Irish America magazine - Dec '05/Jan '06 issue: Peter Quinn, Dearbhla Molloy in Eugene O’Neill’s A Touch of the Poet, Compass Records, Sean Óg Ó hAilpín, John F. Kennedy, John Banville wins Booker Prize, Tom Westman

By Jim Murphy

This photo was taken in 1904 at my grandfather’s stone cutting shop on State Street in West Philadelphia. From left to right are my father and my grandfather. My father, “Pop” Murphy, as you can see, started learning the family business as a very young boy. He went on to have his own small bricklaying business in Philadelphia. My brother and I both learned the trade from Pop and worked with him in the family business for many years.

In the Irish tradition of always being prepared for the inevitable, Pop and Grandpop are cutting the granite that became the family headstone. Today, that headstone still stands as a family marker in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, Pennsylvania.