This is a living history interview with George W. Murphy, class of 1934, conducted by Marilyn Summers on August the 15th of the year 2001. 

We are at his home in Columbus, Georgia, and the subject of the interview is his life in general, his experiences at Georgia Tech. Mr. 

Murphy, we are all the way here to hear your story, and we've had more technical problems today, haven't we? 

You've been so patient. 

Are you ready to tell me all about it again? 

You just tell me what you want to know, and I'll tell you. All right. Let's rock and roll on this now. You tell me where you were born and when, please. I was born in the West Point, Georgia Valley, in a place called Chalmont, Alabama. It was a West Point, Georgia mill located with five or six mills in the valley of West Point mills. Okay. 

I was born there because my grandfather put the mill up, built it, and continued as superintendent manager until a couple of years after I was born. And what year were you born? 1914. Okay. And you came from a family that was very involved with the mills, with the textile industry. 

My grandfather started in textiles before 1900 and was brought to LaGrange in 1888 when he put up the first textile plant in LaGrange, Georgia. 

Later, he put up a couple of other mills in LaGrange and one in Hoganville before going to Shawmont where he put up the last mill that he put up. 

So he was a real pioneer in that industry. 

Well, I don't know about that, but I know that he was a good mill man. He did a good job. 

His specialty was cotton duck, Shawmont, and several of the mills that he was with were duck mills, cotton duck. 

And your father followed in your dad's, in his dad's? 

He followed in his footsteps and became manager of a West Point, Georgia mill owned by West Point in LaGrange, Georgia. And he was made superintendent or manager there when he was 25 years old. Just imagine that. And you were all George Washington Murphys. Oh, yes. All of you were. And they baptized you, George Washington Murphy also, didn't they, in 1914. Did you have any brothers or sisters? 

None. You were an only child. Yes. 

Did you have a happy coming -up time there in Chalmett? 

I don't remember much about it because I was four years old when we moved to LaGrange. And I liked LaGrange very much then. I was very happy there. We lived there five years before moving to Atlanta. 

Okay, so you did elementary school then in LaGrange, part of it. We started school at, then went on in Atlanta. We lived in the Emory area. 

My father had a job with a mill that was located in East Point, but we lived on the other side of town in Emory. Over by Emory. 

So where did you go to school then? 

Where did you go to high school? 

I went to, then we moved to Columbus when I was in the sixth or seventh grade, and I I went to high school in Columbus. 

So you went to Columbus for high school? 

Oh, okay. Then I went from Columbus, I went back to Georgia Tech to school. 

Well, tell me in Columbus, were you a good student? 

No. No? 

I had a, no, I certainly was not. I had a, I always was blessed with a high IQ, but I was always lazy. You were? 

You didn't like studying? 

No, I did not, but I managed to make C's and B's. 

Without trying, probably, huh? 

I managed to stay in Georgia Tech for a year and a half before I left, two years before I left. 

When you were growing up, did you know you were going to go to college? 

Did anybody encourage you to go to college? 

My dad always wanted me to go to Tech. 

He told you that? 

So you kind of grew up thinking that's probably where you'd end up? 

In the textile industry, you kind of had to go to Georgia Tech. Okay. 

So you came to Georgia Tech in 1930, is that correct? 

That's right. I graduated from high school here in 1930 and went to major in Tech. Right. And you were just a 16-year-old boy. That's right. Because it was... It wasn't good. I should have been older. Yeah. I think I would have done better work if I'd been older. 

Well, you were only... 

But I was having a good time. Oh, you knew how to have a good time already, didn't you? 

I joined the fraternity. I was a Kappa Alpha. And we liked having a good time. Tell me what a good time was. What'd you do? 

Oh, some things I can tell you, some things I can't tell you. Tell me one thing. All those things you're not supposed to do, we did. Oh, really? 

Yeah. Yeah. All those things. 

Well, we lived in a fraternity house for a year, I lived in a fraternity house, and we had a good time. 

Well, the first year you were there, you lived in a boarding house, you told me, right? 

I lived in a boarding house because the dormitories were full. 

That's the year we had so many Yankees coming down to move in the tent and they put them in a dormitory. And made you live in a boarding house. 

Well, it wasn't a problem. 

I lived with a man who was a good friend of mine, later became my brother-in-law, and there were three of us living in a room on the corner of North Avenue and Spring Street, across from the varsity, and we got along all fine. I had no problem. Okay. 

