Person:Mary Murphy (163)

In the summer of 1959 was one of twenty young people asked by the US State Deapartment to be a part of "Person to Person". They lived and traveled throughout Europe hopfully enhancing the relationship between young Europeans and Americans.

After college graduation (1961) employed for a year by Glamor Magazine in New York City. Returned to St. Paul, MN and worked for Frank Murphy a family owned women's apparel store. Her father opened the store in 1931 at the time of "the great depression", but was able to become very successful catering to the "carriage trade" featuring higher priced and designer clothes to those not seriously affected by the poor economy. Both her parents, and Madeline's two sisters Blanche (Buddy) and Dorothy (Dotes) Reynolds worked in the business. After her parents death Shannon continued as president and sole owner until1989 when it was sold. She was involved not only in sales but as the principle buyer of higher priced and designer clothing. Buying trips were on occasion to Paris and frequently each year to US markets, particularly New York City. Some of the top fashion designers of the day became her friends and she attended many social events surrounding the fashion industry.

The highly visible fashion industry made both the store, and her family well known in their community. They were featured in many local newspaper and magazine (local and natioinal) articles. Television and radio covered sales with some having national syndication. When St. Paul was featured in "Town and Country" magazine the store, Shannon and John were one of the featured personalities.

Having lived in St. Paul all her life, and being in a very visible business made Shannon well known. She had a wide circle of acquaintances and was active in organizations such as the St. Paul Chapter of the Women's Garden Club of America, The Assembly (50 prominent St. Paul women), the Junior League and White Bear and Somerset Country Clubs.

Married when 31 her first child, Posh, born seven years later (1977) and the second, Zoe, the following year (1978). Her husband John had been married previously and had three children. She was a close and loving companion to her acquired family.

Shannon and her mother had both pursued business careers and consquently domestic affairs (cleaning, cooking, sewing, fixing, etc., etc.) they gladly left to hired help. In spite of lacking, let alone interest in, domestic skills she was very successful in creating a warm and comfortable home life in which her family has reveled.

As a result of her very friendly nature Shannon always had a wide and diverse circle of friends. She maintained the posture of, and was a "lady". A devoted mother and wife, loved and adored by her family.

