Bernice P. Murphy, a retired Howard County public schools educator who kept young and vigorous by staying busy, died June 14 from heart failure at Morningside House of Ellicott City. She was 101.

The daughter of Freddie Parker, a waterman, and Lillian Aaron Simmons Parker, a homemaker, Bernice Lena Parker was born and raised on Hoopers Island, where she graduated from high school.

“She picked crabs in order to earn money to go to what was then Towson Normal School,” said her son, Harry T. Murphy Jr. of Ellicott City.

After graduating from what is now Towson University in 1934, she launched her teaching career in Oxon Hill. While teaching there, she met and fell in love with a fellow educator, Harry T. Murphy Sr., whom she married in 1935.

Until retiring in 1959, Mrs. Murphy spent the majority of her 25-year career teaching second-grade students at Elkridge Elementary School.

Mrs. Murphy was recognized by Howard County and the state Department of Education for her teaching skills, which often brought other teachers and supervisors into her classroom to observe her methods.

She was a member of the Howard Education Association for Retired Teachers.

A longtime resident of the Dunloggin neighborhood of Ellicott City, after she and her husband retired, the couple began managing the Beach Plaza Hotel in Ocean City in the early 1960s.

“I've known her son Harry since the fifth grade when Mr. and Mrs. Murphy were living in Elkridge,” said David A. Bryant, who lives in Washington. “After we graduated from high school in 1964, Harry talked me and another friend into going to Ocean City where we worked in the Phillips Crab House as busboys.”

In 1973, when the elder Murphys retired from managing the hotel, they and the Phillips family, who owned the Beach Plaza Hotel, urged Mr. Bryant to succeed them.

“Mrs. Murphy was loved and admired by so many people. She had a wonderful demeanor and a way of carrying herself,” said Mr. Bryant. “She was a classy lady who was always looking out for someone else. She was very outgoing, personable, slick and delightful.”

“When she turned 100, we had a birthday party for her at Phillips in the Inner Harbor. We had about 80 people including relatives, friends and five former students. All of the Phillips relatives from Ocean City came,” said Mr. Murphy.

Mr. Murphy said his mother did not follow any particular health regimen in order to achieve centenarian status.

“She loved to work in her yard planting and growing flowers, Her main hobby was keeping busy. That's why she loved being a teacher because when you're a teacher, you're busy all the time,” her son said.

“She never exercised except working in her yard and doing housework. She ate what she wanted, enjoyed an occasional Manhattan, and never smoked a cigarette in her life,” he said.

“After my parents retired, they took a two-month trip out West, where they visited all of the national parks and monuments. They also traveled to Spain and to the islands,” said Mr. Murphy.

Her husband, who later became chairman of the Howard County Commissioners, died in 1993.

For the last 16 years, Mrs. Murphy, who had lived at Morningside House of Ellicott City, enjoyed playing bingo and cards. She also enjoyed reading.

“She enjoyed good conversation and had all of her faculties and memories until the end,” her son said.

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. today at the First Evangelical Lutheran Church, Chatham and Frederick roads, in Ellicott City.

In addition to her son, Mrs. Murphy is survived by a daughter, Charlotte Murphy Sours of Smith Mountain Lake, Va.; a sister, Shirley Phillips of Ocean City; five grandsons; eight great-grandchildren; and many nieces and nephews.

fred.rasmussen@baltsun.com