Sister Kathleen Murphy, O.P., a member of the Sisters of St. Dominic, Amityville, for 74 years, died June 16.  She was 94.

Born in Fall River, Mass., she attended Dominican Academy, Manahttan; and Ladycliff College  for one year.

She worked at the Naval Training Station in Massachusetts and as a waitress before entering the Novitiate at Queen of the Rosary Motherhouse, Amityville, in 1944. On year later, she received her Dominican habit and her religious name, Sister Mary Thomas. In 1946, she pronounced her vows.

She taught St. Clement Pope School, Ozone Park, 1946-51; St. Barbara’s H.S., an annex to Bishop McDonnell H.S; St. Agnes Academic H.S., College Point, where she taught English and mentored the students who worked on the school paper and the drama group which put on plays. While at St. Agnes she also founded a Guidance Department.

She held a B.A. in English from St. John’s University, and an M.F. A. from Fordham University. In 1964, she joined the staff of the Brooklyn Diocesan Office of Education where she was Coordinator of Pupil Personnel Services.

From 1969 to 1976, she was a counselor and an associate professor at Boston College. From 1976 to 1977, she worked at St. Ignatius Retreat House, Manhasset, L.I., while beginning to establish a Spiritual Life Center in New Hyde Park.

The following year she became an adjunct professor at Fordham’s School of Religious Studies as the Spiritual Life Center began to take life in earnest. From 1972 to 1978, she ministered at the Spiritual Life Center both giving spiritual guidance and training many others to be spiritual directors. After a one-year sabbatical in 1982 at the Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley, Calif., she returned the next year to the Spiritual Life Center which had moved to Franklin Square, L.I. She was a Regional Superior and member of the Congregation’s Executive Board, from 1985 to 1995. When her term was finished she returned to full-time ministry at the Spiritual Life Center, where she remained until her retirement in 2009.

Burial was in the sisters’ cemetery in Amityville.