Now, of course, the freshman class was very large. 

It was? 

They were very large and they shipped them out, they weeded them out because you had to make a certain grade or else you would go home. 

So when you got there you found that the academics were pretty stiff then, huh? 

Pretty tough. Actually, I passed all right, I didn't have too much trouble. You must have, they wouldn't have let you stay that first year. I got there, I was there a couple of years and I passed, but I worked just enough to pass. In other words, you did not apply yourself at all. 

But enough to pass, and I'll tell you something, my son did exactly the same thing. He graduated with an average of 72. And we're not going to talk about your average, are we? 

I know. You had to have 70 or else you wouldn't be there. 

So you got that much. 

But mostly what you were doing was growing up, having a good time. That's right. Is that it? 

Now, the first year you didn't belong to the fraternity. I pledged the first year. Pledged. Okay. 

So then you studied a little bit, and what else did you do? 

Did you go to the football games? 

Naturally. You had to go. You couldn't miss them. How long did it take you to meet girls? 

To what? 

Meet some girls. Oh, about half an hour. Right after you got there, huh? 

But there were, of course, girls, nice girls that we met. And we knew all the young people in Atlanta, some from Emory, some from Georgia Tech, and so forth. 

So you were sociable. You got around? 

That's right. 

Well, I had kin people in Atlanta, fairly distant relations. I used to see them occasionally. And my roommate was older than I was, and he introduced me into a lot of things. My wife's brother was four years older than I was, and he introduced me to a lot of people. He took you under his wing, so to speak. 

So I was living with him. Yeah. What was the social life like at that time? 

It wasn't all study, obviously. 

Well, it was during prohibition and too much drinking. They were saying you couldn't, but you did anyways, huh? 

Of course. The more they said no, the more they did. And still you managed to keep it together. You were going to classes. 

Do you remember any of your instructors at all? 

I remember their faces, but their names I don't remember. Too much. 

If I had, you would have told me last week to pick up some names, I would have called some. You want to come up some, yeah, yeah. Mr. 

Jones was the head of the Texas School, which I went in the second year, was a man named Jones who was for many years the head of the Texas School. Oh, okay. 

So you remember him. Yeah. It was tough. It was hard, wasn't it? 

It really was. 

Well, when I was a sophomore, I had 20 class hours a week plus 15 laboratory hours a week. My goodness. And for each class, you're supposed to work two hours. Put in two hours of homework, you can't do it. There wasn't that many hours in the day, huh? 

Well, so you just did enough to get by. Do you remember Dean Skiles? 

Who? 

Dean Skiles. Yes, I know. He was there when I was there. Yeah, he was the dean of students at that time. And there was also a very famous mathematics professor here at the mathematics school. Dr. D. M. Smith. Yes. They say he could teach calculus to a post. Is that so? 

He did sometimes. He used to coach the football players, huh? 

Did he teach you calculus? 

I don't remember. I just remember that he was very well known there. Yeah, yeah. He was correct for many, many, many years, a long time. 

Now, let's see. In 1930, it would have been Coach Alexander. coach Alex was heading up the football team. 

But while I was in school we didn't win a major game. 

But you were coming off the Rose Bowl. And we lost all the major games. After that? 

Oh it was the peak and then. Rose Bowl was before I got there. Yeah but they were just the teams were just regrouping after that. 

Major games were games like Georgia and Auburn and North Carolina or something but there was lots of minor games that we managed to win but not important schools. Schools smaller than Tech. Uh-huh. 

So they must have been regrouping the team at that time. I don't know what happened, but uh... Coach Alex had his work cut out for him. 

Were you interested in any extracurricular things at school? 

Did you belong to anything? 

I belonged to Phi Psi Textile Fraternity. Okay. It was supposed to be an honorary fraternity, but there's not much honor. Most of us had wanted to be at Phi Psi work and Phi Psi. It had to do with textiles only. Yeah. And textiles were in your blood at that time. My family. My family. You were the fourth generation to be interested in that industry. 

So were they looking at you and expecting a lot from you? 

I don't know. I always expected to be a superintendent. You knew you were going, yeah. 

But the depression came along by the time I got out of school and it was awful tough. Terribly tough. I want you to tell me about fraternity. Tell me about your initiation and the fraternity. I can't a secret. You can't tell me anything? 

