Elizabeth Anne Murphy Prescott

Elizabeth Anne “Liz” Murphy was born to Julia and William Murphy in Evergreen Park, Illinois, on December 6, 1957. She grew up surrounded by love, seeing her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins nearly every week. As a child, she excelled in school, played baseball with the neighborhood kids, went boating on Lake Michigan with her grandparents, doted on her younger cousins, and learned to sew clothes when she couldn’t find things she wanted to wear.

Liz attended Northland College on the shores of Lake Superior, then transferred to Rice University in Houston. There, she met Rick Prescott, who became a dear friend during shifts at the campus radio station and over hot-plate meals when the dining hall was closed. During the next few years together, they watched a space shuttle test flight from Mission Control, rescued dozens of stray cats and dogs, and dashed northward by train to witness the 1979 total solar eclipse. After Liz and Rick married, they moved first to Minneapolis and then to Madison, Wisconsin. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Liz finished her degree in Political Science and completed graduate work in Environmental Studies. But it was when children and later grandchildren swept into her life that she found her deepest calling.

Liz was the beating heart of her family. She was a near-tireless and devoted mother to three daughters, Moire, Liana, and Sarah, and sent love and caring attention outward to her extended family and beyond. She led by example with a can-do spirit of overcoming obstacles and learning new skills – from pouring concrete steps to parenting small children. She was deeply moved to understand the feelings of others, and she had “the courage to be kind,” bravely stepping forward to help however she could. Time spent with Liz was incredibly rich: she would notice beauty in a landscape, skill and kindness in other people, or subtle milestones in the growth of a child, and her noticing made all of this more visible to others. With her five grandchildren, she had seemingly infinite energy to play with trains or stuffed animals, set up marble runs or Duplo towers, invent new games, or search for supplies for the next building project. She would join children in experiencing wonder and excitement in all the little parts of daily life — from fixing pipes to planting flowers to putting quarters in the laundry machine. And she made the world around her more joyful with her handiwork – crafting delightful Halloween costumes, Christmas decorations, and birthday cakes, and building a glorious perennial garden that is home to scores of butterflies and bees every summer.

On December 10, 2025, after bravely navigating four years of treatments for multiple myeloma, Liz had to leave us. She passed away surrounded by love, with her husband and three daughters gathered at her side. Liz is survived by her husband Rick, her mother Julia, brothers Patrick and Robert, daughters Moire, Liana, and Sarah, and five grandchildren: Alden, Caelen, Owen, Clara, and Roan. Her passing leaves an aching hole in our lives, but we know that her love and wisdom are still with us – as she would always remind us, pointing to her heart, “it is all baked in.”

A Celebration of Life service will be held in the Landmark Auditorium at the First Unitarian Society, 900 University Bay Drive, Madison, Wisconsin, at 2:00pm on Sunday, January 18, 2026. For those who wish to honor Liz’s memory with a donation, her family would be grateful for your support of the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center, or her favorite environmental charity, The Nature Conservancy.