Oil had just been discovered in the small southern Arkansas town of El Dorado, and the population was booming when Polly Keller Winter was born in 1922 to Charles Murphy Sr. and Bertie Wilson Murphy.
"Her father was the banker in town. Her mother didn't have time to have a good, long conversation with him about a proper baby name. She was such a good baby that her mother decided to call her 'Polly' because of her Pollyanna nature. They figured they could come up with a proper name later," said Winter's son, Christoph Keller III.
It wasn't until much later that she was officially named Caroline Patience Murphy. By then, however, she would forever be known as Polly.
Winter -- one of the founding investors of what is now Murphy Oil Corp. -- died Sunday in Alexandria, La., from congestive heart failure.
In 1946, Winter; her brother, Charles Murphy Jr.; and two sisters, Theodosia Murphy Nolan and Bertie Murphy Deming Smith, pooled their money to form C.H. Murphy & Co., which was later incorporated into Murphy Oil Corp.
Throughout her life, Winter, 92, was known for her philanthropic giving, her zest for life, her intelligence, her independent spirit and her complete devotion to her family.
"Polly was warm, interesting, intrepid and fun-loving, and, at the same time, about as independent a thinker as I have known. She was adventuresome both in actions and beliefs, as well as a woman of very strong convictions," said Claiborne Deming, retired president and chief executive officer of Murphy Oil Corp. and chairman of the company's board of directors.
"And, man, she was fun to to be around with a sparkle in her eye and one very quick wit; her parties were the best. A wonderful aunt to have," Deming added.
Winter made an indelible mark on the state with her charitable efforts. She was a strong supporter of the arts and worked tirelessly to alleviate world hunger and address poverty. The 16,000-square-foot Heifer Village in Little Rock is also known as the Polly Murphy & Christoph Keller Jr. Education Center, in honor of the $3.5 million donation made by Winter and her late husband.
"While mother was raising children, she was becoming very much her own woman. She had an independent voice and was a before-her-time philanthropist. She believed in entrepreneurial philanthropy, where the donor has an idea and wants to make it happen. She was very good at making things happen," Christoph Keller III said.
She was a founding member of Arkansas Community Foundation, and through her work there, established the first endowment for the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra.
The endowment -- which was established in 1977 with a $50,000 gift that was quickly leveraged to $300,000 -- has today grown to a value of $779,000. It has provided more than $955,000 in grants to the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra since its inception.
"She was very influential in making the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra into an organization that truly serves the needs of this state. She was a forward thinker and always had her eye on the future. That's a strong contribution. She knew what was important and knew what we needed to do," said Christina Littlejohn, executive director of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Publisher Walter E. Hussman Jr., a family friend who also served with Winter at the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, said she was influential in persuading others to contribute to the initial endowment.
"She was smart, elegant and had a great sense of humor. She was part of and raised a great family," Hussman said.
Winter was also a primary donor to research efforts at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
"Polly was a delightful woman and a visionary who was very generous with her support of UAMS and of the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging. Her gifts to the Murphy Rural Aging Research Center and her lead gift to establish the Inglewood Scholars Endowment for Alzheimer's research will positively impact the lives of Arkansans for years to come," said Dr. Jeanne Wei, director of the UAMS Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging.
Most of all, Winter was a devoted wife and an indefatigable mother and grandmother. She and her first husband, the late Rev. Christoph Keller Jr., had six children: Caroline Theus, the late Cornelia Keller, Cynthia Davis, Kathryn Anderson, Christoph Keller III and Elisabeth Keller. The couple, who were married 55 years before his death in 1995, had three other children who died as infants.
The grandmother to 16 and great-grandmother to 14 was known throughout the family as a "larger-than-life" character who fearlessly faced life head on, was fully present in the lives of her family and had an open, progressive mind.
"I think to us, she just represented and embodied qualities that we all aspired to and wished that we had," daughter Elisabeth Keller said. "She was absolutely fearless and had great fortitude. She looked at every situation very squarely in the eye with a very practical and no-nonsense way. She said exactly what she thought in every situation, even if the words were difficult to hear."
Daughter Cynthia Davis said her mother was a "force of nature."
"There's one memory that sums up mother's character for me. On the way to Christmas Eve midnight services one year, it was sleeting and we were driving down Cantrell Hill. Ice was 3 inches thick. There were cars going all over the road. Mother got out of her car in her spiked heels and started directing traffic," Davis said, then laughed. "She was out there teetering on those high heels. Mom could do anything."
Whether it was careening down water slides with her grandchildren -- and nursing a broken toe afterward -- or giving dating advice, her oldest grandchild, Elizabeth Fennel, said her grandmother was "100 percent present" in their lives.
"One time I was going on this blind date. I was so nervous and complaining to her," Fennel said. "She turned to me and said, 'If you think going on blind dates when you're 24 is hard, think how it is when you're my age.' She was not going to settle down. She wanted to take it all in. Any place you could find true love, she just honored it until the very end of the line."
At the age of 72, Winter married her second husband, Clark Winter. The couple shared 10 years together until his death in 2006.
Winter was devoted to her Episcopalian faith and involved in the church on a state and national level. She had stood faithfully by her first husband's side as Christoph Keller Jr. served as the 10th Episcopal leader of the Diocese of Arkansas of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
"She was incredible in so many ways. She was an amazing Christian woman. She had a very deep and abiding faith in God and really, an unwavering belief in the work of the holy spirit and the presence of Jesus in the world," said Ian Douglas, a family friend and the Episcopal bishop of Connecticut. "In addition to having a profound faith, she was also a committed church person. She understood and believed how the church could be an effective agent for God's mission in the world. She also enjoyed knowing about and being engaged in the lives of the people of the church."
Grandson Noah Bonsey said his grandmother's open-mindedness, all-encompassing love and wholehearted approach to life will leave a legacy in his family for generations to come.
Bonsey, a news and politics analyst, said his grandmother was a formidable conversationalist on Middle Eastern politics and news.
"I talk about these issues with journalists all the time. She would ask the best questions of all of them," Bonsey said. "We were on Skype three weeks ago. I would've never guessed that she was this close to the end. There was so much life in her eyes, and she asked very pointed questions. They were the kind of questions I would expect from a New York Times journalist. She was so smart, so insightful and incisive."
NW News on 09/23/2014