Emily Swearingen Murphy

Emily Swearingen Murphy, 84, passed away on February 26, 2025 at Boca Raton, Florida. The daughter of Milton and Lucile Engle Swearingen, Emily was born in Fort Wayne on October 19, 1940. She attended schools in Decatur and graduated from Decatur High School in 1958. After graduation she spent a year at Indiana University in Fort Wayne, then in 1959 moved to Fort Worth, Texas, where she attended Texas Christian University. In 1962 she graduated from TCU with a Bachelor of Science degree in Language Arts. She followed TCU sports the rest of her life, rivaled in loyalty only by the Chicago Cubs.

In August 1963, her family returned to Decatur and she began her 15 year teaching career in the North Adams Community School system. During that time she taught in the elementary schools, the Lincoln Middle School, and the Decatur and Bellmont High Schools. In 1965 she completed her Master of Science in Education degree at St. Francis College in Fort Wayne.

Emily left teaching in 1978 to become a consultant with the Mary Kay Cosmetics company. The next year she became a Sales Director. At one time in the mid-eighties, she was one of three Decatur women driving a company pink Cadillac. In 1986 she Left Mary Kay and accepted a sales position with an educational publishing company based in Chicago, covering schools in northern Indiana. Because she was familiar with the Fort Worth, Texas, area, in 1987 she was transferred to a territory based in Fort Worth. In 1990 she was promoted to the position of Manager of Sales Training for the company and moved to Chicago to work in the company headquarters. She later became a Regional Sales Manager until she left the company in 1997.

She spent a year as a Sales Manager for a new educational division in the Time Life Company. These products didn't do well in the market, so she left in 1998 to become the Sales Training Director for a tax publishing company, also based in Chicago. Within a few years, she had added to her responsibilities the task of also managing the company's customer trainers who taught customers how to effectively utilize the Internet products they had purchased.

During her time in management with these companies, she regularly travelled to work with sales people and trainers in the field. By the time she retired in 2007, she had been to 49 of the 50 United States, Alaska being the only one she had missed. Soon after her retirement, she and her husband Ken took a cruise to Alaska. They later took more cruises, including ones through the Panama Canal and the St. Lawrence Seaway. In 2018 they made their first trip to Europe, visiting Ireland, and later visited more European countries.

After retirement, Ken and Emily moved to Madison, Mississippi, to be closer to four of their grandchildren. It was also closer to two grandchildren living in Texas. When the grandchildren grew up and left for college, they moved to Florida. Emily had often visited her aunt in Florida and said she never wanted to live there because everyone was so old! One day Ken pointed out to her that she was old now too so it was time to enjoy the warm weather and the convenience of cruising. In 2012 they became residents of southeast Florida.

Her parents, her sister Mary Ann Schieferstein, and a great-granddaughter Josie Akers (Hopefully no one else!) preceded her in death. She is survived by her husband Ken Murphy, her son James (Bridget) Engle and her daughter Melinda (Kara) Engle, six grandchildren and (three) great-grandchildren.