Homesteader one of a kind 'rebel'

WILLOW -- When you're one of nine siblings in a Texas cotton farming family you don't get far being shy and reserved.

Ruby Murphy got the message early and learned to take the rough-and-tumble life in stride.

"I was the meanest of the bunch," she said with a grin. "My mother said I came into this world fussing and fighting. I beat the snot out of one old boy."

Now, at age 80, the former homesteader is just as tenacious, although life in the log home at Mile 83 Parks Highway is considerably easier than it was 40 years ago when Murphy spent more than a year virtually alone while proving up on 160 acres. There's electricity, water and even a telephone. The driveway is no longer a quagmire for two or three months during breakup. And the Parks Highway has even matured beyond the pockmarked dirt road that ended at the Susitna River in those days.

Murphy and four friends from First Baptist Church in Willow, where she teaches Sunday school to 13- and 14-year-old boys each weekend, got together this week to recall some of the adventures the colorful octogenarian has had over the years.

Photos on her dining room wall tell much of the story. There's her husband of 53 years, Bill Murphy, who died three years ago, smiling happily just months after their wedding. There's the couple sitting together. There's Bill and Ruby locked in an embrace next to a big shiny automobile. And there's the Memorium to Bill from the Alaska Legislature, given May 5, 2001.

"William was an honest and forthright man, never mincing words," it reads. "He was fairly reserved but was quick with a belly laugh or warm embrace."

Laughter filled the house Monday, too, along with Cajun songs as the five friends waited for fil/ gumbo to finish simmering on the stove. The thick brown concoction, one of Murphy's favorites, included shrimp, chicken, special stuffed pork sausages from her family in Texas, okra, tomatoes, green onions and plenty of spices.

Food was a motivating need during the homesteading days. Murphy still takes her canning seriously, as anyone visiting her cellar can quickly see. More than 1,000 jars line the shelves -- peppers, barbecue meat, chilies, chili sauce, salsa, potatoes, jams, and pretty much anything else you can think of.

Born in 1923, Murphy said she's stayed in good health over the years because she "kept the right kind of friends." Her husband was born the same year and, Ruby said, lied about his age in order to enlist in the Army air corps in Louisiana at 16. He was stationed in Anchorage two years later during the Pearl Harbor attack.

"He ended up in the Aleutian war," Ruby said.

Bill went back home to Texas after his military discharge in 1945. That's when romance entered the picture. Ruby got a job at the switchboard of a Ford dealership where Bill worked as a mechanic.

"All the boys were interested in that new girl," Murphy recalled. "My husband was the one I liked best so I latched onto him."

They married in 1947 after a four-month courtship and settled down -- at least temporarily -- in Beaumont, Texas. But Alaska was pulling on both of them and it didn't help that a friend of Bill's was urging them to pick up stakes and head north with him.

"He was disgruntled," Murphy said of the friend. "You know how men are. I'd been wanting to come to Alaska; I'd been here before. If I'd been living when the first wagon train went west, I'd have been on it and God help those Indians."

Ruby and Bill both got jobs just three days after arriving in Anchorage in 1964. She worked as a clerk at the Anchorage Daily News and he was a mechanic with Alaska Trucking. Soon, though, they locked in the homestead land. Ruby went there to plant and harvest vegetables and live permanently. Bill kept his paying job in Anchorage, and he and 14-year-old son Dan came out to see Ruby on weekends. That arrangement lasted for 14 months, with the proving-up requirement shorted by Bill's previous military service.

"The good Lord had this land ready for us," Murphy said. "He sent us here for a reason, to start the church."

The First Baptist Church held its first service Jan. 1, 1978, and the Murphys were involved ever since. Waneta Borden-Redmond said Ruby's personality just naturally attracted children and they loved her.

"As director of the First Baptist Sunday school, I have been proud to have Ruby teaching the young folks," Borden-Redmond said. "She has control of those children and they learn."

Early in the homesteading period, Murphy broke her leg while chipping ice to free the back tire of her vehicle. She fell and knew immediately it wasn't good news.

"I heard it snap. I got up and drove home."

She told a neighbor it was only sprained because she could walk on the leg. The friend soaked brown paper with vinegar and wrapped the leg with it, but things got worse.

"By midnight I was hopping and praying and crying," Murphy said. "I fired the rifle three times because that's the sign you need help but nobody heard me."

The closest neighbor was a mile away and the next-closest was three miles. Murphy said she didn't panic, even though there was no way to contact anyone.

"No, my daddy taught me never to be nervous," she said.

By the time someone stopped by to see her, the leg was so swollen it couldn't be set. Murphy lay on the bed with her leg elevated for a week before swelling subsided and a cast was applied.

Neither Ruby nor Bill considered the situation a crisis. It was just one more challenge of life in rural Alaska.

"My husband said, 'No, I ain't worried. I know you can take care of yourself.'"

She was always self-sufficient, whether building a carport or shooing bears away. Bears were plentiful, but the only time one broke in was while Ruby was in Anchorage seeing Bill and Dan and buying groceries.

"That bear broke off an arm of the couch and it walked right down the back," she said. "It broke dishes and did a little bit of everything."

Sue and Jerry Nunnally of Willow, who also attend First Baptist Church, joined Murphy on Monday along with friends Borden-Redmond and John Redmond. Sue called Murphy "flamboyant," but Jerry gave a different description of her personality. He recalled a get-together at the Nunnally home where guests got a warning before Murphy's arrival.

"We told people, 'Now look, it's gonna be like an explosion when she gets here,'" he said.

Murphy calls herself a rebel, saying she was the only one among the family's five girls and four boys who left Texas. Now she can't imagine being anywhere but Alaska.

"I love it here," she said. "The Lord sent me here, and I wouldn't take a million dollars for my experiences."