Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - 2:42 pm
On Thursday, November 26, 2020, Koral Nichols Murdoch, loving wife, mother of two children, grandmother of eight grandchildren, and great-grandmother of three great-grandchildren passed away at the age of 82.
Koral was born on March 21, 1938, in the family homestead (circa 1796) in Galilee NY, just outside of Ogdensburg, NY, to Willard and Susan (Dewey) Nichols, and was the oldest of seven children. She grew up on the family farm in Ogdensburg until 1956 when she attended the St. Lawrence Academy Nursing School. She earned her Nursing certification in the Spring of 1958 and began working in Syracuse.
She met her husband, James (Larry) Murdoch, a U.S. Air Force Sergeant attending the language school at Syracuse University, at a dance in December 1958. A quick romance ensued, and Koral and Larry were engaged by the end of January and married on May 23, 1959. The newlyweds moved to Germany in mid-1959, on Larry’s assignment to Bremerhaven on the North Sea. While stationed there, they traveled to nearly every free European country, missing only Spain. Upon Larry’s discharge, they moved to Laurel, Maryland. Koral worked at Prince George’s County Hospital’s pediatric ward while Larry attended the University of Maryland College Park. She later became a Physician’s Assistant, and she practiced medicine at Columbia Medical Plan in Columbia, Maryland for many years. Koral and Larry raised two children, George and Susan, in Columbia.