I don't remember much about it anyway. 

Well, I understand there were a lot of pranks being pulled in those days. I was, we didn't have too much of that in the cage. It was a pretty wild time. It was a serious, we were serious about the fraternity part. 

Oh, you were, you didn't have, you didn't play? 

You had initiation and you had pranks and that kind of thing. 

But that was on one side and on the other side it was serious. your introduction, your initiation into the fraternity was very serious. It was a lot of routine or rites that you would take. I don't remember much about it, to tell you the truth. Yeah. 

Somehow you survived an initiation and you were part of the crowd, huh? 

Well, I didn't have any problem. Tell me about the varsity in those days. We were talking about this before. There was a hot dog joint across the street from where I lived. They had a bowling at it, what's called duck pens, short pens, and it was connected with the Varsity. I believe the Varsity had been started several years before by a tech man, I'm not sure. Yeah, Frank Gordy had started it in about 28. It was not too big when I was in school. We liked it. We went there. You did? 

But it was across the street from where I had it. 

So did they have frozen oranges and fried pies and all those things, or just the hot I don't remember. 

Where else might you have eaten at that time? 

What else was around there? 

There was a drug store on the corner, a diagonal across the street from us. 

There was a drug store that had meals and we used to have breakfast there every morning, have lunch in this fraternity house and then sometimes in the fraternity house, somewhere else. How was your transportation? 

What did you do to get around? 

Oh goodness, don't even talk. We didn't have cars. I'm sure you didn't. One member of our fraternity had a car. Two members, sorry, had cars. The rest of us didn't have. And we, I don't know, we borrowed cars, borrowed a ride. Believe it or not, you could rent a car for $2 a night. Oh, really? 

What about street cars? 

You rent a Ford V8 for $2 a night. My goodness. 

What about street cars? 

Or trolley cars? 

Did they still have the They didn't come out, they came out Ponce de Linde, which wasn't far away. And I believe West Peachtree had a streetcar, I'm not sure, which is a block away. We didn't ride them too much, you usually get a ride with somebody. A lot of sharing. Yeah. The Fox Theater had just opened a year or so before. It was very luxurious, very beautiful. Did you get to go there? 

We went, but that didn't mean anything much to us. It didn't? 

No. Do you remember when it might have cost to get in or anything? 

No, I don't remember. You didn't take your dates to the Fox? 

No, I didn't. I didn't have too many dates when I was in Tech, but I had some occasionally. And you'd have fraternity parties and sorority parties. Oh, okay. 

So it was mostly dancing and parties? 

Well, it was, somebody called her name, Mrs. Bryant had a dancing school up on 8th Street, I think. Margaret Bryant. Margaret Bryant. Yeah. And she had a tea dance every Friday, every Saturday. She had a tea dance. Some people went, some didn't. Did you ever go? 

I went a few times. 

And she would have young ladies there for you to dance with, huh? 

Well, she would, no, she would, you would make a date to take somebody there. The girls wouldn't go alone, they wouldn't have anybody dance with. 

So, but it would be, you'd take a date and the girls would go with that date there. That's the way I remember it. I don't remember girls being alone then. Were you a good dancer? 

Not much. I liked it, but I didn't do it very well. Do you remember the Biltmore Hotel being any place you all would go? 

Yes. We didn't go there, no. It was out of our range. It was very luxurious. What did you do for money? 

My dad would get it to me. Uh-huh. You didn't have to have a job? 

No. He kept you on an allowance then, huh? 

Well, Dad kept me in school. Yeah. You know, you could go to school, you could get by on $800 a year. And that would pay for everything? 

That would pay for everything. I actually went to school for $1,000. 

But there were people that went through tech for $500 and $800. And they just made do. I guess because nobody had anything, it didn't matter all that much, huh? 

That's right. It was depression. Yeah. 

So everybody was just making do. You told me there were lots and lots of Hispanic students there, a lot coming up from... I didn't say that. I thought you said lots of them came up from South America. Some came up, but I didn't think there wasn't many of them, really. Oh, oh, I thought you said there were a lot. Not so much South America as the Caribbean. Oh, okay. 

So you had an opportunity to have a lot of Yankees come, too. 

So, you got to meet people from... 

I think I told you before, Georgia Tech was a cheap school compared to the engineering schools in the East. 

And by law, anybody who had graduated from an accredited high school in the USA had to be taken into Tech. 

