The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

MURRAY, MARY ALICE HEARRELL (1875–1938).

Mary Alice Hearrell Murray served as Oklahoma’s seventh first lady from January 12, 1931, to January 14, 1935. Although her husband, William H. Murray, was Oklahoma’s ninth governor, Mary Alice Murray became the seventh first lady because two previous governors were not married while in office. She was born on January 9, 1875, near Milburn, Indian Territory (I.T.), to Jecomiah B. Hearrell, a Tennessee-born farmer, blacksmith, and Confederate army veteran, and Martha Alice Walker Proffitt Hearrell. Martha Walker, of Chickasaw and Choctaw descent, was the niece of Tandy Walker, chief of the Choctaw Nation.

Mary Alice Hearrell learned about her Chickasaw and Choctaw culture and history from her extended families. At age eight she and two of her sisters went to Tishomingo, I.T., to live with their uncle, Douglas Henry Johnston, governor of the Chickasaws. While living there, she observed the workings of the Chickasaws’ national government. For eleven years she attended the Bloomfield Academy, the Chickasaw Nation’s institute for girls’ higher education. After graduating in 1894, she taught at the academy and at several other educational institutes.

On July 19, 1899, Mary Alice Hearrell married William Henry David Murray, also known as “Alfalfa Bill.” He was an attorney working for the Chickasaw Nation at its capital in Tishomingo. Because Alice Hearrell was one-eighth mixture of Chickasaw and Choctaw, upon their marriage William Murray became an intermarried citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. By 1920 the couple had five children: a daughter, Jean, and sons Massena, Johnston, William Henry, Jr., and Burbank. Mary Murray remained a steadfast partner through her husband’s political appointments and his failed venture to establish an agricultural colony in Bolivia, South America.

In 1930 William “Alfalfa Bill” Murray ran for Oklahoma governor. The whirlwind of campaigning culminated in his election. As first lady Mary Murray managed the everyday functions of the Governor’s Mansion, recently completed in 1928 in Oklahoma City. Improvements to the property included planting flowers, vines, and shrubs to landscape the grounds, using her own money and seeds brought from Bolivia. In April 1932 she established a rose garden through donations from Oklahoma women’s clubs.

According to the social mores of the time, Mary Murray devoted most of her life to being a wife and mother. After her children were raised, she returned to oil painting as a hobby and although a Methodist, studied Christian Science. In 1918 she had declined an invitation to join Oklahoma suffragists, because she did not want to participate in anything that would harm her husband’s political ambitions. Although she followed the traditional role of a wife and mother, she did speak out in public during her husband’s career. When he served as a one of Oklahoma’s U.S. Representatives to Congress from 1912 to 1916, they lived in Washington, D.C. In 1914 she gave an interview to that city’s Evening Star newspaper, in which she dismissed the image of the American Indian portrayed in movies by using herself as an example of an American Indian.

On August 28, 1938, in Oklahoma City, Mary Alice Murray died at the age of sixty-three from gall bladder and heart problems. Her husband, William H. Murray, wrote a memorial pamphlet in her honor. As a tribute, she was the first woman to lie in state in the Oklahoma Capitol. She was buried in Tishomingo City Cemetery in Johnston County, Oklahoma, where her husband and five children were buried. Their son Johnston Murray served as Oklahoma’s fourteenth governor.

Linda D. Wilson