Story of Hope
Memories of Hope Murphy
"My first theatre experience was at my Grandmommy Murphy's house on Turtle Creek in University Park in Dallas, Texas. She didn't have a lot of money but she did have a great house! It was a two-story house, on a weird pointy lot, across the street from a park.
My grandmother had an attic full of my Mom's and Aunt Pat's party dresses. My first costuming experience was with my sisters. We'd dress up, walk around the block to an adoring audience, run back upstairs, make a costume change, and walk around the block again. Over and over we played.
She had a chest of drawers at the top of the stairs and on each drawer was the name of a grandchild. In gold script. Real gold. And waiting in each drawer was always a treat. A pack of Juicy Fruit gum or a new box of crayons. So each time we got to her house, we would make a beeline for the stairs to find out what was waiting for us.
She served everything in champagne glasses. Orange juice. 7up. Coke. I didn't inherit very much from my Grandmother because we used it all. (All I have are some lovely fruit plates.) She served everything with whipped cream. Post Toasties, cereal, fruit. And it was the real thing with lots of sugar and vanilla.
She had a front door that locked but she never had a key. At that time everyone slept with the windows open so when we arrived to a locked door, my sisters and I would climb in one of the windows and run to open it from the inside. At which point, my Grandmommy Murphy would exclaim how brilliant we were. (We often wondered what she did when we weren't there.)
We went everywhere in taxis. For the sheer experience of it. Later in life my Mom shared with me that my Grandmommy Murphy was a terrible driver, so if we were going somewhere they gave us taxi money.
She hung our Christmas presents on the tree. Coupon books to Furrs Cafeteria, movies, packs of gum.
She was a professional story teller. This was really amazing for a woman of her generation to go school for anything other than finishing school. But she did and she knew over a hundred stories. But not stories we had ever heard before. They were stories like "The Dog With The Green Tail" or "Little Mouse Pie." Have you ever heard of them? Certainly not. They belonged to my grandmother!
But Grandmommy never just told a story. We would take all the mattresses off all the beds downstairs and make one room full of mattresses. (My parents were not there.) Then we would make a tent with all the sheets and then climb inside the tent with those little flash lights like you get at Motts. And that's where she would tell us the story of "The Dog with the Green Tail" or "Little Mouse Pie."
Today I can tell you the story of the "The Dog with the Green Tail" just like my Grandmommy Murphy, complete with hand motions and inflections. By the time she opened her mouth I was so hungry to hear what she said I soaked it all up.
My Grandmommy Murphy never forgot what it was like to be a child.
Now every time a child arrives at our theatre doors I always think of her and how she looked when I arrived. How she adored me. And that's how I want children and adults to feel when they come to Kids Who Care.
And when I am sitting on the floor telling a story, I always remember my Grandmommy Hope, and how she was filled with child wonder.
To honor Grandmommy, Hope Murphy, Kids Who Care has named all of our scholarships after her.