So the freshman year, we had something like 1,800 freshmen and there was only room for 400. There were only 2,000 of all four classes. 

And so the boys who came down, they flunked them out off of, they made it particularly hard for everybody because they had to get the classes down. 

So it was pretty lucky that you made it. Like you said, a good thing. 

Well, we had to work hard. 

But so many boys that came in were not accustomed to work hard, study hard. And they thought they could get by, but they couldn't. Not only the northern boys, the southern boys do. Especially if they were 16 years old, huh? 

Well, they were older. The average was 18. Yeah. You were really young to be there. Too young. And that's the reason I didn't get what I should have gotten out of it. Yeah. 

Yeah, if you could have gone back a few years later, you'd have made a lot more out of it, huh? 

That's absolutely right. Yeah. Just the circumstances being what they were. 

What else can you, what else do you remember about those days? 

What do you remember about Atlanta at that time? 

Well, I didn't... You know, there was poverty everywhere. There was no money, but was it... It was poverty, but it was decent. There wasn't any begging in the streets and that kind of thing. Okay. 

So it was happy? 

Well, reasonably. At school, we were quite happy and satisfied. 

I happened to be in one of the few classes that we had an option of the military that we wanted to serve. 

We could either go into the Navy or the Army, and I selected the Navy, and I failed the physical to enter the Navy and was rejected and was sent back to the Army, and then the Army wouldn't take me. 

So I didn't get into the military at all. 

They gave us physical training for two years, which means we went to the Dampany Stadium and took exercise for two hours a week, two or three hours a week. 

Instead of ROTC, it was just PE then, huh? 

Because I wore glasses, and they wanted perfect vision, and I didn't have perfect vision. Oh, so that way you, but they substitute physical education for that. That's right. 

So when the war came along a few years later, I wasn't eligible. You were 4F, huh? 

That's right. Not a bad thing. 

Well, I wasn't in, actually, I was in South America when that happened. Yeah, but had you been here? 

I mean, I tried to get in in South America. They wouldn't have me. 

They wouldn't have you there either, huh? 

Well, they said they'd have me if I wanted to report back to Atlanta, and I didn't have a ticket. Did you take Spanish classes when you were at Tech? 

Yes, I didn't learn much, but I took them. My Spanish teacher was Mr. Coplanar. Uh-huh. He's Spaniard. It's like everything else. When they got through, I didn't even say good morning. That's about all. 

But when I learned, when I went back to Argentina in 1939, I studied hard and I learned Spanish quickly. 

Now, in 1932, you were there for Tech 30 and 31, and in 32, you didn't come back. No. And you had to get a job then. I got a, my father gave me a job in the mill in Columbus. 

So you were doing hands-on working in the mill in Columbus then? 

Uh-huh. 

And that was a lot harder than going to school, wasn't it? 

I started sweeping the floor at Columbus and then I moved up to operative and finally a first-line supervisor when in 19, oh, 1936, I was 37, I was a first-line supervisor. 

And then how did you make your next career move? 

What happened? 

I went to, my father obtained a job for me as a supervisor in a small mill in Alabama near Birmingham. And my wife and I moved over there in 1937. Oh, you didn't tell us about your wife. What year did you get married? 

I got married when I was 22 years old. My wife was a Columbus girl. She was the sister of the man, one of the two men I roomed with in college. 

So in 1936 you all decided to get married, right? 

That's right. Okay. And so you moved as a? 

Then we, I worked here as a supervisor at Columbus Manufacturing Company. 

And then I went to, in 1937 I went to this mill in Saluria, Alabama, which is near Birmingham, a little mountain town. There's a little mill there, 375 people in the whole town of Saluria of 175 working in the mill. In a little mountain town, not a railroad track, about 20 miles from Birmingham. Terrible place. Terrible place. 

So when I had a chance to go to South America, my wife didn't complain. 

How did you get that opportunity to go to South America? 

What happened? 

Well, it's a long story, but... Tell me. The company I worked with the South American for was British, owned by Scott family in Argentina. They had 8,000 people employed in Argentina. They had a factory in Brazil and a factory in Uruguay. 

And the grandson of the founder came and made a trip to the States and was interested in cotton mills. and he called on a friend of ours that I knew, named Bob Phillips, who published Cotton Magazine. 

And he asked Bob Phillips to find him a young man because he had had an engineer in rubber from the States and had been very successful. And Mr. 

