Mary E. Hennessy

Mary E. Hennessy, R.N., was Billerica's town nurse for seventeen years, from 1924 until her death in 1941. The town had engaged its first Municipal Nurse, Mary I. Nugent, in 1920, and when Miss Nugent moved to the new post of School Nurse in 1921, Freda Thommen took over the town work. Miss Hennessy followed Miss Thommen in 1924. Her first report, headed "Report of District Nurse," covers the seven months from June 1, 1924 to January 1, 1925, in which she carried 64 cases and made 274 visits, 142 of them free, and collected $78.30 in fees. From then on the lists of town officers carried her every year as Municipal Nurse, with Miss Nugent beside her as School Nurse.

Her work was home nursing, and her yearly reports to the Selectmen and the Board of Health set out the cases and visits month by month and accounted for the fees. Patients who could pay were charged fifty cents a visit, the Metropolitan Life and John Hancock insurance companies paid for visits to their policyholders, and a large share of the visits were free. In 1927 she reported 104 cases and 748 visits, collecting $136.10 on Metropolitan work, $60.05 on Hancock work and $142.00 at fifty cents a visit. In the 1930s the free work grew: she made 786 free visits in 1935, and in 1937 there were 708 visits on which no fee was collected. By 1936 the insurance companies were paying 75 cents (Metropolitan) and 65 cents (Hancock) a visit.

Her title followed the department. She signed her early reports as District Nurse; by 1930 the report was that of the Public Health Nurse, and from 1934 that of the Board of Health Nurse. In December 1937 she was away from work, and Gertrude Maddocks, R.N., made the visits "substituting for Miss Hennessy, from December 8 to December 31." Her last full report, for 1940, signed as Board of Health Nurse, records a well child conference for children of pre-school age held with the State Department of Public Health, and cases investigated for the state's Division of Tuberculosis.

Mary E. Hennessy died on May 9, 1941, at the age of 50, as the town clerk recorded among the deaths of that year (under the spelling Hennessey). The town report for 1941 printed a notice "In Memoriam, Mary E. Hennessy, Board of Health Nurse, Died May 9, 1941" directly after the first report of her successor, Helen J. Harrington, R.N., who took up the nursing service on July 1, 1941 and held it for more than thirty years.

References

1. Report of District Nurse, June 1, 1924 to January 1, 1925, p. 86 (64 cases, 274 visits; signed Mary Hennessy)
2. Report of District Nurse, 1927 (104 cases, 748 visits, insurance and fee collections; signed Mary Hennessy, R.N.)
3. Town officers, 1930 (Municipal Nurse: Mary E. Hennessy; School Nurse: Mary I. Nugent)
4. Report of Board of Health Nurse, 1935, p. 83 (786 free visits; signed Mary Hennessy, R.N.)
5. Report of District Nurse, 1936 (insurance visits at 75 and 65 cents; signed Mary Hennessy, R.N.)
6. Report of Board of Health Nurse, 1937 (Gertrude Maddocks, R.N., substituting for Miss Hennessy, December 8 to 31)
7. Report of Board of Health Nurse, 1940 (well child conference, tuberculosis cases; signed Mary Hennessy, R.N.)
8. Deaths registered in Billerica, 1941 (Mary E. Hennessey, May 9, age 50)
9. Town report 1941, p. 55: In Memoriam, Mary E. Hennessy, Board of Health Nurse, died May 9, 1941 (after Helen J. Harrington's first report)