Lake Forest-Lake Bluff History Museum

Murrie Family

Murrie family, friends and coworkers standing in front of the new blacksmith shop on Deerpath. (Photo dated 1905, may actually be 1907.) Allen Murrie is pictured at center, seated on a donkey, with son Richard on his lap. Son Clifford Murrie is standing to the right, and daughter Helen Murrie is in a white blouse next to the white horse.

Helen Murrie Tibbets, son Jim Tibbets, Leola Willis, Ellen Crocker.

Merle Tibbetts and Helen Elizabeth Murrie Tibbetts.

Reprint of Lake Forester advertisement for Murrie Cleaners.

The Murrie family were Lake County pioneers, arriving from Scotland (Perthshire) before 1850. James Murrie was an early Justice of the Peace and John Murrie worked in the Anderson General Store in 1880. Young brother Allen Murrie came to Lake Forest with his wife Leola around 1901. He operated a blacksmith shop on Deerpath where he employed several other Scots.

The Murries’ daughter Helen worked as a stenographer. Her husband Merle ran the dairy at Mellody Farm in Libertyville. He had an accomplished tenor voice and often sang for the Methodist Episcopal Church. Helen had worked as a stenographer and for the telephone exchange, and was an active member of the WCTU (Women’s Christian Temperance Union).

As teenagers, son Clifford worked as a farm laborer while youngest son Richard worked at a dry cleaning store. Clifford and Richard went on to open Murrie Dry Cleaning in the 1930s. They operated a store on Western Avenue (still a dry cleaner in 2018) and another on Scranton in Lake Bluff – both buildings were designed by Stanley Anderson.