Evening star., 1948-11-07

Myrtle Cheney Murdock, wife OF
Representative Murdock of Arizona
and author Of "Your Uncle Sam in
Washington" is a writer who puts
heart and soul into research and a
woman who does her patriotic duty
when she sees it-even if it means
painting graveyard fence.
The fence-painting episode was a
move in Mrs. Murdock's one-woman
campaign to honor the memory Of
Constantine Brumidi, the forgotten
artist of the Capitol, who died poor
and who lies in an unmarked
grave in Glenwood Cemetery. 1t
took months of diligent searching
through old cemetery records to
find out the last resting place of
the fresco master, whose death was
the result of fall from scaffold
in the Capitol. When she finally
found the plot in Glenwood, she
thought-being the kind of woman
she is-that the least she could do
would be to give the surrounding
fence a coat of paint.
1t Was Just the Day.
She kept putting of this beau
geste until one morning which
seemed to be just the day for it. It
was that very morning that Bru-
midi's grand-niece stopped by the
grave on her way to work, and
|quite naturally, inquired Of Mrs.
Murdock what she was doing at
the family plot. Mrs. Murdock ex-
planned, and his gratified descend
ant, whose great-aunt was Lola
Germon, Brumidi's model and
wife, told her a great deal about
the artist which she had not been
able to discover during her research.
A brisk, gray-haired, friendly
little woman, Mrs. Murdock said in
an interview at her husbands Office
in the Old House Office Building the
other day that she had waited IL
years for somebody else to write a
book like Your Uncle Sam in
Washington" Since nobody had
come forward, she decided to do the
job herself. 1t will be published
next Wednesday. Judging by the
constant queries from her husbands
constituents, she decided that peo-
pie around the country had a great
curiosity about the National Capi-
tai. Many books, she felt, stressed
the nest Of intrigue" aspect of it
at the expense Of its historic
beauties.
A Guided Tour.
She got started on her quest for
facts about the birthplace of so
many rumors IL years ago when
she first came to Washington and
took a guided tour through the
Capitol, during which she. half
heard the name of the artist who
had decorated its walls and ceilings.
She set right off to the Library of
Congress, where she read through
the Congressional Records of the
period and found that many a Con-
gresham had viewed with alarm
the choice of a foreign artist (Bru-
midi was a political refugee from
Italy, and had prophesied that the
walls he worked on (fresco work is
done on wet plaster) would fall on
their heads. This, of course, has
proved no more accurate than many
another political forecast.
A long time schoolma'am and
mother Of three grown children,
Mrs. Murdock couldn't settle down
to the social routine of a Congress
mans wife. Being as conscientious
as she is curious, she studied one
subject a year and thus absorbed the
traditions and functions of such in
stitutions as the White House, the
House Of Representatives and the
Supreme Court.
All the while, she was working at
her husbands Office, keeping a
steady stream Of international ma
terial flowing to the school teach
ers of their home State. Also she
managed to take her doctors degree
in education at George Washing
ton University.
Her project at the moment is
another book-this one about his
toric memorials in Washington.
But always at the back of her
mind is the hope of official recogni-
tion for Constantine Brumidi, whose
Is years of labor produced the re-
markable variety Of portraits, me-
dallions and panoramas which beau
tify the Capitol. At one time she