Frank A. Kelley

Frank A. Kelley (1888 to 1945) was a North Billerica merchant who served the town as a park commissioner from 1930 to 1933 and then on the Board of Selectmen, which from 1933 also acted as the Board of Public Works that replaced the park commission, from 1933 until his death. He chaired the board for most of those years. According to the memorial in the 1945 town report he was born in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, on March 3, 1888, was a veteran of World War I, and came to Billerica in 1920. The jury lists of 1929 to 1931 and of 1942 give his occupation as merchant, and he owned the North Billerica Post Office building. In the early 1930s he was also one of the town's special police officers.

In 1932 he sat on the Board of Park Commissioners with Lawrence E. Desmond and Isaac N. Millbury. That year the town voted on Chapter 221 of the Acts of 1930, which made the selectmen "also a board of public works" and abolished the road surveyor, the water and sewer commissioners, the park commissioners, the board of survey and the tree warden, while the number of selectmen was raised to five. At the March 1933 election Kelley won a two-year seat on the enlarged board with 1,508 votes. The new board organized as the Board of Public Works with Dr. Maurice A. Buck as chairman and George S. Gracie as secretary, and put Kelley and Gracie in charge of the Highway Department. Like the other selectmen he was also chosen a fence viewer each year.

Kelley became chairman of the selectmen in 1937. In 1938 the board organized with Kelley as chairman, Arthur R. Hallenborg as vice-chairman and Gracie as clerk, and through the war years he kept the parks and the police and fire departments as his own committees. In 1943, at the dedication of the town's honor roll, he accepted it for the town as chairman of the Board of Selectmen.

He died on June 6, 1945, aged 57, while still chairman. His colleagues wrote that the town had "suffered an irreparable loss" and that he had been "a capable, fair and honest fellow citizen, giving freely of his time"; Hallenborg succeeded him as chairman. His death also halted plans for a branch of the Bennett Public Library in North Billerica, since the only suitable rooms, on the second story of the Post Office building, were his property and the administrators of his estate could not commit to a lease. The 1945 town report carried a memorial page with his portrait, and the annual town meeting of February 1946 stood in silence for a minute in his memory.

References

1. Town officers, 1932: Frank A. Kelley among the Special Officers and on the Board of Park Commissioners
2. Annual election, March 1933: Frank A. Kelley elected Selectman for two years with 1,508 votes
3. Report of the Selectmen, 1933: board organized as the Board of Public Works; Kelley and Gracie in charge of highways
4. Report of the Board of Selectmen, 1938: board organized with Frank A. Kelley as chairman
5. Jury list, 1942: Frank A. Kelley, Merchant
6. Honor roll dedication program, 1943: acceptance by Chairman Frank A. Kelley, Board of Selectmen
7. Bennett Public Library report, 1945: rooms in the North Billerica Post Office building owned by Frank A. Kelley; negotiations ended by his death
8. In Memoriam, Frank A. Kelley (1945 town report): born Tewksbury March 3, 1888; WWI veteran; Park Commission 1930 to 1933; Selectmen 1933 to 1945; died June 6, 1945; portrait
9. Report of the Board of Selectmen, 1945: Kelley chairman, parks and police committees; tribute on his death June 6
10. Annual town meeting, February 1946: silence in memory of former Selectman Frank A. Kelley