Nearly six months after he was found to be suffering from terminal pancreatic cancer, Father William Bonaventure Murphy died peacefully in his room at St. Pius V Priory in Chicago, Illinois, early in the evening of Sunday, May 2, 1982, in the company of members of the community and his brother, Father Richard T.A. Murphy, of the Southern Dominican Province of St. Martin de Porres. Following services at St. Pius V Church in Chicago and at Holy Rosary Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota, he was buried in the community plot at St. Mary's Cemetery, Minneapolis on May 5.

William Bernard Joseph Murphy was born June 26, 1905, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He attended Holy Rosary Grade School in Minneapolis and St. Thomas Military Academy in St. Paul, Minnesota, before enrolling at Providence College, Providence, Rhode Island, in the fall of 1922. On August 15, 1924, he entered the Dominican novitiate at St. Joseph's Priory, Somerset, Ohio, was given Bonaventure as his religious name and made his first profession the following year. Philosophical studies followed at the new House of Philosophy in River Forest, Illinois, and theological courses at the House of Theology in Washington, D.C. He was ordained a Dominican priest on June 15, 1931, at St. Dominic's Church in Washington.

In 1932, after completing the requirements for the Lectorate in Theology and additional special courses in biology and bacteriology at Catholic University of America, Father Murphy was named assistant student master and then student master and professor of liturgy at the House of Studies in Washington. His next assignment in 1935 took him back to his home parish at Holy Rosary in Minneapolis as an associate pastor. He was also subprior at Holy Rosary Priory from 1943 to 1949 and served as chaplain and professor of philosophy and theology at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota, from 1944 to 1956.

From 1956 to 1964, Father Murphy worked as chaplain and professor of theology at Rosary College in River Forest, Illinois, while living first at the House of studies and then at St. Vincent Ferrer Priory in River Forest. In 1964, he moved to Dominican College in Racine, Wisconsin, as professor of theology and chaplain to the motherhouse of the Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of St. Catherine in Racine.

By the end of the 1969-1970 scholastic year, Father Murphy found teaching increasingly difficult because of serious problems with his eyesight and the constant pain of a chronic arthritic condition. Nevertheless, he moved to St. Albert the Great Provincial House on Bennett Avenue in Chicago where he took on the responsibilities of local superior and house manager until August of 1974, when he moved to St. Pius V Priory in Chicago. Although often hampered by the painful limitations of his physical condition, Father

Murphy continued to serve his religious community to the best of his ability and with cheerful dedication until severely weakened during the last few days of his life by the effects of his final illness.