This photograph was taken in 1921, when Thomas Edison, far left, visited Grandpa Murray, far right, in his Brooklyn office. The object on the desk in front of Edison appears to be a model of some kind, perhaps for one of Grandpa’s power plants.
Edison and Grandpa Murray, sporting a walrus mustache and a boater, in front of Murray Manufacturing’s headquarters. On Edison’s other side is the automobile manufacturer Walter Chrysler, a Murray family friend and regular customer, who utilized many Murray products in his lineup of cars. Several years later, he’d enlist the Murray Radiator Company to install its products in Chrysler’s namesake Art Deco skyscraper in Manhattan.
Grandpa Murray bought his Wickapogue estate in Southampton in the spring of 1926. In the decades to come, it was where generations of the family gathered on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, to spend their summers.
Soon after Grandpa bought Wickapogue, he built a large swimming pool and this kiddie pool, specifically for his dozens of grandchildren and their friends. He also devised and installed a unique pumping system that allowed both pools to be filled with saltwater from the Atlantic.
My grandparents Jack and Jeanne Murray with their family in the early 1930s. L to R, Jeanne holding daughter Liz. Then Jeanne, her namesake and oldest child, Jake, Dad and Jack, Connie sitting next to Jake, and Pat standing behind Catherine (aka “Wiffie”).
(Courtesy of Robin Pickett)
In the spring of 1940, when Jeanne and Pat Murray turned, respectively, 21 and 20, the renowned American composer Cole Porter was inspired to pen this celebratory tribute.
(Courtesy of Jim Hennessey)
In mid-summer that same year, Anne McDonnell’s marriage to Henry Ford II was called the “Wedding of the Century,” and the party afterwards was held at Grandpa Murray’s Wickapogue estate.
One of my favorite photos of Mom and Dad, dining at the Stork Club. Check out Dad’s beverage of choice, a glass of milk. This may well have been the same evening Mom remembered him ordering it, along with a dish of vanilla ice cream for dessert.
Mom and Dad, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas E. Murray II, on their wedding day, taking the first steps into their life together.
Dad and me on the beach in Southampton, the first summer after I was born.
One of my favorite photos of me with Mom and Dad. “You were always saying things that made him laugh,” Mom frequently told me. This must have been one of those times.
Dad & four-year-old me, already well established as his wholly devoted, adoring shadow.
1950s summer suburbia. Dad home from work, Mom in middle, preparing a meal. Photo had to be taken before JFK was elected as president in 1960. He never wore a hat, and soon millions of American men stopped wearing them too—Dad included.
Dad behind the wheel of his amphibious jeep in the mid-1960s. He never failed to draw a crowd every time he took it out for a spin—on the roads around Southampton, or especially in the local ponds.
Family photo on the dunes at our beach in Southampton, early 1970s. L to R: Me, David, Mom, Helen, Dad and Connie, Chris.