MAUREEN MARGARET MURPHY
November 16, 1950 - December 11, 2023
Today, our hearts are broken as we mourn
the loss of our beloved sister Maureen.
Her bright light and huge heart left us
far too soon, but we will always remember
her wit, warmth, love and generosity.
Maureen passed on December 11, 2023 of
complications from COPD.
Maureen was predeceased by her father Dr.
Claude Murphy, her mother Winnifred
“Peggy” Murphy, her sister Kathleen “Kate”
Murphy (Mike Waldram deceased), and her
husband Gerry Leger. She is survived by
her sister Aileen (Greg), brothers Robert
(Anne) and Paul (Barbara), nephews Sean
(Danielle) and Brady (Sarah), and niece
Brittany, as well as our honorary sister
Lynne Richardson.
Maureen’s first love was music. She was
classically trained for many years and was
usually a finalist at the Manitoba Music
Festival. Maureen and her sisters were
educated at Convent of the Sacred Heart in
Winnipeg, where the Glee Club was an
all-important activity. She still has many
‘sisters’ from the Convent. Opera may have
been her career, had she not discovered
Aretha Franklin. Her first band – Sugar
‘n’ Spice – included her sisters and they
had some success with release of a record
– “The Cruel War”. Music took Maureen all
over Canada and the northern USA, playing
with such bands as Toronto’s “Shooter”,
Winnipeg’s “Zdenka”, “LesQ” and “Crowcuss”
and many others.
Her music career led naturally into
broadcasting – she spent several years
co-hosting a morning radio show with Don
Percy, where her natural wit and sense of
humour shone.
Mo – a family nickname – if she let you
call her Mo, you were special indeed. Mo
had an amazing ability to collect
friendships. She would happily commit her
time and resources to her friends, and
they would happily reciprocate. She was a
very good friend with a soft, forgiving
manner.
As her family aged, she took on the
responsibility of being the point person
for Dad and Mum’s care throughout their
final years. She always welcomed their
friends and visitors and made them part of
her life. She found great purpose and
comfort in her companionship with her
father in his twilight years, and his
ability to live and eventually pass on in
his own home would not have been possible
without her love and support. Her family
thanks her.
We are so grateful for the time, the
laughter and the love we’ve shared with
Maureen. If you wish to communicate with
Maureen’s family, please use this email
address: maureen@mvscs.com. A celebration
of her life will be held in the spring.
“The most wasted of all days is one
without laughter” – E.E. Cummings
Gilbart Funeral Home, Selkirk in care of
arrangements. Tributes:
www.gilbartfuneralhome.com
As
published in Winnipeg Free Press on
December 23, 2023
|
‘GREAT, GREAT, GREAT’
Veteran broadcaster and singer known
for her sense of humour
Maureen Murphy loved to laugh.
The veteran Winnipeg vocalist and
broadcaster was one of those magnetic
people who drew people to her, whether it
was through her quick wit, beautiful
singing voice, the warmth that radiated
from her, or yes, her laugh.
She died in December of complications from
COPD. She was 73.
“She was always lots of fun,” says her
younger sister, Aileen Murphy, via Zoom
from her home in Kamloops, B.C. “She loved
to laugh and joke and just have a party
all the time. She was very witty. She was
a good playmate as a child. The three of
us were together a lot.”
Born on Nov. 16, 1950, Murphy was the
second-oldest of five children born to Dr.
Claude Murphy and Winnifred (Peggy)
Murphy: Kathleen was the eldest; Aileen,
Robert and Paul came after Maureen.
Growing up in St. Boniface and
Crescentwood, the three girls were close
in age and did everything together —
including sing.
They attended Convent of the Sacred Heart,
where they were members of the Glee Club;
Maureen competed at the Manitoba Music
Festival, where she was often a finalist.
“My dad was a trombone player — he played
trombone in the army band. My mother loved
to sing. They were both musical. And my
dad was very interested in getting us into
it.”
So much so that he bought the girls
guitars.
“None of us got that good at it,” Aileen
says with a laugh. “But when we were doing
the little folk singer kind of thing, we
could do the three chords. We’d sing all
the time. We loved Peter, Paul and Mary
and anything we could do harmonies to.”
Those harmonies would provide the sugar in
Sugar N’ Spice (sometimes stylized as
Sugar & Spice), a Winnipeg folk-pop
band that found early success
thanks to a Randy Bachman-written single
Not to Return, released in 1968 and a 1969
cover of Peter, Paul
and Mary’s Cruel War.
 “Kathleen
was dating a fellow named John MacInnes.
He knew we liked to sing and he was a
musician himself,” Aileen recalls.
