PATRICK
I look through a keyhole in a dream
And there is my father, eyes closed
In meditation.
Thirty-four years have passed
Since we laid him in the ground
In a gentle winter rain,
And not a single dusk has fallen
Without him beside me.
When a quail bobs its head
Beneath a redwood,
When a late summer dawn
Whispers autumn in a hint of mist,
When the mystery of spring with
Green and green and even more
Wet green catches me unready,
Dazzles me awake,
He, who loved spring and every color,
Loved every bird he ever saw,
Breathes with me,
Whispers in the zephyr—
“Listen, smell, see!”
I recently found this old poem, written on a faded piece of paper in my own handwriting. It was dated March 2006, and the original manuscript said that it had been fourteen years since my father’s death. During all this time, my father’s paintings, created primarily in the 1980s, had been securely stored in my niece Kathleen’s possession, having been rescued from the family’s garage by my late son David. All of us in our extended family have treasured my father, Patrick Murdock’s paintings, and many of us, including myself, have original paintings by my father framed and hanging on the walls of our homes.
Clouds fill the aqua
Sky above the haystacks, rolled
Near an old live oak.
In my previous blog of May 2026, entitled “Grief and Grace,” I mentioned that our family had reached an agreement with the City of Milpitas to host a public and free exhibition of Patrick Murdock’s paintings, and the time has almost come. The exhibit, titled “FROM CARNEGIE DRIVE TO THE FOOTHILLS: PAINTINGS BY PATRICK M. MURDOCK,” will be available for viewing in the Milpitas, California Library Auditorium, 160 North Main Street, from June 18-August 20. The Murdock, Pedulla and Higashi family will host a reception to celebrate the opening on Thursday, June 25, from 6:30 to 8:00 PM in the library auditorium. If you or any of your friends live anywhere near Milpitas, San Jose or the South Bay area, you are welcome to join us.
In the spring storm in
The foothills, the oaks and the
Grasses are all green.
My father’s Impressionistic mixed media painting are especially interesting for their historic and geographic content as well as their beauty and color. Almost all of his paintings are plein air, to use the French term for outdoor paintings on location. Many depict seasonal scenes in the beautiful foothills of Santa Clara County once a center for vegetable farming and orchards. My father’s paintings capture the fresh and innocent beauty of the “Valley of Heart’s Delight” just before Milpitas and the surrounding area burst into the high tech metropolis known today as Silicon Valley.
Wild turkeys still strut
In the rugged park land high
Above the city.
Kathleen, who is Patrick’s granddaughter, has been busy creating a beautiful catalogue for the art exhibit, including a biography of Patrick, which she asked me to write, and her own photographs of all the paintings in the show. We are sharing the catalogue with you here, so you can enjoy the exhibit whether or not you will be able to view the paintings in person. There will also be a QR code on our website to allow you to enjoy the catalogue on your computer. As all of us celebrate Father’s Day in the month of June, we are privileged to honor Patrick, our father, grandfather and uncle. May all of you experience a joyful Father’s Day with your families this year.
From Carnegie Drive to the Foothills: Paintings by
Patrick M. Murdock
June 18 to August 20, 2026
Milpitas Library Auditorium
Milpitas, California
Introduction
My grandfather, Patrick M. Murdock, was fascinating. He was interested in people, speaking eloquently on many topics, a tall lean southern gent with a long silver braid and sketch book in hand.
He and my grandmother, Betty, were warm and fun and always ready for a trip back to the Midwest, a drive in the country, a new art exhibition, or dinner at a new restaurant in Milpitas. Both my grandparents possessed PhDs, defying stereotypes throughout their long lives together. Their house was stuffed with books and art and souvenirs of their travels. Visitors and grandchildren alike were welcomed to the house on Carnegie Drive.
A historian by training, Pat was drawn to the arts from an early age. Once settled in California, he took the green and gold landscapes of the foothills as his subject. Summers off, Betty and Pat took his VW camper van over the back roads, stopping to paint in plein air style wherever a scene interested him.
