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Sarah D. Murphy
Born in 1892 to former slaves Gabriel and Huldah McLendon,
Sarah was the tenth of 11 children of the poor family in rural
northwest Georgia. At age 4, Sarah’s mother died and
she took on the role of mother for her younger sibling James,
a nurturing role that would encompass Sarah’s future.
Sarah was bright and a fast learner and by age 12 was earning
money for her family by selling mail-order flavorings, helping
her father and stepmother purchase a 20-acre tract of land.
Though this was a time when African-American women were
not encouraged to pursue an education, Sarah had a hunger
for knowledge – to learn and to teach – and went
as far as she could in a nearby country school before leaving
for Rome, Georgia to attend an industrial school for blacks.
During the summer she traveled Polk County, teaching as many
as 100 pupils at a time and helping to establish four schools.
Sarah wanted to attend what she called the “big Negro
University complex,” Spelman Seminary (later called
Spelman College), and her brother James worked on the railroad
to help her get there.
Sarah loved Spelman because life was so much easier there
and she could take advantage of the many opportunities the
school offered. But one night she had a vision that she was
walking by a canal surrounded by a fence and someone was digging
the ground out from under her as she walked. When she came
to a gate, a voice called out to her, “Go through the
gate, Sarah, and help your people.” She knew that “her
people” were poor blacks in rural Georgia so she returned
home to start a school in a church building in Grady, an iron-ore
mining settlement. As an “independent” school,
there was no public funding and parents were expected to pay
50 cents a month for their children’s education, though
few had the money.
At age 28 Sarah married Marion “Shug” Murphy
and they saved enough money to buy an old five-room house
on an acre of land where they built a one-room frame building
to serve as a school for grades K-12. Because the nearby land
was hilly and not fertile, the cost was low so they were able
to purchase additional parcels. Sarah loved the children she
taught but her greatest joy was when she gave birth to a daughter
in 1925, naming her Divinia to acknowledge the divine gift
bestowed upon her and Shug.
Never one to turn down a student whose parents couldn’t
pay, Sarah soon found herself taking on much more when she
took in an orphaned newborn and five siblings one cold night
in 1931. In a short time Sarah and Shug had 18 children to
feed on her salary of $25 a month. Tragically, in 1934, Divinia
died at age 9 of blood poisoning, leaving Sarah inconsolable
with grief. That same year she applied to incorporate her
home, naming it the Sarah Divinia Murphy Home and in 1935
it received a state charter.
Now called Mama Sarah, her home became known as a place where
children with no other alternative would be welcome. She decided
her original vision from that fateful night at Spelman was
too narrow and that she would not just teach but also feed,
clothe and shelter “her people.” With a motto
of “we’ll make room,” she and Shug cared
for approximately 50 children at one time.
In 1946 Sarah won a $1000 “Good Neighbor” award
on a national radio show and the exposure brought in donations,
enabling them to add a new building to the compound. In 1950
a wood stove started a fire which completely destroyed Mama
Sarah’s home. Sarah, Shug and the children moved into
the original one-room school building. Resources started coming
in from Polk County, the state, the country and even from
areas around the world. Several months before groundbreaking
on the new building, Shug died. Eight months later, as the
newly completed building was about to be occupied, Sarah died.
Without Sarah’s leadership and vision, the home floundered
after her death. In 1961 the national Women’s Division
of the United Methodist Church took over the property and
in 1984 it merged with the Ethel Harpst Home to form the Murphy-Harpst
Children’s Centers, Inc. which offers early education,
intervention and prevention programs in addition to residential
treatment, therapeutic foster care, and community-based programs.
Through the Murphy campus, this amazing woman continues to
help children, families, and “Sarah’s people.”
Sarah McLendon Murphy was inducted posthumously into the
Georgia Women of Achievement Hall of Fame on March 11, 2004.
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