|
a.
|
Note: side-to-side walk. He could still dance an Irish jig at the age of 90 when he came back to Illinois to see the first baby born in the Rockwell family in 32 years.
His first wife Mary Hollingsworth had died at age 38, at the same age his mother did and close to the age his daughter would die at, 39. He had sold out his holdings in Arrowsmith, Illinois and left for Greeley, Nebraska with his five daughers (Myrtle 1881, Maggie 1882, Lula 1884, Maud 1889, and Susie 1891) and his son Ted 1893, and three other boys. His father John Murphy had done the same thing when his wife died in 1872, and he was living in Nebraska with his daughter Mary.
His father John Murphy had come to America as a teenager from County Kilkenny, Ireland and had managed to accumulate several fine farms in his lifetime, in Illinois and Nebraska. William married again in Nebraska, but John never did, and had his body shipped back to Illinois after he died in 1909 to be buried with his beloved Margaret at the Catholic Cemetary in Bloomington, Illinois.
William Murphy died in Greeley, Nebraska on Oct. 18, 1947 at the age of 95.
Note: BIOGRAPHY: William Murphy had an Irish gleam in his eye and a jaunty
|
