Alice F. Donovan

Alice F. Donovan (died 2001) was the postmaster of the Pinehurst post office for twenty years and a member of Billerica's Finance Committee and Town Meeting. She lived on Allandale Avenue in Pinehurst, and the town's jury list of 1955 already gives her occupation as postal clerk at the United States post office in Pinehurst. About 1960 she became postmaster there, succeeding Claire A. Fournier, who had been acting postmaster since 1958, and she kept the office until 1980; Jeannette Clare Fogarty was briefly officer in charge after her, and Joanne F. Gastonguay was then appointed. The Pinehurst post office was one of the places where the town's warrants were posted, and in 1961 town meeting accepted a park bench from the Nineteen Hundred Club to be placed in front of it.

The moderator appointed her to the Finance Committee in 1960, and in that year's list she was its secretary, serving under the chairman Arthur L. Eno Jr. until 1963. In 1962 she was elected a Town Meeting member for Precinct Three, and she sat in Town Meeting for twenty years. On June 8, 1973 she was appointed to the Finance Committee again, one of several members appointed or reappointed that day, when Rachel F. Mallett was the committee's secretary, and in the same year she put a petition article on the town meeting warrant asking that a stable for horses be kept at least seventy-five feet from any property line and that the Board of Health regulations be strictly enforced. She was reappointed to the committee for three years in April 1976 but resigned on November 10, 1976.

In her last years of town service she worked as a precinct officer at the elections of 1980 and 1981. She died on September 21, 2001, and at a town meeting soon after, the members stood in a moment of silence for her among the deceased who had served the town.

References

1. Billerica Town Report 1955, jury list: Donovan Alice F., Allendale Ave., Pinehurst, Postal Clerk, U.S. Post Office Pinehurst
2. Billerica Town Report 1960, committees appointed by the Moderator: Finance Committee, Alice F. Donovan, Secretary, term expires 1963
3. Billerica Town Report 1973, Finance Committee: Alice F. Donovan, appointed 6/8/73
4. Billerica Town Report 1973, town election: Precinct Three Town Meeting members, Alice F. Donovan, Allandale Avenue, 328 votes
5. Billerica Town Report 1973, annual town meeting warrant: article on stables and Board of Health regulations submitted by Alice F. Donovan, et als
6. Billerica Town Report 1976, Finance Committee: Alice F. Donovan, re-appointed 4/25/76 for 3 years, resigned November 10, 1976
7. Billerica Town Report 2002, In Memoriam: Alice F. Donovan, died September 21, 2001; Finance Committee 1960-1963, Precinct Officer 1980-1981
8. USPS Postmaster Finder, Pinehurst, Massachusetts: Alice F. Donovan, postmaster (dates as recorded in claude_sql/postmasters.sql)