Mary Frances Murtha. November 2nd 1915 thru November 22nd 2005
my maternal grandmother died last night. she is the first person close to me to pass away, and it is hard. She was 90 and she lived a full life, but that doesn't make it any easier.
From my first memories i can remember my grandma being with my immediate family for everything. she and my mother were very close. my mother was the only person with her when she died. She had just made it to the hospital, said "mom i'm here" and my grandma died.
My Grandma was an awesome lady. The oldest girl of the six hennessey kids, she was born with a head for business and a heart of compassion. Her father nicknamed her "moneybags" and had her handling his business affairs at a young age. She won my grandfather, Vincent Daniel Murtha, or Hank as she called him, with a lemon merengue pie. Mary Murtha was a shrewd business woman at a time when most women weren't supposed to do that. She and her Hank had 4 kids and made their home at 64 pierce ave. in san jose, Ca. She was a woman of faith, for whom nothing was impossible with God at her side. Here is what i know and remember:
-she wore her hair in pincurls on the top of her head from the time she was 25. just last month, the people at the resthome where she was living cut her hair for the first time in my memory.
-she went to heald's business school
-she had a history of fainting. she used to faint in church all the time.
-she used to make rosary's. she made metal ones until a friend of hers told her she could make the rope ones faster. she would send them to people in prison.
-she drove a green oldsmobile cutlass supreme '88. I went everywhere in that thing including Thrifty's for ice cream after school, and through red lights if Grandma had decided we waited too long.
-she traveled the world. there are many, many scrapbooks to prove it.
-she used to work at Martha's Kitchen, a food service for the poor. i think she was there every day.
-she donated a lot of money to charity. I used to put her donations on spreadsheets for her. there were a lot.
-I would spent a lot of weekends at her house. We would watch the golden girls and amen! while eating dinner on her little tv trays.
- Her favorite sweets were vanilla milkshakes, root beer floats, and sees candy. she never gave up her sweets, especially the vanilla milkshakes.
-she taught my nephew how to say "shut-up" and "jackass". those became her favorite words the last few months she was alive.
-she was the matriarch of my family, and i know things will never be the same.
From my first memories i can remember my grandma being with my immediate family for everything. she and my mother were very close. my mother was the only person with her when she died. She had just made it to the hospital, said "mom i'm here" and my grandma died.
My Grandma was an awesome lady. The oldest girl of the six hennessey kids, she was born with a head for business and a heart of compassion. Her father nicknamed her "moneybags" and had her handling his business affairs at a young age. She won my grandfather, Vincent Daniel Murtha, or Hank as she called him, with a lemon merengue pie. Mary Murtha was a shrewd business woman at a time when most women weren't supposed to do that. She and her Hank had 4 kids and made their home at 64 pierce ave. in san jose, Ca. She was a woman of faith, for whom nothing was impossible with God at her side. Here is what i know and remember:
-she wore her hair in pincurls on the top of her head from the time she was 25. just last month, the people at the resthome where she was living cut her hair for the first time in my memory.
-she went to heald's business school
-she had a history of fainting. she used to faint in church all the time.
-she used to make rosary's. she made metal ones until a friend of hers told her she could make the rope ones faster. she would send them to people in prison.
-she drove a green oldsmobile cutlass supreme '88. I went everywhere in that thing including Thrifty's for ice cream after school, and through red lights if Grandma had decided we waited too long.
-she traveled the world. there are many, many scrapbooks to prove it.
-she used to work at Martha's Kitchen, a food service for the poor. i think she was there every day.
-she donated a lot of money to charity. I used to put her donations on spreadsheets for her. there were a lot.
-I would spent a lot of weekends at her house. We would watch the golden girls and amen! while eating dinner on her little tv trays.
- Her favorite sweets were vanilla milkshakes, root beer floats, and sees candy. she never gave up her sweets, especially the vanilla milkshakes.
-she taught my nephew how to say "shut-up" and "jackass". those became her favorite words the last few months she was alive.
-she was the matriarch of my family, and i know things will never be the same.
Comments
i'll be thinking about you and your family this thanksgiving.
love you!
Yes, life may never be quite the same without her, but so long as you remember all of the things that made your grandmother a good person, then her life--and death--will not have been in vain. She's reached out to so many people in her lifetime, and she has left this world a slightly better place because of it.
Take care, Margaret. I'll be raising my glass this Thanksgiving to Mary Frances Murtha.
ps. grandma is going out in high style with lots of pink roses and a pink casket! We also discovered she paid for everything at the cemetary back in 1978 when my grandfather passed away. Like a said, she had a head for business.