Come Reminisce With Me

About the Book

Growing up in Lima, Ohio during the Depression Era was a time of great adventures for Duke Murray. In these affectionate memoirs, Duke (aka. Dr. Emmett Murray, a retired family physician), tells 35 favorite stories from his boyhood years in the Midwest.

After some early mishaps, Duke's entry into grade school opens new worlds of enjoyment. Horace Mann Elementary School and its vast playgrounds receive long and affectionate descriptions. Adventures on his own find Duke up at dawn to watch the Big Top circuses set up, hauling huge ice blocks while working at Lima Ice and Coal, training the family beagle to hunt and to win show prizes, and taking X-rays of steel castings at a tank plant. Duke helps an eccentric neighbor go after night crawlers, and he faces death and family alcoholism in a school friend's life.

The book conveys the atmosphere of daily life in the 1930s, and Murray's contemporaries will find many a brand name and Age of Radio show to identify with. But Duke Murray goes beyond these to describe also the sounds, the tastes and the smells of the time. "Saturday night in Lima, 1930s Style" is a golden example of his talent for evoking atmosphere.

Murray communicates a special fascination with life on the farm and with the industry and humor of farming people. He describes the big meals, the homemade ice cream and grapes from the arbor. But his fondest memories are of making hay, raising chickens, cattle and hogs, and watching his aunts put up canned food stores for company in the days before modern refrigeration.

The book goes on to describe the dawning realization by America of the inevitability of World War II, and the rather frightening experiences of enlistment and service by all the three Murray sons in the U.S. Army. The book's chronology ends with Duke Murray in medical school, entertaining himself by winning a tall tale radio contest in Columbus, and singing in barbershop quartets with his dissecting partners over their cadaver.

These tales will be especially enjoyed by fans of Lima and Allen County, who will respond with glee to references such as the Lima Rescue Mission and the Kewpee Hamburger Restaurant. However, the stories are more than local memoirs in that they evoke the 1930s overall, and depict the universal struggles of a young person learning to fill his shoes in America.

The book includes a map of Duke's old neighborhood, his immediate family tree, an appreciation of his storytelling history, and contact information. Come Reminisce with Me sounds a note of optimism with its attitude that life presents experiences from which lessons may often be derived. Dr. Murray shows that happiness and laughter can happen anywhere, and that life may not be perfect, but that it still offers a lot to enjoy, appreciate and be grateful for at every turn.

Book Review in the LIMA NEWSwww.limanews.com/story.php?IDnum=204

About the Author

Dr. Emmett Murray, known as Duke to friends and family, practiced family medicine in Lima, Ohio from 1953 till 1995, when he retired. He and his wife, Polly, then moved to Ft. Myers, Florida to the Woodlands, a residential area in the Shell Point Village retirement community.

He was born at home on Hazel Avenue in Lima in 1925 to Faye and Emmett Murray, the youngest of four children. His father was a construction foreman and carpenter and his mother, a former candy-maker and an excellent cook, was full-time at home. Both had been raised on farms and enjoyed Duke's pursuit of adventure as he helped with chores on his aunt and uncle's farm.

Duke Murray developed an interest in hunting and sporting dogs and found success in dog shows with his prize beagle, Ace. He worked at many jobs while growing up and thought he would continue working after high school. However his brother, Marvin, and his neighbor, Ruth Creviston, insisted that he attend college. Because of his experiences on the farm and with his dogs, he decided to become a veterinarian.

This plan was disrupted when, after less than a year in college as an ROTC freshman, he was called into active military duty in 1944. He was trained by the Army as an X-ray technician and then sent to France where he worked in several Army hospitals during his two-and-a-half-year tour of duty. During this time, a chance remark by an Army doctor changed his destiny. The doctor, hearing about Duke's plans for vet school, said, "Why don't you try medicine?" and told him he thought he'd be good at it. After the war, Duke Murray changed his Ohio State major to pre-med, and the die was cast.

During medical school he continued to employ his X-ray skills as a part-time technician, and he met someone else on the job who had been taught to take X-rays, a medical secretary from Columbus named Pauline List. They share a sense of humor, among many other things, and in 1949 were married in a double-ceremony with Pauline's twin sister, Kathleen, who married Daniel Susil. Duke and Polly had their first son, Scott, in 1952, who later also completed pre-med at Ohio State and went on not only to become a physician, but also to marry one (Dr. Nancy Winters) as well.

After Duke's graduation in Columbus, he and Polly moved to his home town of Lima and he completed his internship at St. Rita's hospital. The couple had three more children: Robin (Robb), Cynthia Ann (Cindy) and Betsy. Dr. Murray began his office practice with Drs. Bill Grannis and Bill Foxx, then added Ken Burns, and later practiced in partnership with Dr. Gene Wright. To supplement his office practice, Dr. Murray worked part time at BLH (formerly the Lima Locomotive Works) as the plant doctor from 1954-1979 (25 years) and later continued his involvement with occupational medicine in helping Dr. A. C. Reed to set up a plant clinic at Crown Control in New Bremen, Ohio in the early 1990s.

Dr. and Mrs. Murray were supporters of many Lima cultural and professional organizations such as the Cotillion Club, and Lima Symphony, Encore Theatre, the Lima Elks Lodge, and the Auxiliary of the Lima Medical Academy. Pauline (Polly) was active in the Lotus Club, the League of Women Voters, and the Red Cross. Dr. Murray served for a time on the Consistory of Calvary UCC, and he was elected to the Lima City Board of Education in 1962 and served as President from 1965-1970. He was Chief of Staff at Lima Memorial Hospital for a two-year term during the 1980s.

Dr. Murray's boyhood hobbies of hunting and dog shows were replaced by fishing, handball, tennis and, much later, gardening. He has remained an inveterate storyteller, humorist, and something of a mimic as well. Both Dr. and Mrs. Murray are devoted readers, and each reads aloud to the other quite often. In Ft. Myers, they enjoy attending the Southwest Florida Symphony programs and numerous other plays and shows. They are quite active in the Current Affairs discussion group at Shell Point, and both attend meetings at the Tamiami Tale Tellers (TTT) Club, the weekly coffee hour at the Woodlands, services at the Village Church and, of course, their Memoirs class.