Friday

Ray was the fourth of five sons born to Edward J. and Eileen Murphy. Older Brothers William, Robert and Edward preceded him, and he was an older brother to Kenneth. When he was six, Ray’s family moved from the Yorkville section of Manhattan , to the Castle Hill section of the Bronx . Ray spent the next 13 years growing up in the Castle Hill Housing Projects, a neighborhood comprised of every ethnic and racial background imaginable. By all accounts, Ray had a wonderful childhood. He seemed to have been born with the effervescent personality we would all come to know later in his life. Indeed, friendships made by Ray as a child lasted throughout his lifetime. Dennis, Smitty, Bombo, and the rest of the Castle Hill crew remained close even as they raised their own families. Ray also met his first and only true love, Linda, during the Castle Hill years.

Ray’s parents felt it was important that their boys attend parochial school. They wanted to have the values of family and religion they taught in their home to be reinforced in their children’s education. It was a theme that would remain with Ray as he and Linda raised their own family. Education was so important to Ray’s parents that Ray’s mom would work nights in a bank specifically to pay tuition for her boys. Ask any of Ray’s brothers and they will say the same thing. Ray was special! As a child, Ray never complained, he displayed qualities of compassion, fairness and love towards family and friends that would only strengthen into manhood. Ray would follow his brothers in school at Holy Family Grammar School and St. Raymond’s High School.