The Personal Touch - In White Gloves Shannon Murphy Brings Style And Fashion To St. Paul's Posh Shoppe One day not so many years ago Shannon Murphy Pulver walked out of her room at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City and bumped into Fred Astaire. Shannon, who was on one of her six yearly buying trips for St. Paul's Frank Murphy, let the many papers she was carrying flutter to the floor. As he helped her pick them up she confessed that her whole life long she had wanted to dance with Fred Astaire. "What would you like to dance to?" he asked. "Funny Face," she replied. So he sang "Funny Face" and they danced all the way down the hall. By the time they got to the elevator she was ready to collapse from excitement. She couldn't wait to get to a telephone to call everybody back in St. Paul. Then she raced around the market all day long telling everyone what had happened. Shannon Murphy Pulver's life is like that. The girl who was born late in life to Frank and Madeline Murphy came into the world, a friend swears, wearing white kid gloves. All her life she has flitted from one chic event to another. As a child she was always dressed with impeccable taste. When the edge of her Gertrude petticoat showed, it was the fanciest of laces that everyone saw. "Shannon was just a darling baby," says an old family friend. "And to think she was a girl. It would have been terrible had she been a boy." If she wasn't born in the store she was surely raised there among the designer originals, the French provincial armoire, and the parrot in the gilded cage, the goldfish in their pond. She was given the best of everything, exclusive dancing lessons, and trips to Europe. She was the darling of some of the most exciting names in fashion. "I thought she would be a rude brat," one Shannon watcher clucked. But she wasn't. She was groomed to be a fine Irish lady who still goes nowhere without her white gloves, who has a keen fashion sense, who can turn on the charm at the drop of a hat pin. She learned it all at the knee of her devoted parents, and the lessons stayed with her. One day, as an adult shopping with one of the sales clerks, Shannon explained why she walked so quickly. "I learned early to walk fast because I had to keep up with Mummie at market," she said. As a little girl Shannon went to all the New York designer shows with her parents, sitting on the floor when there were only enough chairs for the adults. As she got older she worked summers in the store's basement, making boxes, checking in stock. As a teenager her parents gave her a free hand with a section of the shop, which she dubbed the Hade Room after she fell in love with a pair of hade chairs, which is Japanese for the ultimate in youth, gaiety, and exuberance. After graduation from Manhattanville College, a Catholic women's school, Shannon spread her wings a bit and worked a year for Glamour magazine. Then she returned to St. Paul to settle into her life's work. She clearly remembers her first buying trip to New York. It was the year of the important black cocktail dress and Shannon fell in love with 13 of those she saw in New York. She took notes saying which had a scooped neck and which had spaghetti straps. When she returned her father called her into his office and shut the door. He asked her which dresses she planned to buy. He added, "You can't buy 13, so how are you going to decide which ones you will buy?" She replied, glancing over her sketchy notes, that maybe it would be the one with the tucks and the scooped neck, or was it the one with the spaghetti straps that had the tucks. She couldn't recall. "Daddy made me buy my own plane ticket back, pay for my own room at the St. Regis, and suffer the embarrassment of going back to all the designers to check my notes," she says today. "I learned how to take notes on a buying trip." Frank Murphy has been described as a gentleman's gentleman, a hale fellow well met, a good business man. Madeline Murphy by all accounts was a charming character, grande dame with a winning way about her and a genuine flair for fashion. The Murphys came to St Paul from Rochester, New York early in their marriage when Mr. Murphy scouted Schuneman's for a prospective buyer. In 1930, when the country was suffering the throes of the, Depression, Frank Murphy talked Dun and Bradstreet into advancing him the money to open his own store. On opening day his store was all stocked when he realized he needed a mascot. He ran across St. Peter Street and bought an antique penguin. He had $12.35 in the till. It wasn't long before Frank recognized that his wife's personality would be a boon to business. He encouraged Madeline, who had never done anything but Junior League volunteer work, to work in the store. Mention of Madeline Murphy brings a wry smile to the lips and a bit of Irish mist to the eyes of those who knew and loved her. She was famous for sitting in the store's courting seat, advising her customers on their selections and urging everyone to "sit down and talk to me”. She and all her friends, who happened to be customers, would discuss politics, children, husbands, and what they had done over the weekend. "If you were going to have a baby you always told her first," says one of the old regulars. "You'd talk and talk and after you left you realized that you didn't know very much about her." On Monday mornings the stock came in and friends would stop by to view the latest fashions, and to see and be seen. Mrs. Murphy was a large woman who had the energy of six steam engines and an incurable sweet tooth. She lived on doughnuts and chocolate pie. She could eat a whole pound of candy in one sitting. "I don't think she ever tasted a vegetable or a fruit," says one old friend. Every day a nearby potato chip maker sent over a bag of chips for Mrs. Murphy. "She was a damn nuisance to have for dinner," says one of her dear, old friends. "All she would eat was burned hamburger and mashed potatoes." When she was pregnant with Shannon the doctor insisted that she eat vegetables. "She had a bowl of tomato soup once," says a friend who knew her then. "I think they gave her pills," says another. If her closest friends knew all about her appetite, everyone knew about her hair. It was blue. And she got away with it