In retirement, Pat sketched and painted daily, usually in his back garden or front room. It was in the 1980s when Pat began experimenting with mixed media, using markers, chalk pastel, and gouache over quick watercolor washes. Oil pastels became a favorite, adding brilliant color to his landscapes. He drew and painted on bright paper and board. This group of paintings, his last, are also his best. Joyful and colorful, these paintings deserve to be shared with a wider audience: you.
Thank you so much for joining us here, in Milpitas Library’s historic Auditorium, in celebration of Patrick’s artwork.
Kathleen Pedulla
June 2026
California
Patrick M. Murdock
Biography
Patrick M. Murdock
(1915-1992)
Patrick Maurice Murdock was born on April 29, 1915, in the small town of Galena, Kansas, on old Highway 66, adjacent to Joplin, Missouri. At the time of his birth, Galena was a booming lead mining area, where the largest lead smelter in the world was located. His father, E.J. Murdock, was an entrepreneurial lead mine owner whose highest producing mine was The Maggie Murphy Mine, named after Patrick’s mother, Margaret Murphy Murdock. Patrick was the youngest of E.J. and Maggie’s eight sons. Patrick graduated from Galena High School in 1933, and like most of the men in Galena and the surrounding areas in Oklahoma and Missouri, he worked for a time in both lead mines and in the lead smelter. However, with the encouragement of his older brothers, Patrick became the only one of the Murdock boys to attend college.
At the University of Kansas at Lawrence, Patrick’s roommate was Jay Simon, who also grew up in Galena. Jay went on to become one of the leading sports journalists in America, ending his career as Managing Editor of Golf Digest magazine. Jay introduced Patrick to his younger sister, Betty Simon, who also grew up in Galena and was valedictorian of the Galena High School class of 1936, but oddly, she had never met Patrick or any members of the Murdock family. It was love at first sight with Patrick and Betty, and they married in their early twenties.
Betty and Pat, as he was called by his wife and friends, embarked on adventurous careers of higher learning, both ultimately earning Ph.D. degrees, Pat’s in American History and Betty’s in Public Speaking. Their three children, Margaret, John and Rose Anna, were all born in Joplin Missouri while Pat and Betty were pursuing their various academic degrees and supporting their family as teachers. World War II intervened, and Pat, the father of three children, was drafted into the United States Army at the age of 30. After the war, the G.I. Bill allowed the Murdock family to relocate to the American West where Pat, having completed his Master of Arts degree, earned his first college teaching position at Northern Idaho College of Education in Lewiston, Idaho. Betty completed her M.A. at nearby Washington State University in Pullman and became an elementary school teacher. The family moved on to Pullman where Betty continued teaching and Pat completed his Ph.D. with a focus on the Westward Movement in America and the corresponding history of Mexico.
The family’s dreams of living in California, the Golden State, finally came true when Pat was offered a position in the History Department of Coalinga College in the San Juaquin Valley. Ultimately, the lure of lovely Santa Clara County relocated the Murdocks again when Pat was hired to teach American History at San Jose City College. This small nuclear family had never lived in a large city, and Betty and Pat chose Milpitas, then a small, diverse, and developing town, as the best place to put down permanent roots and provide an excellent education for their children, then in their teens. They bought a house near Samuel Ayer High School, the first high school in the city of Milpitas, and their son John and daughter Rose both graduated from Samuel Ayer, which was later re-purposed as an Adult Education Center. John and Rose both married their high school sweethearts, Diane Umemoto and Wayne Higashi, also graduates of Samuel Ayer. Their older daughter, Margaret, met her future husband, Rudy Pedulla, a Milpitas resident, while he was working his way through San Jose State University as a letter carrier for the Milpitas Post Office. Betty taught fourth grade in the Milpitas Unified School District for many years and remained in the School District as a school Speech Pathologist after retraining while earning her Ph.D. at the University of Missouri. Many of Betty’s students still reside in Milpitas. Pat and Betty’s son John lives in the family home on Carnegie Drive, and two of their grandsons, Michael and Matthew Murdock, also live in Milpitas.
