Jack Reed: “on Sunday, March 28, 2004, Rhode Island, the judicial community and the entire Nation lost a great pioneer who was a…”

“on Sunday, March 28, 2004, Rhode Island, the judicial community and the entire Nation lost a great pioneer who was a superb jurist and a powerful inspiration. Retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Florence Kerins Murray passed away after decades of breaking new ground for women in the United States. She was 87 years old. Justice Murray, the first woman appointed to the Rhode Island Superior and Supreme Courts, was a lifelong resident of Newport. The daughter of John and Florence Kerins, Murray attended Rogers High School in Newport and went on to attend Syracuse University, where she would later serve on the Board of Trustees and was the only woman in the 1942 graduating class at Boston University Law School where she would become a member of the board of visitors. Throughout her life Justice Murray sought ways to serve the community. She began her professional career as a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse on Prudence Island, in Narragansett Bay. Later, she joined the Women's Army Corps and was promoted to lieutenant colonel before leaving the service in 1947.”