Age 86, died August 19, 2024, tucked into her bed at home in Caledonia, Wisconsin. Connie was born January 5, 1938, to Grace and Eugene Goderski in the Town of Lake neighborhood, on the south side of the city of Milwaukee. She attended Burdick School until eighth grade and graduated from Bayview High School. Connie, a tenor saxophonist, played in the marching band and grew up on Lenox Street, under the flight path of General Mitchell Airport.  At age 16, Connie worked in the ticket booth and at the candy counter of her family-owned, art deco inspired, Airway Theatre. Connie was the first in her family to earn a college degree - a Bachelor of Science with a certificate to teach - from the University of Wisconsin Platteville, and she was editor of the 1960 Platteville Pioneer yearbook. She performed on the university stage as a member of Platteville’s modern dance company.  Connie married in 1959 at Holy Family Catholic Church in Cudahy, graduated college in 1960 with honors, and became a public-school English teacher, employed by the Oak Creek-Franklin School District. In 1965, Connie pursued post graduate credits at Cardinal Stritch College.

A devoted Catholic and a woman of strong faith, Connie taught the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine – commonly referred to as CCD or “Catechism" at St. Mary’s parish in South Milwaukee, first to sixth graders and then eighth or ninth graders from 1973-1992.  Connie moved to Hales Corners, WI a widow in 1993 and began as a Christian Formation instructor at the St. Mary parish there, serving the same parochial function of “providing a course of study pre-approved by the diocese as meeting the requirements for children not enrolled in a Catholic school, to engage with the sacraments at the same time as their diocese-sponsored peers.” She retired in 2005 at age 67, after 32 years in the church classroom.

Connie could play the piano and guitar and was gifted in drawing and oil painting. She was a voracious reader, an avid gardener and the beloved mother of Michelle Murphy (Kevin Kais), Melanie Murphy, Shaun Murphy and Melissa Murphy (Jason Prochaska). Connie is the grandmother of Joshua (Whitney) Hennlich, Jessica (Bryan) Nerby, Olivia Kais, Tyler, Madeline and Elijah Karian, and Joy, Ava and Paige Prochaska.  She is great grandmother (GiGi) to Lena and Ryan Hennlich, and Sloane and Dean Nerby. Proceeding her in death were Connie’s parents, her husband Gerald Murphy and her sister Janice Papke (nee Goderski). 

Connie will be honored on Friday August 30, 2024, with a 9:30 a.m. visitation and a 10:30 mass to be held at Divine Mercy Catholic Church, 800 Marquette Ave., South Milwaukee, WI 53172.  Private family internment will be at Forest Hill Memorial Park, with a luncheon to follow at the Bucyrus Club & Event Center in South Milwaukee.  In lieu of flowers or monetary gifts. the family asks that charitable donations be made to The Friends of Wehr Nature Center or Friends of Boerner Gardens in Whitnall Park, Hales Corners, WI.