J. Murray Smith

Josephus Murray Smith (“Murray”) was born on a warm, wet, cloudy August day in 1930 at St. David’s Hospital in Austin, Texas, only a few blocks from his childhood home on 18th and West Avenue. He was the last of four children born to Alfred (“Sonny”) Smith and Laura Steiner Johns (Smith). Murray descended from a long line of Texans and Austinites on either side: Murray’s great-grandfather James W. Smith completed his homestead in East Austin—known today as Boggy Creek Farm—in the winter of 1841, contemporaneously with the completion of the French Legation; another great-grandfather, the esteemed military surgeon Josephus Murray Steiner, moved to Austin from his post in Fort Graham, Texas to be the superintendent of the Texas State Hospital in 1861; and the Johns family was well-settled in Austin by 1880 and listed among the city leaders not long after.

Murray spent his childhood running the streets of Austin with his brothers Alfred and Claude, his sister Bessie, his cousin Dabney Coleman, and a throng of neighborhood friends. In the heat of the Texas summers, his family would drag their mattresses onto a second-story sleeping porch and sleep under the stars, only to drag them back in again when it rained. In his backyard, a well-positioned sand pile allowed Murray and his siblings to routinely exit the house from their second-story window. Murray and his friends devised a slingshot from rubber tires to hurl large rocks over Shoal Creek behind his house, luckily avoiding any damage to unwitting passersby. Murray and his friends also rigged the handlebars of their bikes with pea-shooters so they could engage in dogfights, imitating Georges Guynemer and their other WWI flying ace heroes. On Sunday mornings, Murray and his friends would ride their bikes to South Congress to gather and stuff their trousers with discarded whiskey bottles from the Saturday evening bar crowd, lugging them back across the river to West Avenue to add to their ever-growing collection. Although Murray never did it, it was apparently possible to combine the dregs from many bottles, resulting in a sip or two of fine-blended whiskey. Murray spent many of his days in the care of his beloved nanny, Jessie Dawkins, and her husband Ed, in East Austin, where at one time he was mistaken for the Lindbergh baby, and the police were called. He spent many summers with his cousin Dabney. During one visit, Murray’s mother forced him to hand over his beloved Gene Autry cap guns to Dabney, causing a sore spot which Murray and Dabney consistently revisited over the subsequent 80 years. He and Dabney would regularly hit up the double feature at the Paramount, with Murray gaining access for the reduced price of 5 cents because his smaller stature gave him the appearance of being younger than his years (Murray did not hit his growth spurt until late in college). On occasion, Murray and Dabney would slide down a spiral fire escape at the University of Texas on Pan-Dandy wax-paper bread wrappers at break-neck speed. As Dabney describes it, there was not a moment growing up in Austin that was not absolute heaven.

Murray attended Peas School and Austin High. A natural athlete, Murray gravitated towards sports. He excelled in golf, having grown up chipping balls in his front yard at 1802 West Avenue with his father Sonny, himself a renowned amateur, and getting tips from other local legends such as William Morris and his father’s caddy, Harvey Penick. Later, when Murray attended the University of Austin for many years, he spent nearly all his time in Gregory Gym playing intramurals, at the expense of his schoolwork. Murray also excelled in all manner of racket sports, from badminton to ping-pong to tennis. He was an intramural badminton champion, and his picture hangs in Gregory Gym today. Murray met his best friend, John Worsham, at the University of Texas, where he and John were pledge brothers at the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. The two were lifelong friends. John even convinced Murray to become a Southern Methodist University fan, a strange shift for two Longhorns. Murray at least had the excuse that two of his children obtained degrees from SMU. A fan of all sports, Murray enjoyed countless hours as a fan, watching everything from his beloved Dallas Cowboys to more obscure sports such as softball or professional squash, usually with his son Claude.

