|
Melrose
has produced some pretty famous residents since its humble 1850
beginnings. Read on to find out more about them. Maybe you'll
be listed here one day....
Mary Livermore Barrows
was born in Melrose
in 1877 and was a pioneer in
Melrose Politics. She received her education from
Wellesley
College, where she graduated from in
1898. Livermore Barrows was the head of the English department at
Boston
English
High School
and was the first woman
elected to serve on the Melrose
Board of Aldermen
in 1926. She became the first woman member of State Civil
Service Commission, as well, when Governor Saltonstall appointed her to
this position.
Marjorie Burgess was an
accomplished pianist and composer of music who lived in Melrose
since she moved there from her
birthplace of Roxbury, MA
in 1952. Burgess attended
college in her forties after her children were grown and recently
celebrated the release of her disc recording, “The Music of Marjorie
Burgess”. One of the first pieces she composed was “Music a la
Mode”.
Mary A. Livermore was an
American journalist, philanthropist, and lecturer born in Boston, MA
(graduated from female
seminary in
Charlestown), who moved to Melrose
after she became the editor of
“Woman’s Journal”, which was established by Lucy Stone.
Livermore
worked in hospitals during the
Civil War and, following the war, was an activist in the temperance,
suffrage, and abolitionist movements. She was also, during the war, a
correspondent for different journals, and later became an author and
editor for her husband’s newspaper.
Livermore
was the only reporter present at the first nomination of
Abraham Lincoln for President, as well, and looked towards the fight for
women’s rights. Mary Livermore devoted herself to public lecturing,
often speaking of “What shall we do with our daughters?”, and served
as the first president of the Massachusetts Women’s Christian Temperance
Union (MWCTU) and of the Massachusetts Women’s Suffrage Association (MWSA).
An original copy of one of
Livermore
’s lectures can be see in the
Livermore Room in the Melrose Public Library.
Don Orsillo is the
play-by-play announcer for the Boston Red Sox on NESN. He was born in
Melrose
in 1968, but was raised in
both Madison, New Hampshire
and California, where he always dreamt of
becoming a broadcaster for the Sox. Orsillo returned to the Boston
area when he attended and
graduated from Northeastern with a degree in communication studies. Known
as “announcer boy” by the fans at
Fenway
Park, Orsillo works with former Red
Sox player Jerry Remy, who is the color commentator. He has also done
commentary on NESN for the annual Beanpot hockey tournament and Boston
College Eagles basketball. Currently, Orsillo lives in Smithfield, Rhode Island
with his wife and two daughters.
Clarence DeMar was a
7-time winner of the Boston Marathon who, although he was born in Ohio, moved to and was raised in Melrose.
DeMar participated in the
1912 Stockholm Olympics, where he finished twelfth, but returned after the
poor performance in 1924 in Paris to win a bronze medal in the marathon.
Nicknamed “Mr. DeMarathoner”, he ran along the Lynn Fells Parkway to
work everyday. DeMar still holds the record as the oldest winner of the
Marathon
, age 41, as well as serving as
a teacher of Industrial Education. DeMar died of cancer in 1958.
David Souter, an
Associate Justice of Supreme Court of U.S. since 1990, was born in Melrose
in 1939. Souter attended high
school in Concord,
New Hampshire
and continued from there on to
Harvard
University
, where he received his A.B.
and concentrated on philosophy, and graduated magna cum laude as a member
of Phi Beta Kappa. His senior thesis there was written on the legal
positivism of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., the famous Supreme Court Justice.
Souter was selected as a Rhodes Scholar and attended
Magdalen
College
and
Oxford
University
where he received a B.A. in
jurisprudence, and entered
Harvard
Law
School
in 1966.
Born in 1882, Geraldine
Farrar was an opera star who came from a Melrose family. She studied music in
New York
and
Europe
before her debut at the Berlin
Court Opera where she would sing for five seasons.
She also appeared in Monte Carlo
with Enrico Caruso and sang in
the Metropolitan Opera from 1918 to 1922.
She acted in movie roles as Joan of Arc and Carmen.
She died in 1967.
|