Phillips, Bob Phillips, advertised eyes and got together a group of letters and sent them what he called the best letters and they picked my name out somehow and took me, I flew to Buenos Aires in 1939, stayed a week and flew back for an interview and made the job. That was a big deal flying down there. 

Well, it was six days from Atlanta, one day to Miami, one day to Panama, one day to Ecuador of course you didn't fly at night. You were flying DC -2, DC-3. Yeah, just think of that. What an adventure. It was very exciting. Went into Argentina, they talked to me up the road. 

The main thing they wanted was somebody with experience, with a family in Texas. And you didn't speak any Spanish then? 

No, but the people were Scots. English was, they ran the company in Spanish, but there was a lot of English spoken. There must have been 25 or 30 engineers there that spoke English. 

So, they made you the job offer then? 

And I agreed for a five-year term, six months off after five years. This was in 1939. Wow. And we went there, and we hadn't been there very long before the war started in Europe. We got there in, oh, I guess it was May 1939, and the war started in September. Of course, the company people were all swept up in the war. There was only one other American in the company besides, besides you, was an older man. 

So you had to hurry up and learn Spanish then, didn't you? 

Well, I had, we had a child by then. We had a boy who was born in Columbus who was, we've mentioned before, in a textile business. Right, right. 

I was in that country seven years and I grew up, grew into a sort of a trainee job from a trainee job to a superintendent of a portion, a spinning mill of the cotton mill. 

It was the general superintendent over everything and I worked for them seven years and I was quite happy there. We're talking Argentina here. I was quite happy with the Scott Company, with the English friends. We had very few American friends. A few, but not many. Did your wife adjust to it and like it too? 

Very much. She liked it very much. It was different. Cost of living was low. We made a low salary, but the cost of living was cheap. 

So you could live good on what you made. 

Well, we didn't have a car. In Buenos Aires you don't need a car any more than you do in New York. And we had, but she got, we got along very well. We were very happy there. We liked the company. We liked the people. 

So, and you stayed your five years and took your six months then, or what? 

Well, I'll tell you a funny story. 

When the war started, the management of the company They sent a note out saying, all home leaves to England have been suspended. To England. England. And so I didn't say anything. And when my five years up, I went to them and said, I wanted my six months off. And they said, oh, but home leaves to England have been suspended. I said, I didn't have a home leave to England. I had a home leave to the United States. And I've got your word on it. 

So they made it good. And they sent me towards the end of the war in 1945. They sent me up to the States. 

I did just stay the six months, I stayed about three months, and then they gave me some work to do for about a month, so I was here about four months. And my wife had had a baby in Buenos Aires, and a girl. And we all came home, and even when we came home in 1944, it took about four days to get home. Oh sure, because transportation. It wouldn't fly at night. Yeah, yeah. Tell me, your son was George Jr. What was your daughter's name? 

Madeline Elizabeth. She's named for my wife's two sisters. Madeline? 

We call her Lynn. Lynn, okay. Madeline Elizabeth. She's 62 now. 

So here you are with your little family, and you got to see all the family and relatives and everything, and then you went back. That's right. And you all went back. 

Now, did your children speak Spanish? 

Naturally. The children, they speak Spanish, preferably they speak Spanish. Yeah. They pick it up quick. When they speak Spanish with the maids, everybody has a maid. 

I'll tell you something interesting about Argentina, even the smallest house or apartment has a quarters for a maid, a maid bathroom and room, small room to sleep in. And so, but everybody has a maid and the prices are cheap and everybody has a maid. I'll tell you something else about Argentina people don't realize, there are no ****** in Argentina. There's 30 million people. 

You see a black person, you turn around and look at him, and you later found out he's from the States, because in Argentina they don't have any. 

What's the climate like? 

It's about like Columbus, reversed, in other words it's summertime, it's hot, when it's summer here, it's winter there, vice versa. 

But the weather is not as hot as Columbus, it's not as cold as Columbus. 

So you adjusted to it fairly well then, huh? 

No problem. It's damp there, that's all. Yeah. 

But no problem. And you actually set up a cotton mill there? 

It was already there. Oh, okay. You just ran it. 

Well, I moved in and trained the men after a couple of years, two or three years, I ran a portion of it. 

And why did you leave there then? 

And what year did you leave? 

