Longtime Resident Fondly Remembers Days As Paperboy January 9, 1994 By Jovida Fletcher of The Sentinel Staff KISSIMMEE — Walter Murphy was 10 years old when he landed his first job. It didnt take long for him to figure out a better way to do it. As a paperboy for Tress News in Kissimmee, his job was to jump off the running board of Dutch Tress Model-T and run the papers up to each customers porch. I finally got tired of running and told Mr. Tress if he would get me some rubberbands, I would roll the papers and throw them from the car to the porches, said the 78-year-old Murphy. Tress provided his young employee with the rubberbands, and Murphy, knowing he could hit the porches, began to strengthen his pitching arm. He made $1 a week to boot. Murphy was 8 years old when his family moved to Kissimmee in the early 1920s. It was during the Florida boom, and everything was hustling a little bit. Kissimmee was a cow town because cattle still grazed on Broadway, he said. The family lived on Main Street, a narrow brick road with towering oaks. In the summer, the young Murphy worked for Postal Telegraph, which was in the Tress building on Broadway. Blance Lancaster ran it, and Murphy was kept busy delivering telegrams to folks in Kissimmee. In high school he was on the football, baseball and basketball teams. He graduated in 1934. The Murphys came from Texas by way of Lake Wales to Kissimmee, said Gwen Murphy, his wife of 51 years. His parents, Florence and Allie Murphy, had nine children, including Earl, Hilma, Dudley, Walter, Ernest P. Kayo, John and Deanie. The two younger children, Frances Ann and Dan, were born in Kissimmee. Walter Murphys father was a turpentine inspector for a company in Lake Wales. He traveled throughout the state and into Georgia inspecting turpentine stills, sometimes being away from home for weeks at a time. But Kissimmee was his home base. All nine children attended Osceola County schools. Some graduated from Osceola High School, while others from Pensacola High School, where the Murphys moved after World War II. Walter Murphys brother Kayo, a former Osceola County sheriff, graduated from St. Leo Prepartory School in Dade City. Gwen Murphy said the children were raised in a strict Catholic environment. Each had a duty to work and an appreciation for their country. All of the children served in World War II except Dan, who was too young. After Walter Murphy graduated from high school, he continued to play baseball on town teams and did some pitching in the Georgia-Florida League and the Dixie Amature League in Alabama. His paper-throwing days paid off when he was asked to pitch in some of the practice games for the Baltimore Orioles professional baseball team when they trained in Kissimmee in 1935. He hurt his pitching arm, ending that potential career. When he went to work full time for Tress, Murphy had a couple of newspaper routes and delivered the Evening Reporter Star and the Tampa Morning Tribune. In 1942 he joined the Army Air Corps, but before he left the states for the war, he and Gwen were married in a sudden ceremony. Gwen Murphy remembers that as if it were yesterday. I was washing dishes after lunch one day, and I told Mama that Walter and I were going to be married that afternoon, she said. Mama said, Oh, you are? That was all there was to it. We didnt need a blood test then, so we went down and got our marriage license. Gwen Murphy said there were just two florists in Kissimmee then, Irma Holtzman and Jean Caldwell. Both ran their businesses out of their homes.Walter Murphy picked up a bouquet of roses for his bride-to-be from the Holtzman Florist, and he and Gwen headed for the Rev. Thomas Huberts home on Church Street. I was wearing a white dress that I already had, and he was in his uniform. Dr. Hubert was the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Kissimmee and his wife and the other florist, Jean Caldwell, were our witnesses. For our honeymoon we went to Lakeland and spent the night at the Polk Hotel and came home the next day. While in the military, Murphy served in the South Pacific. After four years in the service, he returned to Kissimmee and went to work at the post office. Gwen and Walter Murphy have one son. Ken Murphy and his wife, Roberta, live in Brandon and have two children, Larry and Kendrick. Although the Murphy family was one of the largest in the county in days gone by, only four of the original Murphy children are still living: Walter, Kayo, Frances Ann and Dan. In November last year, 65 decendants gathered for a Murphy family reunion at East Lake Park near Narcoossee. It marked the third time for the event, which previously was at Walter and Gwen Murphys Lake Cecile home. Gwen Murphy retired after teaching school for 33 years, and Walter retired from the post office after 26 years. Today, Walter Murphy keeps busy working around their home. When they moved there, he said, he might encounter two cars when he traveled to town on what is now the main corridor from Kissimmee to Walt Disney World. When they moved into their home 39 years ago, it was considered out in the country and somewhat secluded, so much so that local boys often went skinny-dipping near the old rickety dock that extended into the lake. We lived here for two years with no drapes or curtains in the house, and the road in front was dirt, Gwen Murphy said. And the white sandy beach was the perfect spot to hold socials for family and friends, she said.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 11:08:00 +0000