Community mourns Philip Murray, owner of Murray's Toggery, at 85
BY MARY LANCASTER
Known for his devotion to family, astute business skills, his humor, generosity, community involvement and as a true mentor, the recent death of island icon Philip Murray has brought deep sadness yet kindled wonderful memories for his wife, children and many friends.

Mr. Murray died at Nantucket Cottage Hospital on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2007 from complications of diabetes. He was 85.

Loved by people of all ages and backgrounds, several who spoke in remembrance of Mr. Murray said his influence was no less than a life-altering experience they will forever treasure.

"My friendship with Phil goes back to when I was a high school student," said Richard Brooks. "I was a tough kid in a leather jacket and a pair of Levi's and engineer boots. I purchased a white sport coat and the pants to go with it at the store for the prom in May. When the bill came in June I didn't have the money to pay it, so I went in to tell him and his father I can't pay this until I start my summer job. They both looked at each other and I guess thought he can't be that bad in spite of the way he's dressed and they hired me to work in the store.

"With Phil's influence over the years, and his father's, I went from a kid who didn't want to go to college to going to college and getting my degree. Phil Murray changed my life," Brooks continued. "He gave me a chance. I was a dead-end kid till Phil got a hold of me and made me realize I could do something in life. I worked at Murray's all the way through high school and college and he and [his wife] Elizabeth became Godparents to all three of my children.

"Beyond that, Phil did a lot quietly behind the scenes," Brooks went on. "The visible Phil Murray was deeply involved with the hospital, but the invisible Phil Murray did a lot to help people less fortunate than himself. That may have been with clothing if they didn't have it, a job, doing his lawn or loading boxes. He was a good, good man. He gave an awful lot back to the community. He certainly was the most influential person in my life."

Philip Chase Murray was born on Nantucket to Philip Murray, Jr. and Alice (Chase) Murray. He grew up at 25 West Chester St. next to the island's original hospital where two of his children were born and which he purchased in the late 1950s and converted to apartment units before selling the building. His maternal grandfather was William Henry Chase, a boat builder and whittler who crafted the first sailor boy whirligig, and his paternal grandfather was Philip Murray, Sr., a farmer who raised chickens, cows and horses in his barn which is now the Gaillard house adjacent to Consue Spring on Francis Street.

After graduation from Nantucket High School in 1939, Mr. Murray attended Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio where he studied economics. He joined the Army and was in the Transportation Corps stationed in Batangas Bay, the Phillippines, for a year before being discharged in 1946 as a captain. He had previously met his wife of 61 years, Elizabeth (Cumby) in 1944 when Mr. Murray was stationed at Camp Pickett in Blackstone, Va., and the couple were only married three weeks before his deployment.

Following Mr. Murray's discharge, the couple lived in Richmond, Va. for five years, which is where their first child, Patricia "Trish" Bridier was born. In 1951, the family moved to Nantucket and Mr. Murray joined his father in the business of Murray's Toggery, renamed from The Toggery Shop which his father purchased in 1945 from Emil Genesky.

"His father gave him a broom and told him to go sweep the sidewalk. We ate a lot of bluefish that winter," said his wife, recalling Mr. Murray's minimal starting salary.

When Mr. Murray's father died in 1959, the store passed to his son and Elizabeth became the bookkeeper, occasionally working on the retail floor. In 1960, Mr. Murray bought the former Louis Coffin building and expanded the business, which had been just men's clothing in the current men's section, to the corner of Fair Street where he opened a women's clothing department. An innovative merchant, Mr. Murray created a trademarked line of apparel called Nantucket Reds, made using a special dye that would fade to pink over time and to this day is worn by people around the world.

But Mr. Murray was far more than a shop keeper. He was president of the Nantucket Rotary Club in the 1950s, served as junior and senior warden at St. Paul's Church, was head of its youth group and in the 1960s oversaw the addition of Gardner Hall in the church basement. He was elected president of Nantucket Cottage Hospital's board in 1976, a position he held three years, and was the only honorary board trustee at the time of his death. His wife said one of his proudest accomplishments was raising $8 million for the hospital's Lifeline Campaign Endowment Fund, a campaign he co-chaired in the 1980s with his close friend, the late Sandy Craig.

