Cover photo for Gilbert Lafayette Murray, Jr.'s Obituary
Gilbert Lafayette Murray, Jr. Profile Photo

Gilbert Lafayette Murray, Jr.

d. January 11, 2015

Gilbert Lafayette Murray, Jr.

“Even such is time, which takes in trust Our youth, our joys, and all we have…..” Gilbert Lafayette Murray Jr., retired Biloxi businessman, was born 5 August, 1929 in Monroe, LA to Gilbert L., Sr. and Lucy Emma Miller Murray of NE TX, and went to find his beloved Mom on 11 January, 2015 at the age of 85. His Dad was a pipeline engineer who lost his shirt in the market in 1929 and in 1936, when Standard Oil stopped laying pipe, took the family to live on the Texas farm he’d won in a poker game. Gil always said that they’d have starved to death if the sharecroppers hadn’t taken pity on the city fools and taught such rudiments as how to milk a cow. In 1939, with the economy improving, Standard Oil rehired his Dad, but his schooling was interrupted as his parents had to move wherever pipe was being laid. His mother wanted to stay in one place, and in 1940 his father abandoned the family. Gil grew up at Tom Bean and Sherman, TX, where his mother had kin, and became an Eagle Scout. His Mom remarried to Leonard Longland and moved to Covington, KY. There, Gil graduated from Holmes High, eloped with his high school sweetheart, and succumbed to a recruiting poster: “Join the Navy to see the World!” The Navy taught him electronics and radar, but stationed him at Millington, TN, where signs in windows read, “Dogs and Sailors Keep Out.” His young wife, the daughter of a Cincinnati physician, did not take kindly to poverty or his absences aboard ship, and found another love. The couple reconciled, but the marriage foundered. When Congress cut military pay and permitted those suffering financial hardship to get out, he was discharged with 22 months service – unaware that if he’d served just two additional months he could never have been drafted into any future war. Gil returned to Cincinnati, divorced his wife, enrolled at U.C. to study aeronautical engineering, and worked as a designer at Alexander Engineering. But the Korean War was heating up and rather than be drafted into the infantry, he joined the Air Force. He went from a radar site in Morocco to the 406th Comm Squadron at Manston, England, where he met and married the love of his life, Sonia Joy Bennett. Discharged in December 1956 and back in Cincinnati, he got his old job back, his wife found employment as a secretary, and he pre-enrolled at U.C. But then he was contacted by a lying Air Force recruiter: Sign up for six years and complete your degree at Air University, tuition and housing all paid. He suckered in. His wife has always hoped that that recruiter is rotting in Hell. At Keesler AFB in 1957 pay was woefully inadequate, and military wives could not find secretarial work as employers knew they’d vanish when husbands shipped out. The couple lived in poverty, and scrimped to continue their education at the Ole Miss extension then on the coast. Gil was sent to Air University – but as Keesler was a training base and needed teachers, to study educational techniques, not engineering. He became a Master Instructor, taught radar and electronics, and was sent to the Burroughs factory school to study computers. With rental property and a sewing and alterations business, Gil and Sonia bootstrapped out of poverty. Their sons were born in 1960 and ’61. In 1964, just after they purchased Airway Apartments and Trailer Court, the complex Sonia managed, Gil was sent to a radar site at Giebelstadt in Germany. Again the Murrays were handed lemons and made lemonade, using annual leave for shoestring travel, camping from Scandinavia to Greece, Turkey, Spain, and Morocco. Back at Keesler in 1967, Gil taught computers at Bryan Hall while the couple increased their real estate holdings. A skilled photographer, he took the macros to illustrate Sonia’s books on mollusks. Vacations were spent in courthouses and archives from Texas to Virginia, tracing pioneering ancestors; their Murray-Davidson-Turner research is available at LDS Libraries. A daughter was born in 1970, and in 1971 Gil retired as a Master Sergeant to expand the business. His Murray Bus Service took shipyard workers to Litton during the gas crunch of ’74. The bulk of the property was sold in ’84, and the remainder divested until by ’96 the couple were fully retired and free to spend time traveling around the world. Gil is survived by his wife of 59 years, Sonia Bennett Murray, his lifelong partner and best friend; children, Patricia Jeanne Leibold, Gilbert L. “Mark” (Lisa) Murray, III, Keith David Murray, and Kathryn Sonia Murray Young; stepson, Michael Longland; grandchildren, Ryan Leibold, Rachel (Michael) Wooten, Zachary Wade Murray and Nicholas Kyle Murray; great-grandsons, Sawyer Prentiss Wooten and Hudson Henry Wooten; and his stepsister, Verda Faye Murray (Walter) Gates. Gil is one of the good guys, and will be forever missed. Visitation will be on Friday, January 16, 2015 from 6:00 pm until 8:00 pm with a 10:00 am funeral service on Saturday, January 17, 2015, all at the Howard Avenue Chapel of Bradford-O’Keefe Funeral Home. Interment will follow at Southern Memorial Park.
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Past Services

Visitation

Friday, January 16, 2015

6:00 - 8:00 pm

Bradford-O'Keefe Funeral Home - Gulfport

59 Wayside Rd, Stuart, VA 24171

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Service

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Starts at 10:00 am

Bradford-O'Keefe Funeral Home - Gulfport

59 Wayside Rd, Stuart, VA 24171

Enter your phone number above to have directions sent via text. Standard text messaging rates apply.

Cemetery

Bradford-O'Keefe Funeral Home - Gulfport

59 Wayside Rd, Stuart, VA 24171

Enter your phone number above to have directions sent via text. Standard text messaging rates apply.

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