Everything from ordering fashions to choosing a sofa covering is part of a Shannon Murphy's day. One of the other merchants on St. Peter Street tells of the day she and her husband were on a buying trip to New York. They were walking down Filth Street when the merchant nudged her husband, pointed to a woman in the crowd on the other side of the street, and said, 'That's Madeline Murphy." Her husband asked how she could pick out Mrs. Murphy on a crowded New York street. "Because no one else has hair that color," she replied. When Mrs. Murphy wasn't telling a customer that she really should have something nicer than that or that she didn't need two of those, she needed one of these; she was settling spats among the salesgirls who shared a sisterhood like something out of a Judy Garland movie. It was almost a sorority where they all giggled and cooed over each others' beaus and babies and shared an intimacy they still prize today. "I left finishing school and became bored so I went to work for Murphy's," says one of the first salesgirls. When there weren't any customers in the store the girls would sit on the back steps and have a gab fest-they used to call it Murphy's marriage bureau. "One time one of our beaus - the son of an officer at Fort Snelling - went into one of the three tiny dressing rooms to shave before his date," says one of the early salesgirls. "Mr. Murphy caught him and he really blew. He said, “this has got to stop. In the early days there wasn't a lot of cash exchanged - their most expensive dress was $69.50. However, what little cash they had was kept in the perfume box. "Customers would get change that reeked of Nuit de Noel," recalls one of the girls. And when the Murphys went off to New York the girls had to take turns carrying the money home at night. Sometimes they would hide it in the pockets of the dresses, only to return in the morning unable to remember dresses held the money, But of course the most story of the early days at Murphy's is the tale of how Gordon Parks got his start as a fashion photographer. Parks, a black man, on the railroad in those days ventured into the store one day, he wanted to shoot some photography. Mr. Murphy tried to shush him out saying that all their photography was done in New York City. Now, just a minute, Madeline called down from balcony. She asked, "How do know that boy can't shoot photos?” Then she told him they would be having a fashion show the next afternoon and if he showed up he could photograph it. Parks ran off searching high low for a camera. He went to his friend Harvey Goldstein loaned him one but forgot to mention had to flip the film between shots. Every one of Parks' shots came double exposed but the last one.

At two the next morning as he developed the film Parks discovered his error. He asked his wife, "What am I going to do?" If I were you, she said, I'd just show the Murphys the good picture. He did. Mr. and Mrs. Murphy fell in love with it and displayed it in their window. A couple days later Mrs. Joe Louis was in the store, saw the shot and recommended Parks to some friends in Chicago. He went on to an illustrious career in photography, including work for Life. Some years later Parks asked Mrs. Murphy why she had given him the job that day. "I guess I just felt ornery toward Frank," she said. Even before Shannon was born, Frank Murphy's was a family affair. Madeline's sister, Dotes, her name is really Dorothy, moved to St. Paul 30 years ago from Rochester, New York. She still works in the store today. And a third sister, Bud --she was baptized Blanche --put in her time too. Those who weren't related to the Murphys by blood still felt a keen loyalty. "Mrs. Murphy always expected your best and you always gave it," says Pauline Austin, who started with the Murphys in 1939. "When you work for the Murphys you never really leave. "If I had a display, Mrs. Murphy would say, 'Pauline, do you think you should accessorize that differently,' " Pauline recalls today. “ She knew the answer, but she wanted you to figure it out." Mr. Murphy died five years ago; Mrs. Murphy two years ago. Up until a few days before she died Mrs. Murphy visited the store every day to hold court. As a child and a young woman, Shannon was steeped in her parents' tradition. And today, by all accounts, Frank Murphy is run on Shannon's flair. There's no arguing that she has plenty of it. Much of it comes because she likes people. She laughs often and spontaneously, with that charming twinkle in her very Irish eyes. Her trademark is a big bow or scarf holding back her shoulder length hair which is just beginning to grey. Like her mother, she is always tan. Her only makeup is a light shade of lipstick delicately applied. Unlike her she is petite. She clearly loves fashion and has an uncanny knack for spotting a customer's need even before the customer does. She'll notice a rumpled out of style raincoat and mention that the store has these terrific little raincoats just in that are so charming and they're only $30. On the other hand, she'll come across a sporty jacket and read a customer's mind, saying, “My, that would look fabulous on you.” Sometimes she's not quite that subtle says one friend and customer. “She'll take a coat to a party with her and practically put it on you right there.”' Close friends and that Shannon's heritage is no burden for her, that she thoroughly enjoys it, that she feels the store is hers even though she inherited it, and that in fact, she deserves it. However, Shannon herself admits that she frequently feels in the shadow of her parents. "I love having the background and having the image of the store so terrific," she says. "And Mummie and Daddy were both just fabulous, so that's a compliment. But it's very hard that all of a sudden I am here and it's different. You can't always run things the same way. You just have to stand up and say well, I'm sorry, but we have to have a little progress." "Forever Progressing," that's the store's motto, so this summer Shannon decided it was about time she showed a little progress. Her parents had talked for years about expanding, and the space next door on St. Peter Street, where E.B. Meyrowitz Optical had been located for years, finally became available. She remodeled some of the familiar floor space and added a whole new look to the area. Her customers have reacted to the changes with mixed emotions. "Some come in and say, 'But, your mother had that sofa beige for almost 50 years: “says Shannon. “ Now it's going to be apricot and they're all very nervous." Others love it. In fact, Shannon has no intention of tampering with the store's image. The Mauve Room has been repainted mauve, the Oak Room remains oak. The balcony has been redone but the flocked wall paper, the ostrich-feather fans and the antique dance programs are still there. Neither Freddy the parrot nor the fish pond has been moved. But the new portion is a mixture of old and new, just like Shannon's home on Kenwood Parkway. "I like the mixture so the store is like that," she says. "The sportswear area is open and fun with an old-fashioned porch and a swing." While Shannon is as interested in the carriage trade as her parents were, she has perceived a shift in the market. The store is already drawing some professional women who need classic, long-lasting suits and dresses for their work. Shannon wants to bring in more of those working women. "We still have girls going to Garden Club," she says. "But now we have to think seriously about the working girls. They used to be afraid to come in here, but not anymore. People have the false notion that everything is couture and expensive. We do have that, but we have more." The personal service, which has always been the store's strongest point, will never change. "You have to like people:' says Shannon. "It's more than knowing a fabric, and you can't sell anything that's unbecoming. The worst thing in the world would be to get home and have your husband say you look awful."

