by Elaine (Murphy) Hickey
I am compelled to recount and share this true story about the heroism of our cousin Molly Burke, to whom we owe an enormous debt of gratitude.
As the eldest of eleven children born to Leo and Emma Murphy of Mount Arlington Heights, NL, I can remember my mother telling me this story many, many times about the day she nearly lost my youngest sister, Linda, in a tragic event almost 50 years ago.
My father, Leo Murphy, was a fisherman who was born on Crawley’s Island, just across the harbour from Mount Arlington Heights. Every year, he would ritually go back there in spring to beach his motorboat on the sand and paint the boat and do repairs to the underwater seams, mostly with oakum and pitch.
On this particular occasion, Dad had a dory tied onto the boat so he could row back to the mainland and wait for his boat to be completely dry and out of the water. On his return trip, he took my sister Linda, aged five, and my brother Blaine, aged four, with him to give Mom a break as she was home with a two-year-old and a new baby.
He pulled the dory up on the sand, halfway out of the water, and left the children on their own to play alongside. He got busy and distracted and didn’t realize the tide had started to rise. He knew nothing until Blaine screamed out to him that the dory was floating away. My father couldn’t swim, so he was left o the beach screaming out for help, hoping someone on the mainland side would hear him, a mere 300 metres away. No one did, and I can imagine his panic over his little girl sitting in the boat, quietly drifting away.
He raced along the beach, telling her to stay seated and not to stand up, as she could fall overboard. I’m sure his hope was that as she was drifting down the harbour towards the rocky beach below our house on the mainland side, that someone would see her in the boat. That someone was my mother, who, for some reason, had stepped out on the house deck at the exact same time that Linda was floating past. She screamed, and Aunt Helen’s daughter, Molly Burke, who lived two houses over, heard her and came running. Molly raced back to her father’s wharf, untied his dory, and took off rowing towards Linda.
In talking to Molly recently, she explained that Linda was probably ten or fifteen minutes away from crashing into the rocks at the area called the Wild Cove. As Molly approached, she was afraid Linda would get excited and jump up in the tiny boat. So Molly started talking to her in a calm voice, telling her to stay seated and let her tie the two boats together so that she could bring her to her mommy. Apparently Linda was a good listener and did exactly as she was told.
Molly towed her back to my dad’s wharf where my mom was waiting anxiously on the beach for her. Then Molly rowed over to Crawley’s Island and gave Dad the good news about the rescue. Mom and Dad never forgot what Molly did for them that spring day. More than one life was affected that day by her selflessness and generosity. Molly’s capacity to act and help is the quality of heroism that saved our family from the unthinkable. On that day so long ago she was definitely our family’s hero!