Uh, in 1946, I joined an American company that, it was an American mill that was put up in 1935 there, owned by New York, people in New York, United Merchant Manufacturers. Right, right. I remember you talking about them. 

They decided to put two mills up, one in Venezuela and one in Uruguay, across the river from Buenos Aires. The river plate of Buenos Aires is 35 miles wide, and the other side of the river is Uruguay. 

So they decided in a little town to put a mill up there, a small mill up there. And they hired me to put it up. You were a natural. You spoke the language. Exactly. And you had the experience. And we moved there, and I couldn't find a place to live. They said they were going to build me a house. 

And my wife said, no, sir, if we build a house that's going to be right on property and you'll be going in the mill all the time. You'll never come home. 

So she said, I'll find us a place. 

And she found us a place about an old farm about three miles from town, an old house that she was able to fix up and make very nice, 30 acres. We had a great time on the farm. 

So you had the two children, and that's where they went to school then? 

Well, my daughter went to school there. Yeah, some music. It went away. It's okay now. They went to school. My daughter, my wife, she went to school in Spanish in the morning. My wife taught her in English by correspondence, believe it or not. Calvert system from Baltimore. Isn't that interesting? 

You had to make it that way. 

And she went right into school in the states, high school locally and into the the state, no problem whatsoever. My son, we put him in a British boarding school. Oh, so he would get the basics there. 

And he stayed there until his mother said she wanted him one year, so he did one year of Spanish high school, a waste of time, in the little town we lived in. And then he went went into a prep school in the state, McCauley, in Chattanooga. Yes, I'm familiar with McCauley. And he graduated from there before going into Georgia Tech. Yeah. 

So you were in Uruguay from 1946 until when? 

In 1956, my boss's boss died and my boss was promoted into his job and I moved into to my boss's job, which is located in Buenos Aires, so we moved back to Buenos Aires. And we, in Buenos Aires we had the head office for South America. 

We had, we were running in those days three countries, and it was Venezuela, Uruguay, and Argentina, and I was put in charge of the mills in all three of those countries. 

And we later developed two other mills or three other mills we built and we ended up with about five mills in four countries. Wow. It was a huge operation. 

Well, we worked about, it wasn't quite, it wasn't so terribly big because each country wasn't terribly big. I think we worked 8,000 people all over South America. That's pretty big. Yeah, well, it kept me pretty busy too. Yeah, it did. You spent a lot of years moving down there. And I stayed on that job until I took early retirement in 1974. Is that when you moved back to the United States then? 

We moved back to Columbus. In 1974. We went to England for about six months. 

My daughter was going to have a baby, so we went there and stayed until a baby was born and we came back to Columbus. My wife had, I had no family in Columbus. My father had left here, but my wife had family in Columbus, and so she wanted to come at home. 

Well, she'd been living out of the country for a long time. My mother was dead, but she had, remember we used to visit quite often. Yeah, yeah. You told me you were pretty good travelers. We liked to travel. You liked to travel. We traveled, I used to get, part of the contract, I'd get a new contract with a new company. I started off two months every two years, but it ended up every year I'd have a month. And I'd have a fare back to Argentina, from Argentina back to the... Yeah, it was included in it. Oftentimes we used that home-leave fare to go to Europe. 

So you could see more of the world. 

Well, we swapped around. And we made many trips to Europe because I made business trips to Europe some. 

But in 74 you came back to Columbus to stay. That's right. And by this time the kids were already, had gone to college and done whatever they were going to. 

Well, my son was working here and my daughter. He'd gone to Tech and graduated and got a job in the textile industry. He was a class of 1950, he was 25 years after I was, class 59. Okay. And he got, he came to Brazil and worked with me for a little while. He did. We opened in Brazil afterwards, and his wife didn't like it. She was from Greenville, South Carolina, Spartanburg. 

So she convinced him to give it up and come home. I didn't like it. It broke my heart because we had him. You had fun working with him. 

But he came home and got a job in the industry. It was successful here until we had the politicians got a hold of the industry. We had a chat about free trade, didn't we? 

I won't go over that part. 

Well, let's just say it ain't what it used to be, right? 

It never will again. No. It's an era that's passed. Yeah. Okay. 

So in 1974, you retired and came back here. You didn't really retire. You found other things to amuse yourself with. No, I retired. 

Well, yeah, from the company, but you got involved in other things. No, I didn't. 

