E-news Online January 2012

Charles Edward McMurdo, the University of Virginia’s oldest living alumnus, died on December 31, 2011, at 105 years of age.

McMurdo was a graduate in Electrical Engineering from the School of Engineering and Applied Science, Class of 1929 and 1930, earning both an undergraduate and graduate degree. He won many honors as a student and had a long and successful career as an electrical engineer. He also was active in his church and rarely missed an opportunity to gather with the Engineering School community.

“Charles was a constant presence at events,” says Dean James Aylor. “I will never forget his bright-eyed presence at receptions and dinners. He would walk in on the arm of his son Keith, wave to the crowd and engage in lively conversation. This continued right up to the end of his life. He was an impressive man and he will be missed.”

McMurdo was born in Wilsall, Mont., July 31, 1906, at Sagemore, his family’s ranch. When he decided to attend U.Va. in the 1920s, he had to make his way across the country on a cattle train for five days until he could catch a passenger train in Chicago. Once he arrived in Charlottesville, he lived and worked at his uncle’s Albemarle County farm. He bought a motorcycle for $40 so he could travel to the University after milking cows in the morning.

His great-grandson Matthew Vinson, a civil engineering graduate of the Class of 2010, remembers his “Great-Granddaddy Mac” telling him how students signed up for classes back then by visiting professors in their offices and asking for their approval. McMurdo told him how he would determine the popularity of a class by the length of the line coming out of the office door.

As a student at U.Va., McMurdo was a member of Tau Beta Pi, a national honorary engineering fraternity, and was president of the Trigon Engineering Society. He was initiated into the Raven Society, received the Isabella Merrick Sampson Scholarship for three years and was on the Dean’s List from the time it was established in 1927 until his graduation, maintaining a grade point average above 90 in all of his studies.

After earning his postgraduate degree in 1930, he worked as an electrical engineer with the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company of Virginia (now Verizon) until his retirement in 1971. As a professional engineer, he held many leadership positions, including serving as president of the Central Virginia Engineer’s Club, chairman of the Richmond section of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and chairman of the American Society for Quality Control.

He was very active in his church. He served as the first president of Region 11 of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia and became the Church of the Epiphany’s first lay reader permitted to serve the cup during the celebration of the Eucharist.

McMurdo was predeceased by his wife, Louise Curtis McMurdo, and a son-in-law, George Elfe Fore. He is survived by two daughters, Sarah McMurdo Fore of Richmond and Mary McMurdo Griffith of Goochland, and a son, Charles Keith McMurdo of Winchester. He is also survived by a daughter-in-law, Harriet Tuck McMurdo; a son-in-law, Herbert Robert Griffith; five grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.

Gifts in his honor may be made to the Building Fund of the Church of the Epiphany, 8000 Hermitage Road, Richmond, VA 23228. Gifts in his honor at the Engineering School may be made to the Dean’s Unrestricted Fund, with a note that the gift is in memory of Mr. McMurdo and sent to the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science, P.O. Box 400256, Charlottesville, VA 22904.