Kathleen E. Murphy, 86, a retired nurse whose long career included treating children in Chicago and Allied servicemen in World War II London as bombs fell in the neighborhoods around her, died Monday, Jan. 22, of cancer in her Northwest Side home. “She was very courageous–not loud, not bravado–and she had a great sense of humor,” said her son Kevin. “Nothing kept her down.” Mrs. Murphy once hitchhiked to Scotland in the nose of an Allied bomber. The former Kathleen O’Connor was also once a standout track runner in the Chicago Park District league. She was raised on the West Side. Her father, a Chicago police officer, was an immigrant who supported Irish republicanism. She graduated from the old St. Mary’s Catholic School on the West Side in 1932. She spent two years in Arizona with her sisters after high school. After returning from Arizona, she enrolled in the nursing school at St. Joseph Hospital on the North Side. In 1943, she joined fellow nurses from the hospital in signing up for Army nursing positions overseas. She was stationed in England until late 1945. On returning to Chicago, she met John J. Murphy, who was a Chicago policeman and a returning U.S. soldier; they were married in 1947 and had four children. Mrs. Murphy returned to nursing at Shriners’ Hospital for Children in Chicago in the early-1960s. She retired in the late-1970s. Mrs. Murphy had been a president of the Mothers Club at Holy Cross High School in River Grove in the 1960s. For years, she collected clothing for an orphanage run by a priest she knew in rural Chile. Besides her son, she is survived by two daughters, Mary and Kathleen P.; another son, John Jr.; a sister, Mother Patricia O’Connor; and a granddaughter. Visitation will be from 1 to 9 p.m. Thursday in Smith-Corcoran Funeral Home, 6150 N. Cicero Ave., Chicago. Mass will be said at 9:30 a.m. Friday in St. Francis Borgia Catholic Church, 8033 W. Addison St., Chicago.
