The Happy Story of Murphy Doodle

As all great stories begin, "Once upon a time there was a great woman...Her name was Murphy Doodle." Two little girls met this colorful red-headed woman when they were only youngsters. She laughed louder than the other women, she smoked longer cigarettes than the other women, she wore higher heels and carried a large leather purse. In her heels she stood above the crowd, or so the two little perceived. People noticed this woman. When her friends wore hats to lunch at Inness's Department Store in downtown Wichita, Kansas, Murph, as her friends called her, wore a daring or unique hat.

Irene B, Mother, and Murphy Doodle playing pool after working all week at Boeing. c1942

Our father said that Murph had more freckles than any woman he'd ever seen, and with a pool stick could find a sucker to beat in a game of 8 Ball.  We thought she was the finest example of who we wanted to be someday. She gave her nickname, Murphy Doodle, to us, and we felt special. Where did she get the nickname, I'll never known, but I think perhaps her father teased her with that name. 

The obituary called her Marie Murphy, and stated that she was a secretary at Boeing, and then for a law office. She and her sister, Inez, lived their lives together as old maids. How sad the two grown girls, my sister and I, felt, that she hadn't been given credit for being the life in a crowd, for saving enough money to buy and restore an old home on Riverside Dr. in Wichita, for caring for her sister, and for dearly loving those two little girls.

Mother, Murphy Doodle, and a friend

After fifty years of storing this wonderful character in our hearts, we have given life to her name once again. 

Before we met our dog that Saturday in May, I named him Happy, because he made us happy just thinking about the joy and excitement that would be living with us. 

His playful moves in between our legs, the circles he raced chasing his tail, and the moment he discovered he could bark kept us in constant laughter the first week. 

 During that time we began to experiment with other names like;

Tippy, because he would run fast in the yard, stop and then tip over his head because he couldn't figure out how to stop his movement. The tip on the tail added more reason to this name. 

Sleepy from Disney's Seven Dwarfs because puppies can fall fast asleep anywhere in any position. Of course, we name ourselves Sneezy, Grumpy, Happy, and sometimes Dopey, so Happy or Sleepy would fit right in.

Caddy and Calloway were options, but I already knew friends who named their dogs after golf.

Now Wattson had possibility. I thought it was unique, but Jack didn't agree, even though he grinned at the name.  

A week into the name game, my sister said, "Letty you have to name him Murphy Doodle because he is part Doodle, or Poodle, which is it?"

Immediately, my heart when back to a time when I played on the ground with dogs, cats, baby rabbits, injured birds, toys, trains, dolls, lady bugs and four leaf clovers. Just then I laughed as loud as I could at this silly Happy puppy who tried to jump into the bird bath only to have it tip over and spray the water all over his face. He shook but his body didn't quite know how to shake from front to back. His shook so much he fell over. 

Instantly, I knew my sister had chosen the perfect name. Murphy Doodle may not laugh or act like the real Marie Murphy Doodle, but he makes everyone around him laugh and giggle like we are children, like a lady who laughed her way into my heart seventy years ago.

For more stories about dogs and adventures click on my links below:

Postcards from the Wild: Skagway, Alaska  

  Lucy Goosey      

Lucy 

For other dog stories by Literally Letty please click on the links below:

Ticky

Puppy Dog Love

Hands in Time: Miami Memories

It was her hands that I saw today as I quickly stacked and sliced the sandwiches for our lunch. Slow, deliberate, and graceful were her pale white hands as she delicately sliced the toasted tuna salad sandwich. How often in my life I have imagined her hands, as I hurried from one task to another?

 

Delzel's Drug Store from 1958--1965, next to the Coleman Theatre.

  

She worked at the Delzel's corner drugstore, just south of the Coleman Theatre. During my freshman year in high school, my girlfriends and I would run downtown for lunch. The first students to arrive always ordered and saved a table for others. There we were, already training our bodies and minds to rush, organize, eat, and run. 

She was never in a hurry. Each order was written carefully as if by hands and nails that had just been painted. Then I'd watch as her soft, wrinkled hands slowly stirred the tuna or chicken salad. The mayonnaise, not ever mayo, was drawn by a rounded butter knife that made curved strokes across the face of the bread. She scooped up a perfect serving size and spread it on toasted white bread, as if it were frosting on a cake.  Rarely did we order lettuce, but when we did, the leaf was sure to curl like a lace between the slices. My mind was sparked by a stark contrast when those same soft hands picked up the butcher knife to halve the sandwich. The knife seemed awkward with its hard black handle resting in her soft flesh. But, like an artist, she placed the knife at just the right angle, corner to corner, then carefully, with her left hand on the tip of the blade, she applied pressure, and with the right hand, downward went the knife, slicing the sandwich neatly in half with no meat bulging from the side. 

No matter the number of orders or the time restraints we operated under, her schedule never varied--one perfectly-formed sandwich at a time, picked up like fragile glass, placed on a thick white plate, decorated with an even number of chips and one sweet pickle. She hand-delivered these sandwiches to each of us as a mother might prepare for a family she never had. 

After school we'd often stop at the drugstore for a cherry coke, and she'd tell us about her nephew who was about our age. We wondered if she had a husband, or if she was a spinster. Did we even know her name? 

Today, I saw my her hands in mine as I pulled out the lite mayo, relish, and celery from the fridge, opened the can of tuna in water, lunged for the bread in the cupboard, and then began an unmeasured mixing of flavors and colors to build my own tuna salad sand. Just then the phone rang and Murphy Doodle, our puppy jumped to help me find the phone. "Unknown" strikes again. I growled at the phone like a dog with a bone. 

 
Then I turned back to the tuna, washed my hands and took a deep breath.  "Slow down," I heard a voice inside of me whisper. I looked down at the counter and saw my hurried hands. They suddenly looked older, softer, but scratched and scared with time. Brown spots covered the back of my hands, blue veins stood out creating an unevenness in my thin skin. 

With a deep breath I found myself remembering and chuckling over time. . . seven grain bread on our plates, no white bread for decades. Lettuce fresh from the garden topped my husband's sandwich, and filled my salad bowl (no carbs, no bread). I stopped, smiled, turned to a drawer and pulled out the ice cream scoop. Slowly, I picked up the tuna and placed it perfectly on top of my salad, then I gingerly added sliced almonds and yellow banana peppers for taste and color. A smile crossed my face, and memories danced in my head. I saw her smile at me. 

She had watched us grow, graduate, and take on the world, but I don't believe we ever said good-bye, so I cherish her memory. 

 

The Timeline of building occupants connected to the Coleman Theatre. Thank you Ron Enderland at Miami Oklahoma History