Margaret Olive (Murphy) Bernard
Marriages
John Bernard
Obituaries
Steamboat Today - March 30, 2008
Former Steamboat Springs resident Olive Bernard passed away March 21, 2008, in Amarillo, Texas. She was 73.
Margaret Olive Bernard was born July 10, 1934, in Cork, Ireland, to Michael and Kathleen Joyce Murphy. She attended Scol Ita, a private high school, as well as the Cork School of Music. She graduated from the National University of Ireland, University College, Cork, where she received a bachelor's degree in music and a higher diploma in education. She received a master's degree in music education from West Texas State University.
Olive attended and taught at many different schools of music throughout her career in Ireland and the United States. In her career as a classical harpist, she was an associate of Lucile Lawrence and Dewey Owens for more than 40 years. In addition, she was proficient in interpreting and arranging Irish traditional music for harp and voice.
Olive was co-founder and manager of the Rocky Mountain Springs Harp Program in Steamboat Springs, which began as the Harp Division of the Rocky Mountain Summer Conservatory. For several years, she was a music teacher at San Jacinto and Rolling Hills Elementary schools in Amarillo, Texas.
She was a member of the Amarillo Symphony and Chamber Music Amarillo. She played with the Steamboat Springs Orchestra and Emerald City Opera. In her career, she played with many orchestras around the U.S. and Ireland. Olive had a life filled with music in every way.
Olive is survived by her husband John Bernard, of Amarillo; daughter Catherine Maeve Bernard and her husband Joseph Paul McMenimen of Snowmass Village; brother David Aidan Murphy of Balleycotton, Ireland; and grandson Joseph Patrick McMenimen of Snowmass Village. She was preceded in death by daughter Deidre Ann Bernard and brother Michael Laurie Murphy.
Services were held March 25 in Amarillo. A memorial concert will be held in Steamboat Springs this summer.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Rocky Mountain Springs Harp Program, PMB #104, 1625 Mid-Valley Drive, Unit #1, Steamboat Springs, CO 80487.
