Jonathan W. Murphy ’57

“No member of the Class of 1957 will ever be alone if he doesn’t want to be,” Jon concluded his essay for the 50th-reunion yearbook. For the 20th reunion he created the mantra, “We are family,” and reminded us of that periodically ever since. He attended every annual class reunion. He memorialized classmate deaths with a dirge on his harp. He emailed long monologues to the class with acute intelligence but little continuity on a variety of current issues early in the morning after drinking, he said, a lot of Molson beer. Jon’s life was as eclectic as he was.

He came to Princeton from Pingry School, played 150-pound football and rugby freshman year, sang with the Tigertones, and joined Tower Club. He served as a Naval officer until 1961, skied in the West until the snow melted, played guitar in a San Francisco bar, sold data processors for IBM, was a management consultant, married and divorced, sold government bonds for Chase and Franklin banks, moved furniture, drove trucks, and from home was a computer programmer and analyst. He took up woodworking, sometimes contributing sales proceeds to the Classmate Fund. He wanted to be the last classmate alive.

Jon died Aug. 17, 2019 of heart failure. He was survived by his friend of 46 years, Monique Corey, and two children.