlight served on the staff of general U. S. Grant, and commanded some of the Union troops at the Battle of Westport. He served as the first territorial governor of Wyoming, and was United States minister to Bolivia. Through years of service at Ft. Leavenworth, he considered that post his home.

Surviving Mr. Murphy are his wife, of the home; a daughter Mrs. William Hayes Swartz, Wilmington, Del.; a son, Tom Moonlight Murphy, jr., Baltimore; a sister, Mrs. Margaret C. Murphy, 624 West Sixty-first street, and two brothers, Brian P. Murphy, 5003 Wyandotte street, and E. E. Murphy, jr., Colorado Springs.

Sisterly love

The picture sometimes only tells part of the story. In this case, we see two sisters in an affectionate pose. The older sister, Ruth, is my grandmother; the younger, standing next to her is Mayone, five years younger. Missing is Irene, born just one year before Ruth. There are no photos of the three sisters together, as Irene died when Mayone was a toddler. At the ripe old age of six, Ruth became the older sister, and her sense of responsibility to her remaining sister was an integral part of her character. 

Family lore states that when the third daughter arrived, there were out of names, so they named her after her birthday: May one. From a researcher's perspective, the unique name makes her easy to find--until she married and became Mrs. Thomas Moonlight Murphy. Thomas (not the Civil War hero of the same name, but directly descended from him) was a lawyer for the National Surety Company, and he took his new bride to Buenos Aires with him when sent to establish an Argentine branch. They returned to the states two years later as a family of three. By all accounts, the family was fairly wealthy--there was always a live-in servant listed in censuses for the household. 

Both sisters attended the University of Nebraska, and joined the same sorority (Alpha Phi). While Mayone married right out of college, Ruth remained at home, working as a bookkeeper, and helping run the family's hotel--the Merriam Hotel in Omaha. It seemed clear to all that Ruth, in late 30s, was destined to be an old maid. 

But she didn't: a long story, for another day, left her in San Francisco, a widowed single mother running the Biltmore Hotel. Money was tight until the war came, and the residential hotel turned into a gold mine: Ruth socked the money away, buying a little bit of stock every month, building a healthy nest egg. 

But while many save money for "someday," Ruth started giving it away in her final decades. One letter, saved with a copy of the deposited check, hints that Mayone's final years were anything but luxurious. Ruth was staying with Mayone after eye surgery:

Dear Mayone,

    Since your next birthday is coming up on May 1st, I want to make a gift to you now while I am in your home of $2,700.00. I am making this as a birthday gift now in hopes that you will be able to enjoy it for some of the things you need and might not otherwise have. Perhaps you would like to use part of this fund to redeem your rings which you pledged some time ago for a loan.

Affectionately,

Your sister Ruth

Sisters Mayone and Ruth