Frederick J. Dutile

Frederick J. Dutile was born in North Hudson, New York, on April 18, 1914, and made his home on Bridle Road in West Billerica.

In 1954 and 1955 the moderator appointed him to the Finance Committee, and in the same years he sat on the committee that planned the town's Tercentenary. He was elected a town meeting member in 1956 and held the seat until his death. In 1959 he ran for an unexpired term as assessor and lost to Arthur C. Barnard by only 39 votes, 1,526 to 1,487.

He worked steadily for the ball fields and playgrounds of his part of town. He put articles before town meeting in 1955, 1956 and 1957 for money to improve and maintain the Billerica Little League field, served on the River Pines Playground Committee from 1956, and reported for it to the town meetings of 1959 and 1960. He was also a builder: when a second floor was added to the stack room of the public library in 1962 under a contract with the D & D Contracting Company, the library directors thanked "Mr. Fred J. Dutile and Mr. Raoul R. Dionne for the beautiful work they did and for the many improvements added at their own expense that were not included in the specifications."

He died on January 26, 1963, aged 48, and the town report listed him In Memoriam as a town meeting member. That March the annual town meeting accepted an article of the selectmen naming the West Billerica and River Pines playground the Frederick J. Dutile Memorial Playground. In October 1963 a special town meeting voted, 139 to 2, $750,000 to buy land off Treble Cove Road, formerly of Farmer and Biagiotti, and build a new elementary school there; the school stands off Bridle Road, the street where he had lived. A 1964 article to call it the John F. Kennedy School was indefinitely postponed, and by the end of 1964 the town's warrants named it the Frederick J. Dutile School, West Billerica. Delayed in construction, it opened in 1965 under principal Elizabeth F. McCarthy, and by September 1965 it held 609 pupils in six grades. The Dutile Elementary School still stands on the site, at 10 Biagiotti Way.

References

1. Committees Appointed by the Moderator, 1955 (Finance Committee)
2. Vote for Town Officers, March 1959 (Assessor)
3. Annual Town Meeting, March 12, 1960 (River Pines Playground Committee report)
4. Bennett Public Library Association Report, 1962
5. In Memoriam, 1963
6. Warrant for Annual Town Meeting, 1963, Article 14 (Frederick J. Dutile Memorial Playground)
7. Frederick J. Dutile School Report, 1965