Sharon Murphy Kissel Obituary

Sharon Murphy Kissel, 76, passed into eternal life on July 21, 2024, due to the ravages of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis after bravely resisting the disease’s unstoppable advance for over eight years. She died peacefully at home with her beloved husband Peter by her side. She was born in Washington, DC, on February 21, 1948, to Everlyn Rapee Murphy and William J. Murphy, Jr.

Sharon lived a life full of love, joy, compassion, humor, hard work, and hard play. She and Peter met at a college mixer in a “dive bar” when both were students at Syracuse University, on February 12, 1969. It truly was love at first sight. Their meeting on the 160th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth framed a life devoted to learning from the lessons of history and dedicated to civil rights. Upon her graduation from Syracuse University in 1970 with a degree in Fine Arts, she and Peter were married in 1970 on, appropriately, Flag Day – June 14. Sharon received her Masters Degree in Library Science from the University of Maryland in 1974.

Sharon was a proud “fifth generation Washingtonian bureaucrat.” Following her ancestors’ examples, Sharon pursued a career of ever-increasing responsibilities in serving the public. This service culminated in her position, for the last 18 years of her career, as the Legislative Librarian of the ACLU’s Washington Office. In a tribute entered in the Congressional Record in 2012, the ACLU honored her as “a key participant in some of the most important civil liberties and civil and human rights campaigns over the past 15 years.” She played a critical role on a wide range of the ACLU’s issues, including advancement of the Fair Sentencing Act, the Violence Against Women Act, and national security advocacy. She participated in one of the organization’s leading coalitions against torture and indefinite detention, as a researcher, writer, and source of wise counsel for her colleagues. It was said that without the work of Sharon, the Bill of Rights would have been riddled with exceptions including the flag desecration amendment, the school prayer amendment, the federal marriage amendment, and the so-named victims' rights amendment.

Prior to her service with the ACLU, Sharon served as assistant legal librarian for the U.S. Department of the Interior, as head Law Librarian at the White House and the Federal Reserve, as consultant to the World Bank, and as Law Librarian for the law firm Shea & Gardner when the firm represented Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings. Sharon also organized and managed the information resource center for President Clinton's transition team in 1992. Sharon was elected President of the Law Librarians' Society of Washington, DC, was a Member of the Board of Directors of the National Equal Justice Institute Library, and worked as a faculty member for the American Association of Law Libraries Summer Institute. She was also an advisor to Pi Beta Phi Sorority at the University of Maryland and an active member of the Irish American Unity Conference.

As dedicated as Sharon was to her career, her marriage to Peter was always her greatest joy and priority. They shared a deep passion for Ireland, its people, its culture, its beauty, and its political dimensions. Sharon’s favorite place was their apartment on the water in County Mayo, where she loved to take walks, cross-stitch, read, watch the swans and seagulls and cormorants, enjoy a Jameson and some real Irish trad music at the local pub, and just look out at the rising and falling of the tide. It was her haven where she could relax, renew, and re-charge herself for life in Washington.

She and Peter had many other common interests, including Syracuse University sports, gardening, and Irish poetry. She loved introducing Peter to the joy and wonders of travel, and together they visited China, Alaska, France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, England, Ireland, many of the United States, and several Caribbean Islands. She was a gracious host of an Irish poetry group for many years, and an avid theatergoer. She and Peter were also known for their care of a series of abandoned, mistreated elderly rescue dogs, each of whom she loved and all of whom loved her.

Sharon was greatly admired for her marvelous cross-stitching talent. Her house is filled with her beautiful framed works and she gifted many of her friends with her work. Even as her disease overtook her, she liked nothing better than to sit in her favorite craft room, cross-stitching and watching her beloved Washington Capitals.

In addition to Peter, Sharon is survived and dearly missed by her brothers William J. (“Liam”) Murphy, III (Hilary Miscoe), Thomas C. Murphy (Carol Presley), Sisters-in-Law Peggy Rochon and Cathy Kissel, Brother-in-Law William Kissel (Gail), stepbrothers Stephen Schmitt (Sue) and Peter Schmitt, nieces Jennifer Owens (Mark), Heather Walsh (Jeremy), and Kristen Murphy (Joel Nigels), nephews Thomas LaMarca (Carol), James Roy (Bronwyn), Jeffrey LaMarca (Audrey), Patrick Kissel, Robert Schmitt, and Tyler Murphy (Carleigh Deluca). She was predeceased by her parents Evelyn Rapee Murphy Schmitt and William J. Murphy, Jr., her sister Deborah Lynn Murphy, her nephew Christopher Kissel, and her stepbrother Christopher Schmitt. She will also be sadly missed by her latest little rag-a-muffin rescue mutt, Fergus.