“Twenty
years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than
by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe
harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. - Mark
Twain”
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Mary Ellen Brown Murphy
was born in Pittsburgh PA August 28, 1932. She was the first child of Helen and
Charles Brown. Helen and Charlie were friends in Pittsburgh - Charlie, five
years older than Helen, was a good friend of Helen's brother John - and their
friendship turned into love. Their marriage was long and loving. Charles Senior
died in 1966, age 80, and Helen at age 95 in 1987.They had two children, Mary
Ellen, and then Charles, born 16 months later. Mary’s brother, Charles Brown Jr,
died from multiple myeloma early in the morning of September 14, 2011.
A life-long Democrat, Mary
began her public career in 1972, serving as the Ridgewood, NJ, volunteer
chairwoman for George McGovern’s presidential campaign. Under her leadership, a
team of dedicated people ran one of the most coordinated and visible campaigns
in that usual Republican stronghold.
After the presidential
race, the new Bergen County Democratic County Chairwoman, Barbara Werber, hired
her, in 1973, to serve as Assistant Executive Director under Executive Director
Loretta Weinberg, now State Assemblywoman and majority conference leader from
the 37th district. This new team opened up the party membership and
strengthened its grassroots participation.
After Mary ran an
unsuccessful campaign for the party’s nomination for freeholder in 1978, the
new county chairman, Vincent Rigolosi, chose her to be his executive director.
They worked together to strengthen the party and to bring together all the
local organizations.
Leaving party politics
in 1980, Mary joined the development staff at Felician College in Lodi, and
rose to Director of Development in 1983. A breast cancer operation ended her
career at the college.
After her recovery, she
was hired to be chief fundraiser for the John Harms Theater in Englewood, NJ.
While working there,
she was approached, in 1985, by two old friends, Paul and Vickie Giblin, to
help them set up a major fund raising event in memory of their little daughter,
Colleen, who had tragically died early that year from an inoperable brain tumor
at age 4. This volunteer effort led to the beginnings of a new non-profit
foundation, The Colleen Giblin Foundation.
Mary worked out of Paul
Giblin’s law office, with a typewriter, a phone and an index card file of
donors and supporters. From that modest start, the Foundation grew to become one
of the most established and successful organizations in the pediatric
neurological non-profit field. A laboratory, named for Colleen, was begun at
The Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City in 1994.
Mary retired from her
position at the foundation in 1995, continuing as a consultant and advisor.
Another of Mary’s
interests, web site design and development, keeps her busy and active. Among
her award-winning sites is one dedicated to her mother, Helen Burrey Brown, who
served in France in World War 1 as a Red Cross nurse. That site is now part of
the Smithsonian Institute’s Great War materials. She has her own domain on the
internet -- www.murphsplace.com. She also runs popular web sites for the
actors Russell Crowe, Colin Firth, and Clive Owen, as well as for old favorites
Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir Alec Guinness and Carol Lombard.
Through all her active
life, Mary’s family has been her greatest joy, her mainstay and support. Married
in 1961, she and her husband, Joe, a retired Senior Editing Manager in the
McGraw Hill Book Company’s College Division, lived in Ridgewood, NJ. Their grown
children, Chris, and his wife, Elaine; Paul, and his wife, Kathy, and sons Sean
and Charlie and daughter Julia; and Mary Beth, her husband Mark, son Griffin
and twins, Bridget and Genevieve, live a short car drive away.
Sadly, Mary’s husband Joe suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease and is now in a nursing home facility nearby.
Update: Joe died in October 2017 from the effects of Alzheimer's. I will miss him always. I now live in Clintondale NY, near to my son Christopher and his wife Elaine.
Sadly, Mary’s husband Joe suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease and is now in a nursing home facility nearby.
Update: Joe died in October 2017 from the effects of Alzheimer's. I will miss him always. I now live in Clintondale NY, near to my son Christopher and his wife Elaine.
