Evelen A. Spaulding

Evelen Augusta Spaulding was born in Billerica on April 16, 1892, the daughter of Edward Spaulding (1857 to 1929) and Lennette Ella (Wallace) Spaulding. Her unusual first name was often printed as Evelyn in the town reports.

She was first elected a Cemetery Commissioner in March 1930, for a one-year term, with 1,438 votes. The commission organized "with Mr. Frederick G. Farquhar as chairman, and Miss Evelen Spaulding as clerk," and chose Harry W. Essex as superintendent; that first year the board turned more than $2,500 in receipts over to the treasurer and recommended continuing the new policy of appropriating directly from the perpetual care trust funds. She was re-elected to three-year terms from then on and remained the board's clerk or secretary for her entire service, signing its reports with Farquhar, then with A. Warren Stearns as chairman, and in the 1960s with Fred H. Brown.

The reports she signed trace the department's growth. In 1944 the commission adopted a policy of giving uniform care to all the cemeteries, where formerly only lots with trust funds had been cared for. In 1946 it observed that "from a small, part-time undertaking, the Cemetery Department has now become an active town department," with burials doubled in a few years, and recommended buying land next to Fox Hill Cemetery and a town truck. In the 1950s the board began hot-topping the North Cemetery driveways and extended water on Fox Hill, and in 1962 it reported a new truck, a new garage at Fox Hill, and a refusal by the Boston and Maine Railroad to sell land for enlarging the North Cemetery.

In its 1966 report the commission regretted "that our faithful Secretary for many years, Evelyn Spaulding, because of failing health, has chosen not to run for re-election," and her term ended in March 1967. She died on January 7, 1976, aged 83. At the 1976 annual town meeting a minute of silence was observed in her memory for her thirty-six years on the Cemetery Commission, and the town report printed her memorial. She is buried in the North Cemetery in Billerica, one of the grounds she had helped look after.

References

1. Town election returns, 1930 (Evelen A. Spaulding elected Cemetery Commissioner for one year)
2. Report of the Cemetery Commission, 1930 (Miss Evelen Spaulding chosen clerk)
3. Report of the Cemetery Commission, 1946 (signed by Spaulding as secretary)
4. Report of the Cemetery Commissioners, 1953 (North Cemetery driveways; signed by Spaulding)
5. Report of the Cemetery Commissioners, 1958 (signed by Spaulding as secretary)
6. Report of the Cemetery Commission, 1962 (signed by Spaulding)
7. Report of the Cemetery Commission, 1966 (Spaulding not running for re-election)
8. Annual town meeting, 1976 (minute of silence for Evelyn Augusta Spaulding)
9. Memoriams, 1976 (Evelen Augusta Spaulding, born April 16, 1892, died January 7, 1976)
10. Find a Grave: Evelen Augusta Spaulding (birth in Billerica, parents, burial in North Cemetery)