Frederick Holden Murphy

Mr. Murphy was born on March 11, 1929 in Washington, D.C. to Frederick Joseph (Fritz) Murphy and his wife, Celeste. Mr. Murphy was raised in Abington, MA as one of seven children and was a member of the 4-H Club at the age of 10. His father owned and ran the Star Brewing Company of Boston, MA. Following graduation from Abington High School in 1947, Mr. Murphy enlisted in the U.S. Army as a part of the GI Bill and served as an Airborne Paratrooper. In 1949 Mr. Murphy enrolled at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Government in 1953. Mr. Murphy’s studies at Georgetown, particularly courses in physics and cosmology, led him into a career in scientific book publishing.

After college Mr. Murphy worked as a sales representative for Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. In 1959, at the age of 30, he started his own college textbook publishing company in San Francisco, California called Holden-Day Inc., which specialized in math and science textbooks. He served as President of Holden-Day until 1992. Holden-Day published books by many well known scholars such as Carl Sagan and Carl Djerassi. Mr. Murphy enjoyed his career working with many other notable professors from universities across the country including Stanford, UCLA, and MIT.

In 1963 Mr. Murphy married his wife, Martha, in San Francisco. They were married 48 years. Together they had two children, Frederick Holden Jr. (Fritz) and Celeste. In 1969 the Murphy’s moved to a lovely community in the San Francisco East Bay Area called Piedmont where they raised their children and lived for 20 years.

Aside from his life-long love of publishing, Mr. Murphy enjoyed politics and gardening. In the 1970s Mr. Murphy ran for the Piedmont City Council and the U.S. Congress. In his spare time he enjoyed working in his garden in Piedmont, which was always filled with a variety of beautiful roses and assorted other flowers and vegetables. One of Mr. Murphy’s potatoes was so big it was written up in the Oakland Tribune with the headline, “Novice Grows Super Spud”.

After retiring as President of Holden-Day Mr. and Mrs. Murphy moved to Boca Raton, FL where he started a small publishing company called Emerson-Adams Press which published non-fiction and fiction books. In his retirement he enjoyed spending time with his two children and four grandchildren.

He was a life-long member of the Catholic Church attending mass up until a week before his death at Ascension Church in Delray Beach, FL.

Mr. Murphy is survived by his wife, Martha, his son Fritz Murphy and daughter-in–law, Megan Murphy of Cambridge, MA; his daughter Celeste Greene, and son-in-law Kevin Greene of Virginia Beach, VA; his sister Cynthia Alexander and brother-in-law Dr. Henry Alexander; brother Dr. Richard Murphy and sister-in-law Valerie Murphy; and brother Jerry and sister-in-law Gerilyn Murphy; his four grandsons William, Nolan, Sebastian, and Miles, and many nieces and nephews.

A funeral mass will be held to honor Mr. Murphy at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Falmouth, MA at noon on March 26th, followed by a committal ceremony at 2:00 p.m. at the Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne, MA on Cape Cod. In lieu of flowers, please send a memorial donation in Mr. Murphy’s name to the American Heart Association at: www.heart.org or send your donation to The American Heart Association c/o Fritz Murphy 342 Hurley St., Cambridge, MA 02141.