Eulogy for Dale Murphy
by Jeffery Robbins

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Today we gathered to praise Dale’s life. Throughout his life, Dale touched so many people that it would take hours to touch all the things he did that deserved praise during his life. In the early years of his life, he worked on the family farm with his Dad, Mom, brothers and sisters. He often talked of the work on the farm and how is brothers and he would make time to have fun. One story Dale enjoyed telling was how his Dad enjoyed telling his brother Robert that those cigarettes would be just as good in the house as they are in the outhouse. As brothers and sisters do, they played tricks on each other. When Dale would go out on dates, his sister Mary would put pots and pans by the door so those in the house would hear him come home. Mary knew Dale would know who the culprit was so she would hide under the bed so he would not find her. As we all know Dale, this was probably payback on tricks that Dale pulled on Mary. Dale did have his mischievous side, at a family reunion at Gull Lake many years ago Dale decided to chivaree a newlywed couple. He and his brothers snuck to the couple’s cabin and banged pots and pans. Dale scratched on the window and yelled in a deep voice, “This is the Bear!” That is how Dale got his nickname “The Bear”.

The boys enjoyed having a good time and in doing this they would get to know other boys in the area that also liked to have fun. There was one exception to this according to Dale’s Mom, Edna. She knew that if Dale went out with a boy named Delbert Robbins, he would not get into trouble because Delbert “was a good boy”. Dale state many times if Mom only knew the truth that Delbert caused his fare share of trouble. A you know, Delbert was my Dad and that was how the Murphy-Robins story started that we will talk more on later.

As the boys got older they grew up and went off to the service. That was always troubling times for the family. Mary remember how Grandma and her watched Dale drive out of the driveway leaving to serve in the Air Force and thought that they would never see him again.

Well, Dale did return, met Marilyn, took on farming, and raised 8 kids. Dale made sure the kids were part of the farm operation. The whole family helped chase cows, Dale would stop at several points and say (you) and (you) get out here, and you were really in trouble if the cows got by you. The kids remembered that whenever he needed to run he grabbed his pliers pocket so his pliers would not fall out. The kids assumed that he lost a lot of pliers before he got into this habit. One other family bonding activity on the farm was picking rock. Dale would sit on the tractor and point out rocks the kids would miss. Tony would ask his Dad if he was ever going to get a rock picker and Dale would say ‘yes, you are the rock picker’.

Living on the farm with eight kids also had its moments. To get the boys up in the mornings he would holler up the stairs. The second time he would holler would ask, “Are you up yet?” The boys would answer ‘yep’. He would then say, “Oh you are not!” and throw a shoe upstairs.

One time the kids thought they needed a campfire to go with their treehouse next to a haystack, but they thought they could burn the haystack down so they started a big log on fire. Their Dad was not very happy with his kids.

Tom remembered how the kids would also build forts with straw bales in the haymow and Dad would get mad in the spring when he found all of the broken bales.

The kids also had times when they did not tell their Dad the real story, they were not supposed to play with an old cornpicker, but they did. One time Tam smashed her finger on the cornpicker. To avoid getting trouble with her Dad she said she shut it in the sheep shed door. Tim hit a culvert and broke the tie rod on the car. He went home and welded it together and it held until the car was junked. Tim told his Dad about it years later and Dale could not believe it held. When these events occurred Dale had his way of expressing how he felt. One common phrase he used when he was mad was, “You do not have the sense God would give a sick goose.” Or, if Dale got surprised he would say, “I’ll be go to hell”.

Tam remembered when Toney went to the prom and got himself in trouble and had to go home. Dale called Tam and told her she needed to go to the school and get your because if I go I might kill him. Todd remembered that if Dad did have to chew out one of the kids, after he was done he never brought it up again.

Dale also had his way for handling certain moments. Troy recalls that he was a good dad, but sometimes he thought we were independent enough to handle things on our own. When Troy was headed to Rochester for surgery, Marilyn thought Dale and her should go along. Troy overheard Dale in the background saying, “Ah, he’ll be all right.” Tracy recalls her Dad’s sensitivity for dogs, in once case Bart the dog had to be put down. Dale said “he’s just a dog, when you get sick you just shoot ‘em”.

