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Margaret Jane Forbes Murphy died at home in Albuquerque in the early hours of Friday morning, April 27, 2001 in the house which she shared with her son, Martin who had been her caregiver in the last years of her life. She was born in Lowell, MA on April 3, 1910. Before moving to New Mexico, she had lived for over two decades in Chester County, PA. She was predeceased by her husband, Daniel F. Murphy Sr. of Downingtown, PA and her oldest son, Daniel F. Murphy Jr. of Detroit, MI. In addition to her son, Martin; her daughter, Marianna Margaret Murphy (Mrs. David) Cervantes of Waterford, MI survives her. She is also survived by grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Margaret, or Peggy as she was known as a girl and young woman, was from her youngest days, until osteoarthritis prevented her, an artist who painted in oils. She specialized in natural landscapes and still lifes. Her beauty lives on in her paintings. In her latter years, she would say that she derived much pleasure from the process of painting, and that if now other people could derive pleasure from looking at her paintings that would make her very happy. To all that encountered her, for even a brief interval, she was always a beautiful person. She not only retained the physical beauty of her youth into old age, many people remarking on her lovely complexion which she kept to the end, but she emanated to all who came in contact with her an inner radiance of the beauty of spirit. All who knew her were touched forever by that inner beauty. She was a devoted and loving wife. She was a mother beyond compare whose gentle guidance was tempered by a boundless love, the warmth of which suffused her children and all to whom she turned her lovely and loving smile. Her son, Martin, quoted from a plaque which he had given her for St. Valentine's Day in 1977, "A Mother is she who can take the place of all others. But whose place no one else can take." He had inscribed the back of that plaque with the words, "To my dearest ... Mother ... with my forever enduring love."
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