BY CLARENCE BRUCE FROM THE CHATTANOOGA TIMES

“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that ringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace.”

The folks who live down Lookout Mountain, and around the Mount Olive community, find in these words of Isaiah a text which expresses their feeling about Father John Murphy, of the Redemptorists, who died several days ago in Florida.

Father Murphy, who called himself “an old mountain man” in a Christmas card of several years ago to Mrs. Eugene Fowler, his “coadjutor” in a ministering to her neighbors down the mountain, was stationed at the church of Our Lady of the Mount.

Mrs. Fowler tells this story of the beginning of the acquaintance of the priest with her and her neighbors in the Mount Olive community:

Some years ago, Mrs. Fowler had worked to secure food and clothing for needy families in the community. The problem was a large one for folks not too well blessed with material things in normal times, and she had exhausted every source from which she could expect help—or thought she had.

Someone suggested she go see the priest at the Catholic church on the mountain. Mrs. Fowler didn’t even know a Catholic in those days, much less a priest, and it was with some trepidation she eventually decided to call on Father Murphy.

She was graciously received. She explained her mission, wanted to show her credentials—but Father Murphy pushed the papers aside and got to the point at once. Result, a small flood of food and clothing poured out and Mrs. Fowler saw that they got into the right hands.

But that was only a beginning. In time, the distribution of food and clothing became a regular Sunday afternoon event at the little Mount Olive community church—a memorial itself to another clergyman, the Rev. Bartow McFarland, who is buried in the churchyard.

Later, when Father Murphy’s health failed, the distribution took place up at Our Lady of the Mount.

And then, Father Murphy was transferred.

Before he left, he had expressed the wish to be buried in the cemetery adjoining the church where he had often preached to the mountain folk. So Mrs. Fowler and her husband deeded him a “country-sized” lot in the cemetery, and it had been their fond wish that one day their friend would come back for his last rest with them.

That apparently cannot be. But so fresh in their minds is the memory of Father Murphy, and so touched have they been by news of his death, that they want to do the next best thing—erect a memorial to him on his lot in the mountain graveyard.

A proposed design for Father Murphy’s memorial has been drawn by the Fowlers’ daughter. Miss Vivian Anne Fowler, who has studied art at the University of Chattanooga, and who continues her studies in medical technology at Erlanger Hospital.

Anyone who wishes to have more information about Father Murphy’s memorial project may write Mrs. Fowler at Lookout Mountain, Tenn., Route 1 or find her a mile off Georgia Highway 1576, some seven miles south of the Lookout Mountain Hotel, on the Mount Olive Road. There is a sign along the highway identifying the road.