Kansas
City Star, January 25, 1953
Tom M
Murphy Rites
---
THE
SERVICES WILL BE HELD AT
2 O’CLOCK SATURDAY.
2 O’CLOCK SATURDAY.
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Many of the Pallbearers Are
Members of the University Club
of Which Murphy Was
a Leader.
Members of the University Club
of Which Murphy Was
a Leader.
---
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.
