[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 23 (Tuesday, February 23, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E208]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         HONORING DORIS MURPHY

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. LYNN C. WOOLSEY

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 23, 2010

  Ms. WOOLSEY. Madam Speaker, I rise with pleasure today to honor Doris 
Bailey Murphy of Occidental, CA, who marks her 100th birthday on March 
11, 2010.
  Doris, who lives in her mountain-top home surrounded by redwood trees 
and rhododendron bushes, was born in Portland, Oregon on March 11, 
1910. At 100 she retains the spirit of adventure and independence she 
first demonstrated when she hitchhiked from Oregon to Arizona as a 
teenager.
  She was married for four decades to San Francisco labor organizer Joe 
Murphy, head of Hod Carriers Local 36 and organizer for the Industrial 
Workers of the World. She wrote about their life in a memoir ``Love and 
Labor.'' Published by Doris when she was 96, her book is peppered with 
smoke-filled rooms, night clubs and political drama, covering a rough 
and tumble time in California labor history and the colorful years in 
San Francisco during World War II and concluding in the coastal 
mountains of Sonoma County where she and Joe made their home for more 
than half a century.
  Doris graduated from Reed College in 1938 with a psychology-sociology 
degree, followed by a graduate degree in social work from the 
University of California, Berkeley in 1956.
  In San Francisco she was a welfare worker with the Traveler's Aid 
Society during the Depression and then with the Red Cross after World 
War II helping veterans, their families and other refugees of the era.
  In Sonoma County she helped create the Sonoma County Council for 
Community Services which spawned various agencies concentrating on 
families and children. She worked as a therapist until she was age 90, 
explaining, ``It was satisfying so why would I quit?''
  In her adopted community of Occidental, where she has lived for more 
than 50 years, she has been a vital community leader, helping to 
establish a senior lunch and rides program, a community health center, 
and the Occidental Community Council.
  In recent years she has been a tireless champion and leader of 
efforts to create a home for the growing arts community in western 
Sonoma County and will celebrate her 100th birthday at the newly opened 
Occidental Center for the Arts.
  A formidable woman with a keen wit, zest for politics and a passion 
for dogs, horses, the arts and social justice, Doris opens her house 
regularly for community meetings and social gatherings. She has 
continued to host the annual Labor Day picnic begun by her and her late 
husband. Last year she helped launch a writing workshop in her living 
room.
  Doris is a woman who likes California white wine but prefers a good 
scotch. When her house isn't filled with friends and admirers, you can 
find her throwing logs into her stone fireplace to settle in with the 
evening news, her dog Matilda and her cat, Rebel.
  Madam Speaker, here's to Doris Murphy and her 100 years of community 
leadership and good living. In the words of her friend Bob Klose, she's 
a pretty classy dame!

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