Well, you told me you started into, seriously, into genealogy then. Yes, but I got into things I was interested, but not work. Oh, no. 

Okay, okay. 

Actually, I was a director of a little bottling, Coca-Cola bottling plant in Uruguay, and I continued a few years even living in the States. Oh, you could operate from there? 

Well, I'd go to meetings once a year, and I would be with them. 

I want to know, when did you discover genealogy? 

Was that when you came back here? 

Well, my wife came back and her mother had been in D. A. R. and she was interested in D. A. R. and I used to drive her around to some of the meetings and I became interested in D. A. R. And we're talking really interested. 

Well, after I retired, I played golf and I played golf a lot and enjoyed it. But, as I grow older, I don't walk well, is that what, no one's going, I'm sorry. Don't worry, yeah, it's alright. 

So you decided something besides golf was going to have to occupy some of your time. 

Well, I had to stop about 10 years ago, I had to, I belonged to Country Club in here and I belonged to Green Island Club here. I joined all the clubs when I came back, I was fortunate, we enjoyed our life. Yeah. 

My wife was very happy, her sister was living here at the time, and she, they were very close, and we enjoyed coming back and seeing our friends that we had known before. Right. And built a house in Green Island. 

Well, when did you discover the Internet? 

I got my first computer when I was 70 years old. 

So that was 17 years ago. Yeah, and I didn't get on the internet until about 10 years ago, I guess, when I got to genealogy. 

You see, when I got to the point I don't walk well, I had a heart attack three and a half years ago, and my children became frightened that persuaded us to move to a retirement home. After we'd been here three weeks, my wife had a ****** and lost her, she's been bedridden ever since. 

So any genealogy work I did used to be based on travel to different courthouses and what have you. Can't do that anymore. I have to get it on the internet. And to my great happiness, there's a lot on the internet. You can really work your way around it. 

Well, I'm back to before William the Conqueror. 

But you're taking advantage of other people's work, of course, but it's the same families. It's posted, though, for you to do that. It's great. I've got something like 14,000 names in my junior year. Isn't that amazing? 

It's wonderful. 

So you work on it every day? 

Well, just about. Just about. That's about all I do on the internet. 

I look at the, here I look at television, I look at baseball, what have you, but on the internet, I look at the news and otherwise it's mostly genealogy. And it's a great thing to be able to do that research. And what you find, you post so other people can learn from you too? 

I do not. I do not. You do not? 

No. Of course, when I'm getting it off the internet, it's already there. Yeah, yeah. 

And then what do you do? 

Are you making it into a book? 

I've turned it over to the Genealogical Society of Maryland and I was president of the Genealogical Society of Columbus for a while. You were. And I've turned everything over. It's just a small group. Yeah. Yeah. 

And are you putting everything all into some kind of print performance? 

I put it on disk and I've turned it over to them in Maryland and I don't know what they've done with it and will do here. It'll be available, yes. That's great. 

Now my wife has been interested, but naturally she can't be now. 

So are you just tracking the Murphys or are you tracking all the families? 

I'm tracking anybody that's related to me. Okay. How about your wife? 

Are you doing her family? 

No, I do not. She did her. It's difficult. She pushes me to do things for her, but it's hard. Is it? 

No. It is. 

Well, I think it's pretty amazing that you've adapted to this new technology so well to do all this research. 

Well, really and truly not very advanced in research, having a computer, it's pretty simple. 

I had a, I didn't know much about computers and I ran into a man here who gives lessons, who is a wonderful teacher and he, up until recently I've had him, oh, two hours, three hours a month in to teach me something for years. 

He opened a business and he's busy now, but I still have him whenever he can come along and goes over what I do and answers my questions. 

But I'm not an expert at computers. 

But you're learning and that's the important. No, I'm learning about the things that everybody knows how to do. I mean, there's nothing technical in what I do. 

Well, we think it's, I think it's pretty amazing. 

Well, I enjoyed it. You're not afraid of it? 

I'm not afraid of what I do, no. A lot of people your age are afraid to even look at it. 

But you told me you have email correspondence? 

Yes. In addition to your research? 

All of my grandchildren have email addresses and computers. And my children. Tell me how many, let's talk about your grandchildren. How many grandchildren do you have? 

I have six. I have two boys and four girls, and the two girls are married, and one boy is married. The children of my son are married, the children of my daughter are not married. Let's talk about the children of your son. What is your grandson's name? 

