It is with a heavy heart that I record the passage of Margaret Murphy from this life.  Margaret was 88 years old and lived a complete life span.  Nonetheless, I am grieved to think that there will be no more happy laughter from Margaret Murphy. 
When we worked, we referred to Margaret as Three M and assumed that her middle name was Mary.  If that was a miscalculation, it was never made known to me.
I first became acquainted with Margaret Murphy in the early 1970s.  I think of the 1970s as happening yesterday.  In fact, the 1970s happened more than 40 years ago.  I can allege that time flies and so it does.  The fact is that either Ed Dady or Jim Hurley made arrangements to bring Margaret Murphy into our overseas organization.  During this phase, I was touring every capitol in Europe and some in Asia to sell Teleplan.  Teleplan was simply a device to encourage foreign telephone administrations not to tack on enormous surcharges.  In some cases, the cost of the surcharge was three times the normal cost of the call.
So an arrangement was made called Teleplan for the administration’s overseas to take a much smaller cut of the proceeds, in exchange for which we would advertise the hotels of that nation to the world.  The first two countries to sign on to Teleplan were Ireland and Israel.
Our efforts were met by varying shades of success.  In some instances, there was an agreement such as we reached with Ireland and with Israel.  In other instances, such as Germany, there was an absolute refusal to limit surcharges on telephone calls back to the United States.
I tell you all of this because we swamped the foreign administrations with material in support of Teleplan.  The person in charge of producing that material and putting it together was none other than Margaret Murphy, the Three M Lady.
At that time, I had an older briefcase.  When Margaret Murphy collected the material, she stuffed it very diligently into that briefcase.  It was always my contention that Margaret Murphy was trying to kill me because of the heavy load of material supporting Teleplan that she crammed into that briefcase.  I very much looked forward to the last stop in my tour of European and Asian capitals because I could go home not having to lug that briefcase around.
In all of this, Margaret Murphy was the soul of cheerfulness.  It might be said that Margaret really put her heart into my success in touring the European and Asian capitals.  There were other instances when Margaret performed brilliantly.  But I believe that the Teleplan example is a good case for the way Margaret performed her work.
When Margaret died, she was 88 years old.  In all of her life, she never married.  I deeply regret that because Margaret Murphy would have made someone a wonderful wife.  That is not the way that life turned out for Margaret.
Margaret was a person who gave friendship willingly.  For nearly 60 years, Margaret was a friend of Thelma Dupont, another telephone worker.  As it so happens, Thelma, who had writing skills, died less than six weeks before Margaret, thus the two friends departed almost together.  As they say in racetrack terms, Margaret and Thelma always ran as an entry.  In racetrack terms, the two of them could run in a single race and which one finished higher would be the winner.   In real life, Margaret and Thelma wouldn’t aspire to be first or last, they aspired to be two very good people.
So it was that yesterday I answered a phone call from a Kay Miceli who identified herself as Margaret’s niece.  I hoped that Miss Miceli had not called to tell me that Margaret had died.  That is in fact exactly what happened.   And so it is that I write this tribute to Margaret and to her friend Thelma with a heavy heart.
As I said earlier, it is my belief that American males missed out on two women who would have made wonderful wives.
So now we are left to proceed without the comfort and happiness that Margaret always provided.  According to Margaret’s niece, she was in a coma before her death.  So I suspect that her death was painless.  I genuinely hope so.
And so we close the book on Margaret Mary Murphy and Thelma Dupont, her very close friend.  They were wonderful people and I doubt that we will ever see their likes again.  In saying goodbye to Three M Margaret Murphy and her very close friend of 60 years, Thelma Dupont, I must say that they don’t make them like that anymore.
 
E.E. Carr
March 22, 2013
Essay 724
~~
Kevin’s commentary: This seems like far and away the worst part of living to 90. I cannot imagine how many friends Pop has had to say goodbye to in this fashion. She seemed like a wonderful woman. Rest in peace .