National Republican., 1883-08-17
MARY uAssAN MURRAY.

Sketch OF the Woman who WINS Once
washington's Most Famous songstress
The Romance OF Her Birth and Her
True WOmanly and Chrlstian Character.
Miss Mary Hassan Murray, the famous
soprano singer of the district, died at Provi-
dence hospital yesterday morning at o'clock.
She had been in failing health for several
years past, having never recovered from the
effects Of an accident in being thrown from
her carriage near Laurel, Md, but mono of
her friends thought tho end was so near.
About week ago she concluded it would
bo beneficial to her health to go
to Providence hospital. There the sis
ters, with whom she was great
favorite, did all thoy could to mako it pleas
ant to her. She told her niece, Mrs. Wallace,
only three or four days before her DEATH that
she was delighted and hopeful, and was feel
ing much better. As an evidence of the
Improvement in her health, sho walked down
the hall with her visitors. Some three days ago
her feebleness increased so thac sho took her
bed. During Tuesday night she grew feebler
but suffered no pain, and lay with smile of
Christian peace upon her lips, watching the
currents OF her life Us they slowly and with
out suffering, but steadily and surely,
flowed from her grasp into the shoroless
waves of the hereafter. And at 5 o'clock
in the morning, tho gray dawn of calm,
cool, quiet day, she died. Her death was as
placid as her life had been serene, and friends
saw on the death-cold lips the smile of por-
foct peace and trust. Her funeral will take
place this morning from the residence of Mrs
John f. Ellis, 529 Sixth street northwest q
requiem mass will be sung at St. Patrici's at
8 o'clock, and interment will be had Mt Mount
Olivot. The pallbearers are Messrs. Frank
McNerhany, Patrick Byrno, James Fullerton,
and Capt. Manning.
Miss Murray's life which extended over
sixty years. was one long, smoothly flowing
current of sweetness and song 1t was pure
and womanly, unmarried by ripple of any
discordant passion or emotion A shy,
modest, dreamy girl, her soul always COM
muning with angels and with music, her
womauhood was but the perfected promise of
her girlhood. She was rarely gifted. Her
voice for many years was the glory of the
district; but sweet and pure and beautiful as
IL was,st was yet butRa type OF her beautiful
character To hor is given the credit of
building up tho Catholic choirs of Washing
ton. Her deeply religious nature found in
music its natural and most fitting expression.
She lived in the lofty upper region of spiritual
art, where no breath of Jealousy or envy could
disturb the serene sweetness of her soul. All
through life she preserved the Same ethereal
and noble cOmposuro which sorrow could only
sweeten aud suffering had no power to dis
turb. And death, into whose arms she fell as
a baby falls into the embrace of sleep, found
in her still tho same spiritual, refined, and
gentle nature.
While Miss Murrays life was one placid
current of religion and music, with no
romance save that which always brightens
tho dreams Of genius. yet she was the
child Of romance. Around her ancestry is
the halo of strange and poetical destiny
that reads moro like a page from Hawthorne
than the prosaic records of every day life.
Her grandfather was a Turk of wealth, prom
inence, and singular force and purity of char
acter. He discarded Mohammedanism and en-
braced Christianity. Forced therefore to
leave his native country he went to the
north of Ireland and adopted rs his Christian
family name his prgnomen of Hassan. His
son, born in that island, fell in love with
Miss McKenna, the daughter of County
Donegal gentleman, who opposed her mar
riage with young Hassan. Notwithstanding
the young couple, after passing through more
romantic adventures than did the last heiress
of the MacCarthy's and her Norman lover got
married and settled in America. The de-
parted lady was born near Bladensburg Md,
the youngest child but one of the marriage
Her father died when she was but two years
old, and her mother survived her husband
but o few weeks.
The little girl was adopted by Mr.. Thomas
in ante-bellum days. There couldn't have
been deeper and stronger affection between
parents and children of the same blood than
that which existed between Miss Murray and
her adopted parents. For her second mother
Miss Murray sacrificed fame and wealth. and
without II pang, but gladly and unhesitatingly
sacrificed them. So long as her mother lived
Miss Murray was without n sorrow. And
friends have noticed that after her parents
death the song birds carol grew less and less
blithe till at last the wondrous voice grew
dumb and the timid heart ceased beating.
"Ilappy is the corpse that the rain falls
on" is an old Gaelic proverb. In the gray
dawn of rainy midsummer day, when sad
and strange" was
The earliest pipe of halfawakened birds
To dying ears and unto dying eyes
TIE easement slowly grew Il glimmerng square,
the pure bright soul of the singer loosened
its cerements of clay for the ever serene bow
ers of heaven, while the August rain, in its
sad, sweet rhythm, voiced the requiem of
borrowing friends over their deeply regretted