The Murphy grandson. What's his name? 

His name is Michael Patrick Murphy. My word. Is that an Irish name or what, huh? 

Well, it wasn't what I gave him. That's what they gave him. 

And what about the two girls? 

What are their names? 

One is named Kathy, Catherine, and she married a man in Spartanburg. And Gwen is a third grade school teacher in Greenville, and she's married and has two boys. 

Okay, so you have two grandsons, two great-grandsons. No, I have three. I have three. Three great-grandsons? 

Kathy has one, too. 

Okay, so you have three great-grandchildren. Yes. By your son. They're about five or six years old. Okay. 

But your daughter's, now tell me what your daughter's children's names are. My daughter's children are not married. Her oldest is a boy who has been seven years teaching English in Japan. Oh, how interesting. And studying Japanese, and he is an expert in Japanese. 

What's his name? 

And he's home now, back in Canada, trying to make his mind up where he wants to utilize the language he's learned. What's his name? 

His name is Christopher Savage, S-A-V-I-D-G-E. Okay. And he has a sister named Jenny Anna that's in the Canadian Navy, a teacher. And the other girl called Julia who lives in Toronto, works in an office. Great. 

So you have a big family and you've got all of their email addresses and that's how you keep up with your grandchildren, huh? 

Sort of. And they try to keep up with you. 

Well, I used to, when he was in Japan, we used to trade emails. Isn't that fun? 

It's really pretty remarkable, isn't it, to think how quickly. It's wonderful because it's so instantaneous. Yeah. It really is. 

Well, Mr. Murphy, you've had quite an interesting life, haven't you? 

Well, it's one thing I left out. Tell me what it is. In Argentina, when I was 50 years old, I learned how to fly. You did. And I bought an airplane. airplane. And I flew for 10 years until I came back to the States. 

What kind of airplane? 

I flew in Brazil, in Uruguay, in Paraguay and Argentina, mostly in Argentina. 

But I did go to Brazil a couple of times, which is a thousand miles away. Is it really? 

I bought a good plane. I had a six-passenger Piper plane, two -motor, and I liked flying, but then I stopped playing golf. I didn't do anything, but I was working there. All you wanted to do was fly, huh? 

I was working there, but I liked it very much. It was a lot of fun. And I flew 1,000 hours. When I came home, my wife said she wasn't going to fly with me anymore. Of course, she got always frightened, so I didn't get a plane. I was going to buy a plane when I came back. 

But you had 10 years of it. Yeah, I loved it very much. That's great. I'm glad you had that adventure. Your story gets more and more interesting. Did you leave anything else out? 

I didn't tell you about it. I didn't tell you anything you ought to know or not to know. You kept all your secrets, huh? 

That's right. Just shared the things that it was okay. That's right. 

Well, I appreciate you taking the time and being so patient with us today so that we could hear your story. We're very happy to have you in our collection, and thank you for giving us your time. 

Well, thank you very much. I didn't mention to you that I had became a vice president of the company in New York. Oh, you did come to the vice president. Oh, that's wonderful. I gave you a cutting from Who's Who. 

I was put into Who's Who because I was an officer in one of the thousand largest companies in the USA. Uh-huh. 

The company was the third largest textile company in the world, operated in Europe, operated 26 textile plants in the States, and at one time had 500 stores selling clothing. Wow. Robert Hall stores. Okay. They spent out of bed, they went broke, believe it or not, went bankrupt. Bad management, huh? 

They had management and have been out of business for five or six years. 

It was out of, the mills were sold off and some of them have been closed down just like they're closed in the United States, a mill that I put up in Uruguay. It's no longer operating. It's there but it's not operating and it's not much fun. 

Now, Dot and I like to travel, and we made travel, even after we came home, we made several trips. 

We went to India once in Nepal and Sri Lanka, and we also went on a Georgia Tech trip to Russia, and we enjoyed that very much. Great. We were gone three weeks in Russia, and three weeks more or less to India. Yeah. Those are great trips. Wonderful. 

Well, we had it. 

We liked it very much, and we made several trips in the United States, but neither one of us has ever gone to the West Coast. Oh, really? 

Isn't that interesting? 

Well, thank you for sharing your story with us today. It's been great fun getting to know you. 

Well, I hope it's not too boring. It hasn't been boring for one minute. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you.