Obituary for Mary Carmen Turash
With a heavy heart, we regret to inform everyone that our mother, Mary Carmen Turash (maiden name is Maria del Carmen Garzón Esteban), passed away on May 9, 2026, in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, at the age of 87 years old.
She was born in Madrid, Spain, on April 16, 1939, fifteen days after the Spanish Civil War ended. Her parents were Eliseo Garzón Rodriguez & Marina Esteban del Valle. Her father had been a bullfighter before the war. Her mother was a seamstress, but also played flamenco guitar. Mary was the oldest, and she helped raise her two brothers, Eliseo Esteban Garzón, three years younger, and Enrique Esteban Garzón, nine years younger.
When she was 19, while working as a secretary for a construction company, she met a USAF serviceman, Robert Lowell Murdock, who was stationed at Torrejón Air Base, in Madrid. They married in 1960 and moved to North Carolina, USA, where she had her first-born child, Roberto Javier Murdock. She had her daughter, Caterina Maria Murdock, at Warners Air Force Base in Georgia two years later. They moved to Lakehurst, New Jersey, when Robert was then stationed at McGuire AFB. Mary remained in NJ after their divorce, and she had her third child, Kenneth Carlos Turash, in 1971.
Mary attended college at Ocean County College where she earned her Associates degree followed by Georgian Court College where she earned a BS Degree in Business Administration in 1987. She worked as a bilingual social worker for the Division of Youth and Family Services in Ocean County, NJ. She retired from that position in 2015.
Mary loved her children very much, and as a single mother, she did what she needed to do to ensure they had a good home, ate good traditional Castilian Spanish food, and were educated as good Catholics at Saint Joseph Elementary and High School in Toms River, NJ.
Mary’s simple joys in life were cooking, eating, dancing, traveling, watching Spanish television, going to the beach, attending mass and visiting her grandchildren: Madison Turash, Oliver, Tristan & Keaton Thorum, Xaviera & Maxwell Murdock and Heather Whitmire.
She was also very active in the Spanish communities in NJ and Fort Walton Beach, Florida. She had been a resident at The Meridian at Westwood since 2021 and enjoyed playing Bingo, attending Movie Night, and Social Hours. She will be missed by her family and close friends.
She is also survived by her brother, Enrique Garzon Esteban, who lives in Spain.
Mary’s funeral Mass and a Celebration of Life reception will be held on Saturday, November 28, 2026, at 11 am, at Saint Mary Catholic Church in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers Society, the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America. https://maryknollsociety.org.