Thomas Patrick Murphy

Thomas Patrick Murphy died October 27, 2024. He was 81 years old. Tom was born amid the tumbleweed and desert of Roswell, New Mexico, but he embodied all the tribal traditions of south-side Chicago in its Irish heyday. His life of adventure started early, when his young mother would pin a note and cash on 3-year-old Tommy's coat and send him off to complete the week's grocery shopping while she was pregnant and nursing a broken leg.

Born on May 31, 1943 to joyful parents Mathew Martin Murphy and Mary Daly, Tommy and Mary were the best of friends, while Matt deployed around the globe as an Army Sergeant during World War II.

No one ever had a better friend than Tom had in Susan Meagher Murphy; the two married in 1965 in Milford, Michigan. In recent years Sue quipped that she was on her 14th husband, a comment that reflects the giant and varied life Tom pursued as printer’s apprentice, airplane pilot, air-traffic controller, crew-boat captain, Gulf of Mexico fishing guide, New Orleans World’s Fair construction worker, yacht broker, yacht-delivery skipper, early-childhood researcher, Census taker, and, at the time of his death, chief judge for his local election precinct. He was a man who loved good work.

His early days were spent on Chicago’s south side, surrounded by generations of Dalys. In the vernacular of his neighborhood, the boy was known as “Bridge-and-Pat’s Mary-and-Matt’s Tommy Pat.” His dad could make or fix anything, often with Tommy at his elbow. Sister Maribeth joined the family on Tommy’s 4th birthday, and their shared birthdays were always a celebrated kickoff to summer. The days and weeks were marked by the routines of an Irish Catholic family: Mass, Sunday dinner, school, confession, fish fry, repeat. When Tom was 13 years old, Mary and Matt bookended the trio with the birth of Matthew, and the boys shared a room until Tom graduated high school. Tom attended Mendel Catholic High School (Chicago). He started working at a young age, first as an usher at a movie theater at the behest of his Pa, who tried in vain to keep his grandson off the city streets. After that, Tom was a linotype apprentice, which he thought may be the start of a career.

As a passionate teacher, mother Mary deeply valued education and expected Tom to go to college. He chose Lewis School of Aeronautics (Peoria, Illinois) to learn aviation engineering, but soon after a fire ended that program, he transferred to Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, Michigan), a transfer that changed the course of many lives. Tom asked a friend to set him up with a date for an upcoming fraternity pajama party, and, upon meeting his blind date, he quickly realized Susan Meagher was the wrong girl. But he never looked back. Their courtship was brief and thrilling. In those days, Tom had easier access to planes than to cars. So he would fly to Sue’s family farm in Milford, Michigan, buzz Sue’s mother at the laundry line, then tip his wings in the back field as a signal that he needed an airport pick-up. When he would greet Sue at the door for a date, her dad warned “that girl has to work in the morning.” Eighteen months after that wrong first date, they began 59 years of adventure, joy, and an unbreakable loving bond. For many years, their first granddaughter thought they were one person called Papasue.

Tom had been accepted to fly for United Airlines, and the newlyweds were slated to move to Colorado for training, where Sue had visions of lounging by the pool while he attended class. Alas, just days before their marriage, United cut Tom for his poor eyesight. He later became an air-traffic controller at Chicago’s O’Hare, then the world’s busiest airport, and he made it his mission to send United flights long circles around Chicago while he landed all the Deltas, Easterns, Continentals, and TWAs in his queue. Over several years that high-pressure job took its toll on the family, and Tom negotiated a transfer to a small airport in New Orleans, where they traded city life and a big suburban house for breezes under the live oaks of a Louisiana bayou and life on a sailboat. Their life in New Orleans was an exercise in cherished friendships, harrowing challenges on the open ocean, great music, even better food; the experience exposed Tom’s children to adventure, perseverance, resilience, creativity, and humor.

Tom was actively devoted to his children, Tim Murphy and Monica Jennings, and their families. On a recent visit to Tim and his partner, Lesley Davison, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Tom “Crawdaddy” Murphy introduced some 50 New Englanders to the joys of a good Louisiana-style boil, and he and Sue often joined them for long sails between Maine and New York. In earlier years Tom and Sue seldom let more than six weeks pass between visits to Portsmouth, Rhode Island, to see their grandchildren Katherine “Katy May” Murphy and Luis “Max” Sossa and their mother Marina. For this coming Christmas, Tom and Sue planned to visit Kate in Spain, where she teaches English to elementary students.

Tom and Sue spent equal time visiting Vero Beach, where Monica and Charlie raised their children, Jackson and Isabel. When the kids were little, days were spent flying kites, swimming in the Atlantic, splashing about in the Ft. Pierce inlet, and sharing movies and pizza on Friday nights. As the kids grew, Papa logged many hours in the bleachers cheering on the kids in football, baseball, basketball, volleyball, and lacrosse. Famously never a dog-lover, everyone was shocked when Papa made fast friends with Rico, the Jennings’ adopted potcake rescue dog. Papa and Gege’s support and love were instrumental to Jackson’s success when he trained to become a USMC Infantry Officer in Quantico, Virginia.

Through his whole life, Tom connected people, made matches, and brokered long-needed reconciliations. These were the traits he brought along from his parents—who from the wedding day on became best friends with Sue’s parents. For more than 50 years, the Murphy and Meagher clans have joined each other for international travel, beach weeks, weddings, and the joyful raising of four generations.

Services and interment will be private.