‘She was a great lady’

Mary Lou Murray, the wife of former Rockville Centre Mayor Gene Murray and the mother of the current mayor, Francis Murray, died on Monday. She was 84.

Murray was known for always being by her husband’s side at official events, as well as for following her own path. “She was a lovely woman and Gene’s top advisor,” said Jack McKeon, former commissioner of the village Police Department. “They really loved each other from the first day to the last day, and you don’t see that much anymore.”

Mary Lou was born to Ernest and Florence Bernhardi on May 11, 1929. She grew up in East Rockaway, where she was a member of St. Raymond’s Parish.

In high school, she was a table tennis and volleyball champion. She met her future husband shortly after he returned from World War II, on a sleigh-riding blind date at Hempstead Lake State Park, when she was 17. Less than a year later, on Dec. 27, 1947, they were married at St. Raymond’s Church, during a blizzard.

“She was a great lady,” said her son Fran, the mayor. “Such a sweetheart. She protected us from our father. Everyone needs their mom to protect them from their dad. Because we were rambunctious.”

A few years after they married, the Murrays settled in Rockville Centre, and had lived there ever since. Mary Lou not only raised eight children, but kept the books for her husband’s business, Murray Floor Waxing.

And she impressed her children with her athleticism. “She was the athlete in the family,” Fran Murray said. “She loved badminton and croquet. She taught me how to play baseball.”

“She loved the Mets,” said Tony Cancellieri, a former village administrator and a friend of the Murrays. “I remember many a night talking to her about the woes of the Mets. She wouldn’t miss a game, and she was up on all the statistics. And she had her opinions on what they were doing wrong.”

Many described her as a joy to be around. She was known for her personality and her keen intellect, which was a help to her husband. “She was very astute politically, but would never get in the way,” Cancellieri said. “But if she had to tell her husband about something, she would. And he would listen.”