Mr. Murray was also a member of the Nantucket Yacht Club and served as Governor under Commodore Whitey Willauer, a Wharf Rat, a member of Sankaty Head Golf Club, on the Parks and Recreation Commission when the Children's Beach boat ramp was installed, a 32nd Degree Mason, a Shriner and chair of the Pacific Bank's board from 1994 to 1997 after being a board member for several years, and was an advisory board member until his death.

That was the juncture in Mr. Murray's career when he met Stephen Decesare, who was named the bank's president on June 1, 1994 on the same day Mr. Murray was made board chairman. Decesare, too, said his life was changed by knowing Mr. Murray.

"We just clicked," he said. "You wanted to work hard for him. You meet people in your life outside of family who make an impact, and Phil made more of an impact than anybody else. He and his wife became surrogate parents for me - that's what he meant to me. I've been gone from Nantucket since 2000, but I've always called them every week.

"From a business point of view, he and I had a synergy together," he added. "He was a great marketer and he taught me more about marketing than I ever learned from anybody else. I was a wash ashore, but Phil took me under his wing and helped me become part of the island - he knew everything about Nantucket and he told me what was important on the island. In a succinct way, Phil was my boss, my surrogate father and my Masonic brother, but more importantly, he was my friend. I was lucky in life to be one of those Phil took under his wing and I have been better for it.

"Unfortunately, he's not there to talk to anymore, but he is in my heart and thoughts always," said Decesare. "The island has lost an icon as far as I'm concerned. He was one of the most amazing people I've ever known. I'd hug him and kiss him like he was my own father, and I'll miss him."

Historian Robert Mooney, who was a friend to Mr. Murray, called him a great businessman and "a passing breed of Main Street proprietors who were towering figures in Nantucket for many decades." Numerous others, such as his classmate and pal David Wood, described him as a person who was full of life and honorable intentions. Wayne Holmes, another friend, said Mr. Murray was a gentleman and someone he always enjoyed talking with, especially about Nantucket's past.

Barry Thurston and Patty Haley, both of whom once worked for Mr. Murray, also say that his guidance and advice touched their lives and helped make them successful in later years. For Haley, whose father was the late Bob Haley and whose family lived next door to the Murrays, Mr. Murray was akin to an uncle.

"He was so encouraging," said Haley, who began working in the store when she was 14 and whose sisters all were employed at Murray's Toggery. "He was supportive as a boss and supportive of women becoming educated and making something of their lives. He was so generous to everyone, and it was always interesting working for him. He pushed you to do things you didn't know you could do. He had a great sense of humor - just the quips, like telling us to spread out and look like you're a big crew.

"There were people from all socio-economic groups working there and they all did the same job. They all had turns picking flies out of the windows," Haley went on. "My family were neighbors and we traveled together and all my sisters worked at Murray's, but that's the way it was; there were patterns of families who worked there. It was really like a family. A lot of business people in this town started out working at Murray's. And he had a lot of foresight. He paid in the 1970s for daycare so moms could work for them and early on he provided employee housing."

To Karen (Lamb) Nassif, who worked at Murray's through high school and college, Mr. Murray was a confidant, a guidance counselor, another ear to listen when there was an important personal matter in life and an extra parent "To steer you straight when you needed it."

"He was a very, very important person in my adolescent and teenage years," said Nassif. "I worked in the store in my high school and college years and we had a lot of fun. I certainly grew up a lot. He, personally, was that other person that everyone should have besides their family. I learned how to be a responsible person and he was so generous. He got me off to college and got me a scholarship.

"He really did affect my current thinking," she added. "In thinking of what he did for me in the past, I'm trying to do the same thing. We (herself and her partner) became foster parents in Ludlow, Mass. He absolutely changed my life much more for the better. He was a very dear person to me and I hope he knew it. We used to call him boss or boss man - we laughed a lot all the time working in the store," she said. "He was a boss with affection and very good to us."

But though scores of people who knew Mr. Murray in various ways fondly consider him as being as close to them as family and value their opportunities to have spent time in his company, his wife and children voice most poignantly what he meant in their lives and how they will miss his presence.

