Cecelia “Sally” Murphy, a former longtime resident of Montclair, died in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. on Dec. 14 at the age of 89.
A resident of Montclair since 1968, she moved to Florida in 2018.
She was a runway model and later the office manager for her late husband, Dr. Paul Driscoll Murphy, a gynecologist in New York.
The daughter of the late Harry and Nora Quinn, Sally was born in Manhattan on Oct. 2, 1930, and called Central Park her childhood playground. She loved the Metropolitan Museum of Art and took her children for their first visit there to search out the original of the painting she had a copy of in her home, Vermeer’s “A Girl Resting.”
She was a volunteer at the Montclair Art Museum and First Night Montclair. She was active in the Friends of Barnet, a sister-city organization with Barnet, England, and served as vice president of the group in 1991. She traveled there many times as a representative of Montclair, and hosted visitors from Barnet in her home.
She volunteered at Broughton House, a home for AIDS patients in Newark. At the time of President Kennedy’s election, she was a member of the League of Women Voters in Pompton Plains.
Sally loved films from the 1930s to the ‘50s, opera, ‘50s rock n’ roll, Sherlock Holmes and a properly made and served cup of tea.
Sally went to Straubenmuller Textile High School on West 18th Street in New York and was an English major at Montclair State College.
She is survived by a son, Michael Lentz of West Palm Beach, Fla., who lovingly cared for her during her final illness; a daughter, Valerie Lentz Horowitz, and her husband, Benjamin Horowitz, of Mendham; a grandson, Ian Horowitz of Mendham; a brother, James Quinn, his wife, Gayle, of Cedar Grove; and many loving cousins and friends. She was also the sister of the late William and Henry Quinn.
A Celebration of Life will be held in the spring of 2020. Donations in her name may be made to the Central Park Conservancy.