into the world. First there was Shawn, she would tell the eagerly listening daughter, then there was D’Arcy, then the others were named, and finally she would come to the arrival of Mary Jane, who was continually captivated by her favourite bedtime story.

Although Mary Jane was growing up as the youngest child, she was not the last. Some seven years after Mary Jane had arrived, to Kathleen’s great joy, the last son Joey was born. By this time, Shawn, the eldest,

was leaving home, and the Murphy household resonated once again to the sounds of a baby boy. As the youngest, Joey may have received more attention than the others. Also as the youngest, he was looked after on occasion by his older brothers or sister. As Kathleen would be leaving the house to run an errand or visit a neighbour, she would call out, “Be good to Joey.” Later, when the family would get together as adults, Joey would jokingly remind them again to “Be good to Joey.”

As they grew into their teenage years, Kathleen’s concerns were typical of other mothers of children that age. All the children learned to drive and got their license at age 16. Shawn, Kevin and Danny all had motorbikes, and she worried about the potential of traffic accidents. Stephen once had a near miss crossing the North River Road on his way home from swimming. Kathleen worried until they all came home after being out for the evening. She could tell by the number of sneakers if everyone was there, and never went to sleep until she was sure that everyone was safely home. One of her neighbours once observed that the outside light never went off.

Remarkably, all of the children were healthy. However, when Mary Jane was just three or four months old, she became quite ill with a high fever, and was rushed to the Charlottetown Hospital at 2:00 am. Under the watchful eye of the Murphy’s pediatrician, Dr. Hubert O’Hanley, she finally recovered, only to relapse and be admitted to hospital again. In all, she spent 42 days in hospital, with a deeply concerned mother usually

by her bedside. A special bond developed between mother and daughter; today, Mary Jane reciprocates the special care and attention she received

as a child.

116 KATHLEEN MURPHY, MAITRIARC