Perhaps an equally debilitating fate would be to show up at a party and meet someone wearing the same dress. Shannon makes it her business to know who meets socially with whom and where. And she's famous for running around with her yellow pad which lists who's getting what under the Christmas tree. Sometimes the personal service knows no bounds. One Christmas when Shannon was younger, she was put in charge of wrapping all the Christmas presents. She folded some of the garments wrong and the customers called the store to complain that the gifts came out wrinkled. On Christmas Eve Shannon's father sent her out with paper and ribbon to the homes of all their customers with instructions to wrap the presents properly. On another occasion her personal service backfired, she ordered a pair of mother and daughter look-alike skirts with their names on them. The mother decided they were too expensive but later found the daughter's skirt at the Give-Away Sale, and bought it for $4. It all boils down to what Millie McAdam, the buyer for sportswear and a fixture at the store since 1945 calls "the pleasure of the purchase”. Millie worked hand-in-glove with Mrs. Murphy for years. One of her biggest responsibilities is running the style show Murphy's sponsors each year to raise scholarship fund money for St. Paul Academy and Summit School. As the high school girls come in to try on the clothes they will model in the show, Millie puts them all at ease. "Where are you going to college?" she asks, "Or do you plan to go?” Her question is raised out of genuine curiosity, and the girls sense it. In fact, her interest in people, as well as her very refined fashion sense has earned her a very loyal clientele, "When our daughter was married I knew there was one person in the whole world I wanted to help me, no matter what the cost,” says one customer, “And that the was Millie.” The daughter is married now living in England. “When she comes home the first place she heads is Murphy's,” says her mother. In fact, each of the saleswomen has her own following of customers, and it's something they take very seriously. They keep an eye peeled for new merchandise that would compliment a certain customer's wardrobe and always remember who favors which designer. They also become counselors of a sort, much like the neighborhood bartender. “You can help by being a good listener,” Says Pauline. “But you never discuss a customer's problems with anyone else. Not even the other girls.” The customers respond to the T.L.C. by sending pictures of their most important events. Wedding photos from families like the Pillsbury's and the Ordway's grace the store's bridal dressing rooms. For a while Shannon considered taking the Murphy philosophy to Nicollet Mall. (She also has a store in Highland Village.) But she couldn't reach an agreement with the landlord and dropped the idea. Now she's glad. “I don't think we need another downtown store,” she says. And besides, as Arnold Bockstruck who owns the jewelry store across the street says, Murphy's already draws more people from Minneapolis than any other St. Paul store. Says Bockstruck, "It's something Minneapolis doesn't have”. Ten years ago Shannon Murphy married John Pulver, a handsome vice president with Northwestern National Bank in St. Paul an event for which Mrs. Murphy waited many years - once told her hair dresser to use half a capsule of bluing on her hair for Shannon's wedding and save the other half for her funeral. It was a small wedding and Shannon wore her mother's wedding gown as she exchanged vows in the screened garden off her parent's living room on Kenwood Parkway. Even after Shannon and John moved into a little gingerbread house complete with a stairway behind a bookcase, she continued to have breakfast most mornings with her parents. John Pulver obviously enjoys Murphy heritage and his man among all the ruffly girls One day after he had met Cary Grant at a Faberge board of directors meeting John strode into the store and offered his hand to anyone who wanted to touch the hand that touched Cary Grant. He and the Murphys got along famously and he often escorted Mrs. Murphy wherever to go. Mrs. Murphy sometime called him up in the middle of the day and asked him to stop by the store with something. He did it gladly. And even today he often escorts a bevy of women to various functions. Seven years after they were married Shannon gave birth to a little girl and named her Posh, after a line of clothes the store carries. The name meant the ultimate in fashionability, and Posh certainly had it. Early on her wardrobe included a Dior hat and dress, a Cardin playsuit and a Gucci bib. A