"My father was larger than life; a man's man, a leader of people," said his son John, a manager in the store's men's department, seated at a family table on Saturday overlooking Nantucket Harbor. "He was everything a son could want in a father. He taught me so much, from swimming and fishing to managing and retailing and much more in between. He had a tremendous will to live matched with a tremendous love of life.

"He enjoyed every minute of every day. He was a dynamic presence," his son added. "His love and respect for his family, store and community shone through everything he did. He had an uncanny way of handling people and situations. An old friend of mine from college remembers visiting my dad and leaving thinking he was pretty cool. I will proudly emulate him always, and strive to raise my own family with unconditional love.

"He lived life to the fullest. Might as well have the best," he continued. "I have fond memories of cocktail parties and family celebrations at Sankaty, Nantucket Yacht Club, The Chanticleer and (home) at Viewpoint Monomoy. My father knew how and loved to have a good time, and shared it with many good friends over the years.

"I am relieved for him now, as the diabetes took a harsh toll at the end," he said. "He lived with it for 25 years and most definitely fought the good fight as a strong-willed man. I will miss him terribly for the rest of my life. I want you all to know I stand honored to have had him for my father. I am a lucky man."

"He was a great businessman and he cared about his community and helped people behind the scenes," said Trish Bridier, Mr. Murray's first daughter who has run the women's department since she was in her mid-teens and whose husband Gilles, is the store's general manager and financial officer for the family corporation. "If there was a problem he would solve it and he would get other people in the community to help out.

"He was very funny and he had a wonderful vocabulary," she recalled, noting that he was a devoted, daily reader of newspapers. "I started working for him when I was 14 or 15 and he gave me a lot of responsibility. He loved family gatherings and holiday meals were very important to him. He was always willing to listen to another point of view, and he was very proud of all his grandchildren and their accomplishments. My dad's passing will be a huge loss in my family."

"To me, my father was always larger than life," said daughter Diana Swets, echoing her brother's sentiments and those of others who recognized Mr. Murray's dedication to encouraging youth to gain as much education as possible. "From the time I understood language I knew I was going to college; it was just a given. He said to me many times 'I don't care if you never work a day after you graduate. Education is to expand and enrich your life.' He'd always told me he would pay for my education as far as I wanted to go. In my 30s I mentioned that I was taking a couple of courses at Tufts and he simply said, 'Send me the bill.'

"He was never happier than when his entire family was gathered at Monomoy to celebrate one occasion or another," she added, noting that she, too, worked at the store through school here and college, but left to establish a life on the mainland that pleased her father. "It wasn't usual for men of his generation to be sentimental, but he truly was and I always felt how much he loved me. As a father he was keenly interested in every aspect of our lives, encouraging us to excel in whatever we did.

"It was and is now very meaningful and important to me that my dad and my husband Steve loved and admired one another and of course, that he really got to know and love my kids," she said. "He knew how to enjoy life and live it to the fullest. He was impatient by nature, so I really marveled at how uncomplainingly he withstood the many difficulties associated with his declining health, and in fact, in his later years he only became more interested in all of us and our lives. He remained optimistic and hopeful to the end."

While the siblings each mourn their father's passing, it will be Elizabeth who feels the loss most strongly after being Mr. Murray's partner for nearly 62 years, and who continues to be the corporation's treasurer and make the weekly business deposits.

"He was a real family man. He loved his children and grandchildren and always put his family first. He wanted the best for them," his widow said. "He was always happy and never complained. He was just an all around good guy. I'm going to miss him because he filled the house - he surely did."

Mr. Murray is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Murray, children Patricia Bridier and John Philip Murray of Nantucket and Diana Swets of Westboro, Mass., and six beloved grandchildren.

A private service for family members only will be held at St. Paul's Church on Saturday, Feb. 10 with private interment to follow at North Cemetery. A memorial service open to the public will be held this summer on Friday, Aug. 17 at 4 p.m. at St. Paul's Church with a reception to follow at Sankaty Head Golf Club.

In lieu of flowers, donations in Mr. Murray's name may be made to either Nantucket Cottage Hospital or to St.

Paul's Church. I