I found this old letter that announced the 2nd grade classroom assignment for my brother, Pete Kemp. In 1955 he was assigned to be in Room 8 in the new building at Katherine T. Murphy School in the Cove in Stamford, Connecticut.
That got me to wondering more about the history of that school.
Turning to GenealogyBank’s Historical Newspaper Archives, I found several interesting articles.
This article from the Stamford Advocate reports that the new schoolhouse opened on 16 April 1900.
Another article reports that Miss Katherine Murphy began as a teacher at the previous elementary school, the old Cove School, in 1893. It was then a one-room schoolhouse. At that time, Cove School was one of only two schools in Stamford.
When the school was expanded to two rooms and moved to its present location in 1900, Murphy was one of two teachers. She became principal there in 1913.
The school was renamed in her honor in 1946 and she retired in 1948.
Murphy died 27 March 1966 at a retirement home in Trumbull, Connecticut. She was buried with her family in St. John Cemetery on the border of Darien and Stamford, Connecticut.
It’s your family history: get the details, document it and preserve it.
Fill in the facts supporting your family’s stories in the old newspapers in GenealogyBank.