year and a half along came another girl, Zoe. The name is. "Greek for 'life,' " says Shannon. “ We had no idea how lively she would be." Shannon also has three stepchildren, Catharine, 23, Celia, 22, and Laird, 17. Although John and Shannon loved their gingerbread house they found it a little too cozy for their sudden family. After Mrs. Murphy passed away they moved into the house on Kenwood Parkway. When Mrs. Murphy was the lady of that house it had been a Victorian museum with delicate antiques and mementos everywhere. Shannon, however, redid everything. "Whether it's the house or the store, I put my own personality in it," she says. "I wanted a whole new look-a mixture of the modern and the Victorian." Today the huge living room is a deep forest green with grey needlepoint carpeting. The draperies are a cheetah print on coarse white linen. To one side sits a black glazed chintz sofa. Two neo-classic chairs with orange diaper pattern upholstery sit to either side. Cove lighting throws an interesting shadow on the blackamoor holding a wall sconce. The walnut paneled library, with its emerald carpeting has drapes and furniture done with large yellow cabbage roses set against an emerald background. Scattered about are matching pillows. And here and there are delicate mementoes, a fragile fan, a painted egg that tempt almost beyond endurance Zoe's urge to finger them all. Shannon and John also added a bedroom and a bath done in fire engine red. The velvet carpeting is set off by bright re vinyl wallpaper with flowers. There's a bay window with white draperies and the twin beds have antique white crocheted canopies.. The Pulver girls are being raised in the finest tradition of Frank Murphy. Careful to wear their white gloves and the fines party dresses, they attended their first tea dance this summer. On the Fourth of July they were out at the Somerset Country Club wearing little lacey sundresses with matching bonnet. Every Friday afternoon Nanny Ruth drops the girls off at the store before she heads home for the weekend. The girls flirt with the customers and entertain everyone by trying on hats. “It's important that the girls be down at the store the way I was,” says Shannon. “They'll probably have to do as I did, work summers in the basement, and check in stock.” And no doubt succeed Shannon as proprietress. As the head and the backbone of Frank Murphy's, Shannon must always be well dressed, and it's a challenge she accepts with glee. When she plans a buying trip to New York she usually tries to consider her own wardrobe as well. And then, she says, once she gets there she falls in love with much more than she needs. So she stocks the store with all the outfits she loves, and whatever doesn't sell is hers. “We have the best selection in size in four in town,” she says. “The cocktail dress and the suit area are more important this year than mixed separates,” she says. Ultra-suede is the perfect fabric for this season. And I always wear white gloves or have a pair in my purse. I think it looks more finished and ladylike.” While Shannon has always been the perfect lady, she never let it get in the way when she and her father would sneak off to the racetrack. Today she carries his penchant for horse racing with her. People sometimes think it odd when she heads for Hialeah. “They ask me if it is lonely spending the day at the track by myself.” She says “of course not. I know everyone there. I just talk with the old regulars.” “Shannon knows the horses,” says John. “She knows the stakes, studies the forms, follows the jockeys - always bets on a grey horse and always wins.” One wall at the top of the stairs in the Pulver home is devoted to pictures of winning horses. “Some day I'll own a racehorse,” says Shannon. “Hopefully a grey one.” When se's not at the track or with the girls, she plays golf - “very poorly” she says - or shares John's love for detective stories. She can sit in the sun all day long and read tales like “The Case of the Blood-Stained Tea Cozy”. Or they'll head up to the Brule river for a weekend or off to new York to visit one of her designer friends. One Sunday this summer she had to catch as early flight to make a party at Pauline Trigere's country house and then another gathering Francois and Oscar de la Renta were having. The designers she has known are certainly and interesting lot. “Some are so impossible that it's embarrassing to be in the showroom with them,” she says. “They wouldn't change a button they think they're so correct.” But others are just dolls. “Bill Blass, de la Renta, Mr. John, they couldn't be nicer,” she says. The parties they throw are talked about for