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Thursday, July 17, 2025

Pearl Grace Murray...An 'extraordinary' lady turns 100

by

Guardian Media
1380 days ago
20211010
Pearl Grace Murray

Pearl Grace Murray

Pearl Grace Mur­ray cel­e­brat­ed her 100th birth­day on Wednes­day. An ex­tra­or­di­nary mile­stone in the ex­tra­or­di­nary life of an ex­tra­or­di­nary la­dy!

The daugh­ter of Canon Ken­rick Bha­gan and his wife, Ethel, the sec­ond of four chil­dren, Mur­ray grew up in the rec­to­ry at Tacarigua where her fa­ther was the priest at St Mary’s An­gli­can Church. In this en­vi­ron­ment, she de­vel­oped her strong Chris­t­ian faith and fam­i­ly val­ues which have re­mained an in­te­gral part of her life.

Mur­ray still rev­els in the sto­ries of her dai­ly train jour­neys and her com­pan­ions in­to Port-of-Spain and then the walk from the Rail­way Sta­tion (now, City Gate) to their re­spec­tive schools (hers was Bish­op Anstey High School). There were many last­ing friend­ships de­vel­oped on those trips over the years. She al­so spent much time at the near­by Tacarigua Or­phan Home (now St Mary’s Chil­dren’s Home), help­ing the chil­dren there with their read­ing, writ­ing and arith­metic, and shar­ing books and toys with them. This Home was al­so one of her fa­ther’s spe­cial projects and she be­came in­te­gral to the chil­dren and the work of the in­sti­tu­tion.

Pearl Grace Murray and her husband, Lance, in earlier times.

Pearl Grace Murray and her husband, Lance, in earlier times.

From an ear­ly age, she showed her tal­ent as a pi­anist. So much so that she was the as­sis­tant or­gan­ist at St Mary’s Church from the ten­der age of nine, be­fore be­com­ing the se­nior or­gan­ist at age 12. She de­vel­oped in­to a high­ly ac­com­plished clas­si­cal pi­anist and con­tin­ued play­ing flu­ent­ly in­to her ear­ly nineties. Christ­mas was al­ways spe­cial when she gath­ered her chil­dren/grand­chil­dren/great grands around her pi­ano to sing her favourite car­ols.

Grow­ing up in Tacarigua shaped much of her life: the Mur­ray fam­i­ly lived next door and it was no sur­prise that she mar­ried Lance Mur­ray, her best friend from their ear­ly years. Their love of Tacarigua (and grow­ing up in that com­mu­ni­ty) nev­er di­min­ished as demon­strat­ed by the fact that many of their “fam­i­ly out­ings” con­sist­ed of pic­nics in the Or­ange Grove Sa­van­nah (now Trinci­ty). Short in stature–Mur­ray will ve­he­ment­ly in­sist that she is “5’ tall, not 4’11”–she demon­strates for­mi­da­ble strength and has en­sured that the fam­i­ly de­vel­oped all her qual­i­ties of love, hon­esty, in­tegri­ty and faith.

Mur­ray’s mar­riage to Lance, which last­ed just two weeks short of 70 years when he died at age 91, stands as a shin­ing ex­am­ple of love and de­vo­tion. Nat­u­ral­ly, Mur­ray’s for­ti­tude pro­vid­ed great sup­port and in­spi­ra­tion to Lance and the whole fam­i­ly. She was tru­ly blessed in that she has nev­er suf­fered any med­ical ail­ments and even now en­joys good health, and can read the news­pa­pers with­out her spec­ta­cles! Mur­ray con­tin­ues to be a source of in­spi­ra­tion to her large ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly, and to her neigh­bours and the staff of the apart­ment build­ing where she re­sides.

Her proud fam­i­ly–sev­en chil­dren: Deryck (Mau­reen), Karen (Clive), Ronald (Deb­bie), Clif­ford (Lyn), Dawn (Frank), Patrice (Boul­dou) and Solange (Paul); to­geth­er with her 15 grand­chil­dren and 11 great-grand­chil­dren–have found ap­pro­pri­ate ways to cel­e­brate this mo­men­tous oc­ca­sion with­in the re­stric­tions of the pan­dem­ic, even though Mur­ray is ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed.

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