Annie M. Griffin

Annie M. Griffin first appears in the Billerica records in 1903 as an assistant teacher at the Howe School. That year the school extended its French course to three years and introduced German, and Principal Eugene C. Vining reported that the added classes "have been made possible only through the assistance of Miss Annie M. Griffin," whose work "has been highly creditable to herself, and has made possible a higher standard for the whole school."

From about 1909 until her death she taught at the Faulkner Kindergarten in North Billerica, the free kindergarten opened in 1897 by the daughters of James R. Faulkner and supported from their estates. Her colleague through those years was Helen Webster. In 1913 the magazine Billerica reported twenty-four pupils enrolled under the two teachers (printing her first name as Agnes) and described the closing of the year as "Mothers' Day," to which all the mothers of the village were invited. The superintendent's report for 1916 noted that the school, "maintained free of expense" and open to all children of the town, had been "under the able management of Miss Annie M. Griffin and Miss Helen Webster" for seven years, and in 1918 he wrote that "with the long service of Miss Griffin and Miss Webster a most excellent school has been developed."

As principal she wrote the kindergarten's report in the annual town report. In 1920 she described its aim as "to vitalize the home training" of children from three and a half to five years old, and announced a baby clinic, held with the Public Health Nurse at the kindergarten one afternoon each month, where mothers could bring babies and children of pre-school age to be weighed and measured. The next year she reported that the clinic, run with Miss Nugent and Miss Thommen, had a physician present for examinations, and that the kindergarten children, weighed and measured monthly, were being "induced to drink milk in place of tea and coffee." "The purpose of the clinic is not to treat sick babies," she wrote, "but to keep well babies well."

For the school's twenty-fifth anniversary she used her report of January 1923 to tell the story of its founding: Miss Abby Faulkner's interest in Elizabeth Peabody's work with little children, the help of her cousin Miss Harriet Rogers, former principal of the Clarke School for the Deaf, who directed the school for nineteen years, and its opening on December 1, 1897, with Isabelle Houliston as principal and eighteen children, joined the next year by Mary Bartlett as assistant. She closed with the hope that "this memorial ever be a monument of increasing usefulness and beauty."

She died in July 1923. In his report for that year Superintendent Eugene C. Vining wrote that "though not in the employ of the town, merited recognition is made of the valuable service terminated by the untimely death in July of Miss Annie M. Griffin, for twelve years the beloved and devoted Principal of the Faulkner Kindergarten."

References

1. Report of the Principal of the Howe School, 1903 (Miss Annie M. Griffin as added assistant teacher)
2. Billerica (magazine), 1913, p. 7: Kindergarten in North Billerica, 24 pupils under "Miss Agnes Griffin and Miss Helen Webster"
3. Report of the Superintendent of Schools, 1916 (Faulkner Kindergarten under Miss Griffin and Miss Webster for seven years)
4. Report of the Superintendent of Schools, 1918 (long service of Miss Griffin and Miss Webster at the Faulkner Kindergarten)
5. Report of Principal at Faulkner Kindergarten, 1920 (signed by Annie M. Griffin; baby clinic planned)
6. Report of Principal at Faulkner Kindergarten, 1921 (signed by Annie M. Griffin; monthly clinic)
7. Report of Principal at Faulkner Kindergarten, 1922 (history of the kindergarten on its 25th anniversary, by Annie M. Griffin)
8. Report of the Superintendent of Schools, 1923 (death in July of Annie M. Griffin, principal for twelve years)