MacInnes was in a band called the Mongrels
and had teamed up with some of the guys
from the Griffins. “John told them he knew
these three girls and he got us together
and that was pretty much the end of it.”
The Murphy sisters were just teenagers
when the band formed in 1967; Maureen was
16, Kathleen was 17 and Aileen was only
14.
“My parents were not that thrilled —
particularly about me,” Aileen says.
Still, their parents were supportive. In
fact, the girls’ mom chaperoned them on
their first out-of-town gig, which also
happened to be a gig of a lifetime:
opening for the Who in Edmonton on March
2, 1968. The poster described Sugar N’
Spice thus: “A group of three cute girls
and five ugly boys are coming also.”
 After the show, the girls
got an invitation back to the English
rockers’ tour bus.
“I mean, of course we went,” Aileen says
with a laugh. “We chatted with (bassist)
John Entwistle and (drummer) Keith Moon
and they wanted us to come to a party. And
we said, ‘Well, we’ll tell the guys,
they’ll be really pleased!’ And they said,
‘Well, no, don’t bother telling the guys.’
“Anyways, we got off the bus and we didn’t
go to the party.” (“We didn’t realize we
were the party,” Maureen told local music
historian John Einarson in 2011.)
Being in a band with one’s siblings can
make for a complicated dynamic — just look
at the Everly Brothers. Or the Kinks. Or
Oasis. But it worked for the Murphy
sisters because they didn’t just love each
other, they also genuinely liked each
other. Sugar N’ Spice was something else
to bond over.
“When we weren’t practising or performing,
we were getting new outfits or trying new
makeup and stuff like that — lots of false
eyelashes,” Aileen says, wiggling her
fingers in front of her eyes. “That part
of it was fun, too.
“I mean, we were sisters. We had our
spats, you know — like, we all like the
same guy at once. But generally we got
along.”
Sugar N’ Spice were poised to break out in
the U.S. on the strength of their
rendition of Cruel War. But Peter Yarrow
of Peter, Paul and Mary wasn’t properly
credited on the single and threatened to
sue, effectively putting a ceiling on the
band’s upward trajectory.
 After Sugar N’
Spice disbanded in 1973, the Murphy
sisters moved on — to different cities and
different careers, though their rubber
arms could certainly be twisted into
providing backup vocals on other
musicians’ sessions.
“We had to make a deal with each other on
the way to the studio — we are not joining
the band,” Aileen says.
After a stint in Toronto, Maureen moved
back to Winnipeg, where she parlayed her
voice talents into a career in
broadcasting.
“I thought that was a really good fit for
her because she was funny,” Aileen says.
“She was so funny. She was always joking
about something.”
Maureen co-hosted a morning radio show
with Don (the Master of the Morning) Percy
in the 1990s, but she had a soft spot for
her years at CJOB in the 1980s.
“Working at ’OB was just the most fun,”
Maureen told John Einarson in 2011. “My
fondest memories in broadcasting are from
that period.”
Former veteran CJOB traffic reporter Brian
Barkley remembers her as personable and
professional — and, of course, her “great,
great, great sense of humour.”
Barkley had just reconnected with her in
August, a few months before she died,
spending two hours at the Red Top
restaurant, “mostly just laughing and
talking,” he says.
 They planned to
get together more often after that, but
that would be the last time they’d see
each other.
“We had huge fun, but there was also a
moment in there too, gosh, that she put
her hand on my hand and said, ‘You know,
you’ve always been one of my best
friends,’” he says. “It was a very
significant, lovely moment, in the midst
of all the fun. It just meant so much.”
In the early 2000s, Maureen left
broadcasting and moved to Selkirk to take
on the responsibility of caring for her
aging parents — something she was very
willing to do, Aileen says. After the
death of their mother, Maureen remained
with their father until his death in 2020
at the age of 101.
“She made it so that he could stay at
home,” Aileen says. “She cared for him
very tenderly, very gently. The two of
them got along really well.”
Maureen and Aileen also
remained very close. Even though they
lived a few provinces apart, the sisters
would still be sure to watch the Jets game
together, texting each other their own
private play-by-play.
 “We
talked on the phone every day,” Aileen
says. “I went home for Christmas every
year. Now, I know I can’t expect her to
phone me and that’s so sad.”
The loss of such a big personality leaves
a big hole.
“I miss everything about her,” Aileen
says. “She was such a beautiful girl. Her
sense of humour was flabbergasting. She’d
make you roll in the aisles. I miss her
terribly.
“Both of my sisters I miss terribly. But
Maureen, of course, is pretty fresh and
raw. It probably always will be.”
Jen Zoratti
As
published in Winnipeg Free Press
on March 30, 2024
|
All photos supplied by the
Murphy family to the Winnipeg Free
Press |
|
