decade of the Cold War, when superpowers pointed nuclear weapons at 
     
     one another. 
     
    
   
   
    
     For ordinary Canadians, the 1950s were a chance for a new start. The 
     
     economic challenges of the Depression and the war were past, and they 
     
     looked forward to the future with both promise and customary caution. 
     
     There was a new level of consumer consumption; thrift was discarded as 
     
    

    
     a virtue. The stereotyped image of the family — a home in the suburbs, 
     
    

    
     an all—electric kitchen, a station wagon in the driveway, children playing 
     
     contentedly while their mother prepared supper for the dad coming home 
     
     from work — became deeply ingrained in the Canadian psyche. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Despite all of that, the seething changes which took place in Canada and 
     
     throughout North America during that decade would boil up into the 
     
     social disruptions and mass upheavals of the 1960s. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Kathleen Murphy was in the forefront of these sweeping changes. It 
     
    

    
     is a tribute to her talents and independent spirit that she moved into 
     
    

    
     a science—based job with the National Film Board in Ottawa. Upon 
     
     marriage, she settled in Halifax as a newly—married woman looking 
     
     forward to providing a home for her family, just as hundreds of thousands 
     
     of other women her age were doing. Although she would continue to be 
     
     interested in, and involved with, events happening in the world around 
     
     her, the home became the focus of her energies and ambitions. It was a 
     
     job at which she would come to excel. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Kathleen and Bill settled into married life in Halifax. They decorated 
     
     their new home, socialized with friends and with others from the fisheries 
     
     department and kept in touch with their relatives in Prince Edward 
     
     Island. Two friends of Kathleen’s from university, Lorraine McNeeley 
     
    

    
     and Marie Kelly, were also living in Halifax, and they would often 
     
    

    
     get together to play bridge. They also kept in close touch with other 
     
     Islanders who had moved to the Halifax area. A friend, Moon Mullins, 
     
     was building a house in Dartmouth, and Kathleen and Bill went over 
     
     occasionally to help out with the construction. 
     
    
   
   
    
     94 KATHLEEN MURPHY, MAITRIARC