BLOG: Newporter and Judge Florence Murray Remains an Inspiration

In 1979, Chief Superior Court Judge Florence Kerins Murray was appointed to sit on the Rhode Island Supreme Court, AND, she was the first woman to do it.  March is Women’s History Month and Saturday is Newport’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration.  I see fit to honor this local Irish Newporter and grad.

Justice Florence Kerins Murray (1916 – 2004) was just about the first woman in the state or New England to do whatever she set her mind to doing. I sat and listened to a presentation byhistorian Marian Mathison Desrosiers, who also knew Justice Murray personally, and I was amazed at all the “firsts.”  I had no idea about this judge whose grand portrait I see every time I walk up the steps to the second floor of the Court House named after her.  And I couldn’t help but wonder how she had the courage and fortitude to break the gender barrier so many times?  I found the answer in her obituary, which appeared in the Providence Journal when she passed in March of 2004. "I refuse to recognize any gender barriers and considered those who did ignorant."  So there you go.

I’ll just give you the bullet points:

• 1942 - Only woman in her graduating class of Boston University School of Law;
• 1947 - Youngest woman to attain the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army’s Women’s Army Corps;
• 1949 - 1956 - First Female Rhode Island State Senator;
• 1956 - First Female Judge appointed to the Rhode Island Superior Court;
• 1978 - First Female Chief Judge of the Rhode Island Superior Court;
• 1979 - First Female Rhode Island Supreme Court Justice.

Justice Murray was born and raised in the Fifth Ward of Newport.  According to her obituary one of her last meals out in Newport was at her favorite.  She was a member of the and library staff remembers bringing books to her home on Kay Street when she could no longer get out to the library.