Murray met his late wife, Patricia Moseley, at art school at the University of Texas in the mid-1950s. After a disastrous first date, Pat gave Murray a second chance after seeing one of his sketches and determining that there must be more depth to Murray based on the pathos in his art. An art major for many years, Murray finally got serious and graduated sometime in the 1950s with an architecture degree. He spent subsequent years working for both Wyatt Hedrick and Thomas E. Stanley, where he started out in the rendering department, conceiving designs for many of Dallas’ iconic buildings, including the First National Bank Tower, 211 North Ervay, and the iconic arches of the Sanger-Harris department store (originally conceived as parabolas but later reduced to two-dimensions). Later, Murray formed a partnership with his friend Tie Davis, and they designed personal residences and commercial buildings primarily in the Dallas area for over 40 years.

Murray and his wife, also a gifted artist, raised their children in an art-filled and art-conscious home. Murray was a creative genius, not just in design and rendering, or even in pen-and-ink sketches (in which he was gifted and prolific), but most significantly in his preferred medium: cardboard. Murray could make anything out of cardboard, from scale models to parade floats to dioramas. He and his daughter Hilary spent many hours constructing projects for church and school, including a wall-sized Noah’s Ark, a six-foot tall tiki-totem, and a scale model of the Millennium Falcon, among many others. Murray and his granddaughter recently won third place in her school’s pumpkin decorating contest by constructing a three-dimensional cardboard face of Aslan from the Narnia series – an appropriate ranking given the first two entries received no parental help.

Murray loved reading classical fiction and philosophy, especially his beloved Soren Kierkegaard, who he discovered not long after the first English translations were published. He enjoyed discussing Kierkegaard so much that his children would avoid the topic if raised in later years. Murray also loved Peter Kreeft, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Charles Williams, T.S. Eliot, Fyodor Dostoevsky and many other authors and thinkers. Murray read to his children, from Carl Sandberg’s “Rootabaga Stories,” James Thurber’s “A Thurber Carnival,” to Robert Louis Stephenson’s “Kidnapped,” and of course, Kierkegaard, even when his children could not quite follow. More than just entertainment, Murray’s choice in reading informed his faith and sounded the depths of his soul. Murray would on occasion be moved to tears while reading his favorite works aloud to his children, including the opening passages of the Gospel of John and the concluding paragraphs of the chapter “Cana of Galilee,” from Brothers Karamazov.

Murray was a man of faith, being raised in St. David’s Episcopal Church in Austin. Later, he was a long-time member of the Church of the Incarnation in Dallas, Texas, where his large family of seven filled an entire pew for multiple decades. Most recently, after returning to Austin, Murray was able to join and attend remotely (through the magic of the internet), St. John’s Parish, in Quincy, Illinois, where his son Patrick is rector. Patrick shares his father’s love of literature and philosophy, which, along with family stories, provides an endless source of material for his sermons.

Murray also loved sailing, being encouraged by one of his best friends, Tom Wunderlick, to buy an interest in a 1957 Rhodes Swiftsure—a Belgian-made sailboat dubbed the Blue Max with the only wooden mast on Lake Texoma—a distinction that Murray lovingly maintained for many decades with the clever use of match-sticks and wood glue. Murray piloted his family through innumerable pleasant days on the lake. Murray passed his love of sailing on to his son, Murray, Jr., who spent many days at the helm and still sails today. Murray also loved hunting and fishing on the family ranch—Steiner Valley Ranch near Whitney, Texas—first acquired by his great-grandfather in the 1800s and later expanded by Murray’s sister, Bessie Liedtke. Murray passed his love of the outdoors to his children, and in later years he spent many afternoons fly-fishing at his son Douglas’ property. Murray also loved playing pool and could often be found after-hours in his den, shooting nine-ball and listening to his favorite rock opera Evita (the 1976 concept album) on full blast.

Murray passed peacefully on a cold, wet, cloudy day in December of 2023 at St. David’s Hospital in Austin, Texas, at the ripe age of 93. He was surrounded by his loving family. Murray is survived by his five children: Murray (Hui) Smith Jr., Hilary (Eddie) Hale, Patrick (Catherine) Smith, Douglas (Madeleine) Smith, and Claude (Heather) Smith, along with seven grandchildren.

A private graveside burial will be held on Thursday, December 21st at noon in the Oakwood Cemetery Annex in Austin TX. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the creation of Season 5 of The Chosen at https://www.comeandseefoundation.org/donate