With Irish ballads playing softly in the background, James F. Murphy Jr. wrote page after page longhand for hours every day – "ascetic, like a monk," he once told the Globe.
"I suppose I was born with an imagination," he said for the book "The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Novelists," published in 2008. "I read. I've always been a dreamer. Stories, all stories stimulate me."
His best story was his own life. The son of factory workers, he grew up working-class in Newton and went on to publish poems and novels. After a high school teacher attempted to discourage him from aspiring to college, he became an English teacher and writing instructor to thousands, from junior high students to working-world adults who were chasing an elusive bachelor's degree.
"He really saved my life and gave me direction," said Pamela Alexander, a poet who formerly taught creative writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Oberlin College, where she was a professor. Alexander added that Mr. Murphy, who taught her as a ninth-grader in Natick in the early 1960s, was the first teacher who "told me I was good at something and made me feel excited about the possibility of being good at something. It made a huge difference for me and many, many others. And there's a cascade effect where the people he touched touch other people."
Mr. Murphy, who taught writing for 28 years in Boston College's Woods College of Advancing Studies, died in his Falmouth home Sept. 27 of myelodysplastic syndrome. He was 83.
A Korean War veteran, he wrote poignantly about his experience at the border of South Korea and North Korea. Just after the armistice, he witnessed an exchange of prisoners of war and captured a scene involving one American soldier in particular in "Freedom Village," the lead essay for the 2001 collection "Chicken Soup for the Veteran's Soul."
"A gray-faced stick figure of a boy-turned-man dragged himself along the bridge," he wrote. "His bony arms were held out like a sleepwalker. He staggered and swayed, and one time fell into the wooden railing."
Spotting the color guard and the American flag, the soldier "knelt on trembling knees before the flag as though it was an altar. He reached up and tugged at the flag. The color bearer, either by instinct or some infinite wisdom, lowered the flag, and the soldier covered his face with it, sobbing and shaking uncontrollably."
James Francis Murphy Jr. grew up in the Newton neighborhood known as the Lake, the son of James Sr. and the former Rose Horan, both of whom worked in factories – she during World War II, when many men were in the service.
"My grandparents had an unconditional love for their son," said his daughter Nina of Bristol, R.I. "He had a very close bond to them."
He also felt a permanent tie to Newton, which he expressed in the story "The Green Box" that he later expanded into a 2013 novel. The title refers to a Recreation Department storage container whose opening heralded the arrival of spring. The lid "would creak and squeak as it was lifted, and immediately the familiar smell of leather from baseball mitts, softballs, and chest protectors would awaken memories," he wrote.
"My dad was the ultimate storyteller," said his son Ted of Falmouth. "Everything was a story, and in the story was always a lesson, but not preachy. You'd be laughing at what he said, and then pick up on something later."
Mr. Murphy married Margaret Ann Matthews in 1961. She had first spotted him on stage during a high school production of "Kiss Me Kate" when they were teens, but they weren't formally introduced until years later. In the book dedication to "The Green Box," he called her "my mentor, my best friend, and loving wife."
When Mr. Murphy had published the original story in a magazine, "he went and bought my mother a suit with that money," Nina said. "It was like something out of O. Henry. He never wanted anything for himself."
As a teenager, just before graduating from Our Lady Help of Christians High School in Newton, Mr. Murphy was in class one day when a teacher asked students where they planned to be in the fall. Because his friends said they planned to attend Boston College, Mr. Murphy did, too, only to hear the teacher say, " 'Oh, Murphy, you'll be lucky to get out of here,' " his daughter said. "He never forgot that moment of shame and dismissiveness."
The experience inspired the gentle care he took as a teacher. After the war, he used the GI Bill to attend Boston College and later graduated with master's degrees from Framingham State and Northeastern University. Mr. Murphy taught English at junior high and high schools in Hopkinton, Natick, and Sandwich, where he was head of the department. He also taught English and public speaking at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, in addition to his many years teaching writing at Woods College of Advancing Studies.
He was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1965 and a Whiting scholarship to lecture in Dublin City University in 1990. His other books included "The Mill" and "They Were Dreamers," and he taught and encouraged drama programs throughout his career.
"Here was a fellow who was not only a writer, but he taught other people how to write," said Carlo D'Este, a longtime Cape Cod friend who as biographer and military historian has published books on Winston Churchill and General George S. Patton. "Jim just had this dedication to education and teaching."
Yet when "he came home from school, then it was time for his kids," his son said.
Oftentimes the family would "get in a circle, everyone would hold hands, and say, 'Love one another and stick together,' and you'd hold your hands up in the air when you got to 'stick together,' " Nina said. "That really was our parents' motto, raising six children."
In addition to his wife, daughter, and son, Mr. Murphy leaves three other daughters, Joanna Swanson of Hillsborough, N.C., Sarah of Falmouth, and Courtney of Lexington; another son, Seton of Newton; and three grandchildren.
A memorial Mass will be said at noon Friday in Our Lady's Help of Christians Church in Newton.
As illness composed an end to the narrative of his life and it was time to head home from Brigham and Women's Hospital, Mr. Murphy read a poem to the medical team that had offered care and treatment. Invoking the months ahead he would not live to see, "Postscript" began:
"Weeks, did you say? Not months or years?"
"Weeks," she repeated.
And already September is turning orange
with crispness in the air
and a melancholy of days now too short.
Is the purity of October
and the chilled star of an amber sky
a greeting to crusty, brittle November?
That Mr. Murphy could compose a poem with death close at hand would not surprise those who knew his devotion to a craft that always filled his thoughts.
"I'm always writing when I'm not 'writing,' such as when I'm cutting the grass," he said for the "101 Habits" book. Inspiration was everywhere. Even while driving to teach his Boston College writing classes, he added, "my mind wanders creatively."
Bryan Marquard can be reached at bryan.marquard@globe.com.