Michael Murphy

I am an idea man: an Irishman, in love with nature, music, singing, fishing, laughter, and fairness. I grew up on a small sixty-acre farm with chickens, ducks, geese, barn cats, a succession of dogs from a springer spaniel to a German shepherd, a few guinea hens, a horse, a small Guernsey cow, two goats, and later raising a few steers. I had four sisters and a younger brother. I was the third oldest. My mother was a wonderful pianist. My father was a county judge who also played the fiddle. The Kewaunee River ran through our property, and the Green Bay & Western Railroad ran along the hill just beyond the river. My parents were people of strong faith, and so was I.

I grew up doing various chores, digging postholes and building fences, cutting grass, swimming in the river, singing around the piano with the whole family in the evenings, learning to read books, reading some books out loud to my father, watching people come into our yard in the evenings to ask my father for advice, and often coming back another evening with a chicken or duck in a sack as thanks.

I attended Holy Rosary Parochial School in Kewaunee, then Sacred Heart Seminary in Oneida west of Green Bay for High School and two years of college, then St. Francis Seminary in Milwaukee for six years of philosophy, theology, and scripture. For eight summers I worked for the Kewaunee County Highway Department. I pitched fast-pitch softball for twenty years. Ordained a diocesan Catholic priest in 1966, I taught religion in three Catholic high schools, played guitar, left the priesthood honorably after ten years, sold insurance, got married, and had three children.

I also enjoyed serving as Executive Director for the March of Dimes in Milwaukee, sold new cars in Elgin, Illinois, became Head Chaplain at Aurora BayCare Medical Center in Green Bay for ten years, retired, got remarried, am now a writer concerned about the lack of religious faith and the need for spiritual meaning among today’s wildly diverse Americans.

Hello. I am Chuck Bartok, a 60+ year veteran of Entrepreneurial pursuits. Some good, some bad, but all worthwhile. Spending most of my time now working with others, helping them enjoy Personal and Financial Success