years. Shannon remembers one very elegant dinner party at Pauline Trigere's home. When everyone was through eating she brought out a top hat and cane and did a little soft shoe. Shannon has returned Trigere's favors by entertaining her son, Jean Paul Radley, with some typical Upper Midwest jaunts, like tubing on the Apple River, and a visit to the Minnesota State Fair. Shannon's friendship with the designers has paid off in many ways. Jay Anderson, owner of Posh, created the line's first maternity dress for Shannon to wear to the Flamingo Ball at Hialeah. And one time, a few years ago, some of the designers got together and threw a surprise birthday party for her while she was in Paris. It all sounds very glamorous, and Shannon is the first to agree it is. Had she chosen to stay on as fashion editor at Glamour the year after she was graduated from college her life would have been even more exciting, more frenetic. But she chose to leave New York City for St. Paul because the glamour was too much tinsel and not enough substance. "It's hard in New York to be realistic,” she says. “There you real think your life is glamorous. As a single girl you're never home for dinner, you're out nightclubbing every night, there are parties, and you're running around going off to photographer's studios. And at the time, I loved it. Of course, just out of college you're a little lightheaded anyway. “You really get to thinking you're overly important. Then all of a sudden you think you're not taking any time for any values, or even stopping to think about values. You're just having a good time and you never think about making a commitment to anyone, except to your job. You're not contributing to anything. “I'd hate to think of trying to build a home or a family in New York. I need a home and garden and to be able to go out on the porch.” And there was another reason for coming home. Says Shannon. “I'd rather be a big fish in a little pond, than a little fish in a big pond.” So she decided to come home where she could do some volunteer work, get her feet on the ground and work on the business. “And I was fortunate because I could still see all my friends on carefully arranged buying trips.” She says. “I could still run out to South Hampton.” Back in St. Paul, Shannon's twenties were still gay and madcap. She dated many men before John Pulver came along when she was almost 30. They had to wait almost two years for the annulment of his first marriage before they could be married by a priest. Shannon is glad she as a slightly older bride. “When John married me he knew that I wanted a career and I wanted the store,: she says. “it wasn't that we were in college and decided to get married and then I wanted a career and my husband wanted me to stay home. When you marry later you know what you're doing.” An outsider looking at Shannon's life sees a paradox. On the one hand, the store is like something out of a 1952 movie. There's almost a sorority feeling among the people who shop there that brings to mind a girl's boarding school. Shannon understands it is comfortable and nurtures it. And on the other hand, she has the life that many modern women strive for. She's independent, a leader, a decision maker. She's not without influence in the community. She has confidence in her business judgment and her opinion is respected. And yet, she says with conviction, “I'm not a feminist. I like being a lady. I think that if you have something to offer nobody's ever going to stand in your way.” Would she be as successful if she were competing in a man's world, say, running a hardware store or an automobile dealership? “Probably not'” she says. “But I'd have the same attitude. “When you get right down to it. I'm really lucky” she says. 'I love my work, I love everything in the store and I'm crazy about my husband and my children are happy and health.” Luck aside, one get the impression that although Shannon was born into a very comfortable life of family and friends, she is happy primarily because she chooses to be.

1. ↑ 3:00 AM, 3lbs 7 oz
2. ↑ Shannon died at the family's summer home, Bear Dance, on Big bear lake, Webb Lake, WI.
   She had breast cancer of 20 years previously. The cancer had matasicized into her bones which was discovered in the summer of 2003. During this five year period when often in terrible pain, that was controlled for the most part by medication, she never talked of her illness, never complained, and tried to live life to the fullest as was possible.
3. ↑ Buried in her family's plot at Ressurection Cemetary in Mendota Heigthts, MN next to her mother and father. There is also a marker for husband John when he dies.