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Date: 12/14/2023
WEST SPRINGFIELD — Along Piper Road and Monastery Avenue, purple bows are fluttering as a memorial to Neely Murray, who died a year ago when she was struck by a car while crossing the street.
The hand-made ribbon bows are purple because it was Murray’s favorite color, said Joyce Corbett, who helped organize a group of more than 20 people to hang them on Dec. 2. The first bows the group put up were across the street from Prosper at Monastery Heights, where the 25-year-old Piper Road resident worked.
Ishmael Murray, who attached the first bow to a utility pole on Monastery Avenue, said the fact that his late sister worked at an assisted living facility pointed to the kind of person she was.
“That’s what she chose to do, to help people,” he said. “Truly, what comes to mind is kindness. … Quiet and kind. And happy.”
Neely Murray was a familiar sight to her neighbors, often walking the less than half-mile from her home to her workplace and back, and then taking the family dog for a walk. It was during one of those walks with the dog, on Dec. 20, 2022, that she was struck by a car while crossing Piper Road.
“She was such a sweet, sweet, kind person,” recalled neighbor Dawn McBride, part of the group hanging bows. “It’s heartbreaking. The family has gone through so much.”
Corbett lives farther down Piper Road and did not have a connection with the Murray family before a year ago, but has long been an advocate for lower speed limits and safer streets in West Springfield, on Piper Road in particular. She got to know the Murrays, and Neely Murray’s friends, as they joined forces to lobby the West Springfield Town Council for traffic safety improvements. Corbett said she had the idea to hang bows for the anniversary of Neely Murray’s death when she saw family and friends expressing their grief at a council meeting.
“I thought they needed something to help them heal,” she said.
The bow-hanging group, which in addition to family, friends and neighbors also included District 2 Town Councilor Michael LaFlamme, paused at the corner of Monastery and Piper for a moment of silence in Neely Murray’s memory, then continued hanging bows along Piper Road.
Corbett said she worked with Murray’s neighbors Tracy and Kevin MacGrath in organizing the event, and Ishmael Murray reached out to family and friends. She credited Barry Hubbard for making and donating the purple bows, and Police Chief Paul Connor for assigning a detail officer to keep the group safe while hanging the bows. There are no sidewalks along Monastery Avenue, and the intersection with Piper Road is currently a construction zone, as the town is installing “bump-outs” — new curbs that narrow the width of the roadway — in an effort to force drivers to slow down.
The bows will stay up as long as they remain in good shape, Corbett said. She and Tracy MacGrath will take down bows when they become too weathered.