While Pat’s profession and life-long passion was history, he was also a gifted painter all his life, and he and the family visited museums of art everywhere they lived and traveled. However, it was only after his retirement that he found the time to pursue his love for plein air painting, enjoying and depicting the beauty of outdoor landscapes in all seasons. Monet and the other Impressionists were his favorites. Betty and Pat traveled to Europe to observe some of the best paintings in the world in person. They visited Monet’s home and waterlily garden in Giverny and traveled down the Seine River to Chartres where Pat created a plein air painting of Chartres Cathedral and whimsically signed it “Patrick Monet.” In addition to the Impressionists, Pat was also intrigued by the Expressionists and in fact all styles of painting and drawing, including Hopper, Picasso, and the great painters of Mexico, Jose Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera and David Siquieros. Actually, he never saw a painting he didn’t like. After moving to Milpitas, Pat fell in love with the green and golden landscape of Santa Clara County, the rolling hills, wildflowers, birds and wildlife, orchards and peeks at the distant waterways. The mixed media plein air paintings on display in this show were all created while Patrick was enjoying the beauty of his final home.
Rose Anna Higashi
June 2026
Hawaii
Rose Higashi, Patrick and Betty Murdock, 1980s
Mauve Patio, 1980s
Green Sky with Red Triangle, 1980s
Trees in Fall Color, Yellow House, 1985
Pink Yard with Strawberry Pot, 1980s
Yellow and Orange Tree, 1980s
Red Fence, 1980s
Side of the House in Cool Tones, 1980s
Leafy Backyard with Irises, 1985
Back of the House with Bird Bath, 1980s
Fig Tree with Handcart, 1980s
Hot Orange Paper with Backyard Trees, 1980s
Back of the House, Cool Toned Eaves, 1980s
Fence with White Blossoms, 1980s
Patio Umbrella with Chairs, 1980s
Verdant Yard with Telephone Pole, 1980s
Spring Storm in the Foothills, 1980s
Fall Storm in the Foothills, 1989
Out the Front Window, 1980s
Verdant Yard with Cold Frame, 1987
Lady on the Sofa, 1980s
Pale Lady on the Sofa, 1980s
Surprise Lilies, Looking Next Door, 1988
White House with Ghost Agave, 1980s
Back Window, Fence with Shadows, 1981
Leaning Tree with Lawn 1980s
Orchard in Spring, 1980s
Big Tree with Stone Wall, 1980s
Bright Kitchen, 1980s
Self Portrait on Board, 1980s
Self Portrait, 1980s
Dedication
During Pat's lifetime, only a few of his paintings were framed and hung in his home on Carnegie Drive or in many of the family's homes. His attitude seemed to be that making the next painting was more interesting than doing anything with the finished work.
We were grief-stricken at his death in 1992, and our grandmother Betty lived at Carnegie Drive for several more years. Things were piled up in the garage and we grandchildren visited Betty until she moved to a place where she could be cared for. We were in no hurry to dismantle the house we all loved, so it sat.
At that time, I was living on a ranch in Aromas, California and came home to two large boxes in my living room. One box held Pat's art supplies, collected from the 1950s through his life, the other box held Pat's paintings. At that moment, I was still too sad to look through them, so they sat.
It turned out that my cousin, David, had rescued the paintings from being forgotten or worse, and dropped them at my house. I stored the paintings in museum boxes, so they were safe but sitting in a closet seemed like a poor destiny. With help from Pat’s son John Murdock, daughter Rose Higashi, and City of Milpitas, we got the art out of the closet and into the light.
This art show is dedicated to David Higashi (1963-2025) without whose presence of mind, could not have happened. We miss you.
The Murdock, Pedulla and Higashi Family
David Higashi, Kathleen Pedulla, and Rose Anna Higashi
Patrick M. Murdock, Carnegie Drive, Milpitas, California, 1980s
THE RIVER
I remember back in Idaho
Decades ago, my daddy
Would sit on the front porch in the evening,
Smoking a cigarette,
And listening to the Snake River.
We couldn’t see it from our house,
But he knew it was there.Now, as I sit on the back steps,
Thinking of him,
I watch the tide grow higher,
See the stacks of clouds on the horizon
Turn pink layer by layer,
And listen to the endless call of the sea.
I can’t hear him,
But I know he’s here.
From Searching in Circles by Rose Anna Higashi
