Gloria MurrayGloria Murray was a quiet person, but she got stuff done. That is how she is remembered this week by family and friends after the 52 year-old Murray died on January 19 from kidney failure after a long battle with diabetes.

“Her demeanor was calm, but she asked the tough questions, and when she saw things that weren’t going right,” said her friend Barbara Crichlow, who met Murray many years ago at community meetings in the B3 police station. “She put her effort into trying to make things right.”

Murray was active in local community development corporations. She organized sidewalk sales and helped to advise plans to renovate the Mattapan Square T station. Crichlow said she also advocated for a new library in Mattapan and sat on the committee that placed two heritage statues in Mattapan Square.

“She was like a quiet storm,” Crichlow said. “As a friend, she’s the kind of person that I wanted to have my back.”

Murray leaves behind a son, David, 24, and a daughter, Esohe Amadin, 25. She also raised her sister’s three children for about ten years. In the hospital, before she got really sick, she was still planning events for her beloved Mission Main community in Roxbury.

“She went on fighting for the community,” said Esohe Amadin. “She took care of the community more than herself.”

Her wake is at 10 a.m., and the funeral at 11 a.m. on Saturday, led by Pastor William Dickerson at the Greater Love Tabernacle on Nightingale Street. Internment is planned for Oak Lawn Cemetery in Mattapan. The family also invites those who knew Murray to a repast at the Tobin Community Center after the service.

While planning the funeral, Esohe Murray wrote a Facebook post about a local restaurant owner who leaspt at the opportunity to help provide food: “Gloria? You mean the one over on Smith Street? The one who was into politics and all of that? The one who was so giving and loving? I will certainly take care of you,” she wrote. “I couldn’t even finish the convo without crying.”