Carol A. Murtaugh

Carol Ann Murtaugh “the Lone Wolf” (Riche), 88, passed away Friday, November 3, 2023, at Waldo County General Hospital.  Carol was born in Montclair, N.J., on November 17, 1934, daughter of Philip and Claire (Munzell) Riche.

Carol earned her master’s degree in public and mental health nursing from New York University.  She earned her Ph. D (A.B.D.) in nursing research and psychiatric nursing also from New York University. Over her lifetime she worked in many capacities, as a public health nurse, a psychiatric nurse, and a professor for psychiatric nursing at Raritan Valley Community College in Branchburg, N.J. and then as Dean in her final year(s) with the college.

After retirement from nursing and teaching, Carol continued working in many diverse areas including as an advocate’s counselor, a health care and educational consultant, a hypnotherapist, a feature writer for the Quoddy Tides in Lubec, ME, a hospice volunteer and grant writer to list a few. She sat on numerous boards including: the Lubec Memorial Library, the Coalition to Prevent Domestic Violence – Safe Harbors, the Calais Regional Hospital, Sunrise Opportunities of Washington County, the Land Use Regulation Commission and the Lubec and Washington County Democratic Committee(s).

In addition to having made a career and life out of helping others, Carol’s greatest love was for world travel, animals, the state of Maine (specifically her beloved Lubec) and the ocean. Her travels even took her to meet Emperor penguins in Antarctica. In her later years she would ask to be taken to sit near the water whenever the opportunity presented itself. She was 87 when she had her last swim in Maine waters.

She was an avid reader with a diverse book collection that covered topics from the classics to nursing/psychiatry to past lives and comparative religion. She read the NY Times and the Bangor Daily news 7 days a week and was always extremely educated about and had strong opinions regarding the affairs of the world.

In addition to her parents Philip and Claire Riche, Carol was predeceased by her brother Philip Jr. and her sister Phyllis, her husband George S. Murtaugh, and her beloved grandmother “Nanny”, Caroline Heiss Riche.  Surviving is her niece, currently residing in South Africa