The kids also remembered that their Dad was always happy in the morning and to irritate the kids he would sit and ask them stupid questions. Tess was impressed when Dad did the things like coming downstairs from the upstairs bathroom in just a towel. They also remembered that he was always whistling or humming a tune and Troy remembered that even occurred on the day he went into the hospital.

The Robbins family enjoyed sharing these experiences through the friendship of Delbert and Dale. That friendship passed through to their wives Marilyn and Joanne. As kids we played together while our parents would get together on a Saturday night. We would play games like hide and seek, build forts, and do things kids would do. I even remember one game of hide and seek where Todd curled himself up in our dryer.

One night, as the Murphy’s were leaving our house to go home, Dale went out and started the car to warm it up. As the Murphy’s were getting their coats on, Marilyn noticed the car started to back out of the driveway with no one in it. Marilyn hollered to Dale, “My God Dale, there goes the car!” In all the years I have known Dale I cannot remember a time when I seen him move so fast. My mom, Joanne, also remembers that same car had a hole in the floorboard on the back seat. One cold night on the way to the Knotty Pine, Marilyn and Mom got so cold they jumped into the front seat with Dale and Dad.

Living on the farm east of White also brought several other memories. Dale made it a point to never lock his doors in case someone would need to come in because of an emergency. One story he told about a wintery night he came home to a house full of people that decided to wait out a storm instead of trying to drive through the valley to the east of the house, so they made themselves at home in the Murphy house.

As his family grew up, the boys took over the farm operation and Dale and Marilyn built the house in White. The kids had kids and Dale and Marilyn became Grandma and Grandpa. They enjoyed the grand kids and always had the door open to them for sick days and a place to go after practice. When the grandkids stopped Dale would greet them with hugs, give them advice, and share his view of the world. One event he enjoyed was having the grandkids stop by the house with their dates on prom night for pictures. Dale always had a big smile on his face when they would stop and was so impressed on how well the kids cleaned up.

Besides his love for his family, Dale had several other interests. He took pride in the house in White and worked hard to keep up the yard up and checked on his solar lights every night. If Jill Larson was out mowing her yard, Dale was right out there mowing his if he had not done so already. Dale also had a love for his community of White. He was an active member in the community and the surrounding area. Dale estimated that he had over 100 years of community service combined, based on the boards and organizations he participated in as a member.

Dale also liked to travel which he did with Marilyn and after she passed away, he asked my Mom to marry him because he wanted to travel and did not want to do it alone. I will never forget the night that Mom called and said she was bringing a special friend over to the house to meet Kathy and me. Mom walked in and shortly behind her came Dale. We kept looking for the special friend but after a while we figured out it was Dale. Dale and Mom traveled both in the United States and internationally. Over his travels, Dale had visited all 50 states and every continent expect Antarctica.

A late hobby that Dale and Joanne enjoyed was the game of golf and Kathy and I have to take responsibility for getting him interested. During one of Kathy and my evening stops on the way home from work, we were talking about the golf course opening in White. Dale made the comment that he supported the building of the golf course because he thought White needed a golf course, but he would never play the game. I told him that he at least needed to give it a try so we made a gold date. He got some clubs from Russell Larson and away we went, Dale, Mom, Kathy and I. At that time Kathy and I did not know that Dale and Mom would take the interest they did. Gary and Tess remembered that they did  not need to work on some rules like not being able to tee it up in the fairway. Dick and Robert recalled that Joyce Campbell also told him “you can’t do that” and Dale replied who made up that stupid rule and I can if I want to. Dale also had trouble understanding that why you had to count a gimme if someone gave it to you. But even with that, Dale’s passion for the game became an event that started as soon as the snow melted and ended with the first snow in the fall. Dale even grew a little family weekend golf event to the Murphy Gold Tournament.

Dale had interest in several other areas, a lot of these remaining interests came from his kitchen table. Dale’s brothers Dick and Robert said it best, that over the years, Dale and his brothers spent many late night hours over beverages at his kitchen table discussing world situations. None of them were ever solved, but Dale had a way of getting his point across by slamming his fist as hard as he could on the table and letting them know he was in charge. That is when the brothers knew it was time to go to bed. All of use spent time with Dale at that table and that will be a memory that will not be forgotten