Mildred A. Meldon Westhaver

Born	1910-02-25 Boston, MA
Died	2003-01-15 Fort Lauderdale, FL
Assistant Town Clerk
In Office	1944 - 1946
Preceded by	Isabella Cooper
Town Clerk
In Office	1946 - 1973
Preceded by	Roland G. Wright
Succeeded by	F L. Turner
Historical Commission
In Office	1972 - 1973

Mildred Agnes (Meldon) Westhaver was born in Boston on February 25, 1910, the daughter of Andrew Meldon and Hannah O'Donnell. She and her husband, Alton E. Westhaver (1905 to 1973), made their home in Billerica, where he served on the Finance Committee in 1946 and 1947, was a frequent teller at town meetings and later worked beside her as Assistant Town Clerk until he resigned in March 1971.

Her own town service began in 1944, when she was appointed Assistant Town Clerk under Roland G. Wright; in 1945 she attested town meeting records and swore in tellers in that capacity. After Wright died on January 5, 1946, she ran for Town Clerk at the February election but lost to Lawrence E. Desmond, 1,403 votes to 750. Desmond soon resigned, and the selectmen appointed her Town Clerk on July 1, 1946. At the 1947 election she won the office in her own right, leading a field of five with 1,151 votes, and she was re-elected for the next twenty-five years. In 1964 the town ballot asked whether Billerica would accept Section 19B of Chapter 41 of the General Laws "and thereby provide permanent tenure for Mildred A. Westhaver"; the question failed narrowly, 1,833 to 1,911.

Her reports show the office growing with the town. For 1969 she recorded 715 births, 278 marriages and 194 deaths, wrote that "the steady increase of population of the Town has increased the duties greatly," noted that the microfilming of the town clerks' records had been completed to the present year, and thanked Town Meeting for sending her to a national clerks' conference in St. Louis. She was clerk ex officio of the Board of Registrars from 1948, Director of the 1955 State Census, secretary of the Tercentenary Committee of 1954 to 1955 and of the committee for the preservation of the town records, a member of several by-law codification committees, a Town Meeting member at large from 1964 to 1972, and secretary of the Industrial Commission, which later credited her with helping convince "many new industries to locate within our borders."

She also had a hand in the town's sense of its own history. In October 1969 she was one of the three original members of the Town Flag Adoption Committee, and as its secretary she signed the 1971 report recommending the green and white flag bearing the Washington Oak, an outline map of the town and the steeple of the First Parish Church. In 1970 she received the gifts exchanged with Billericay, England, and arranged for two arrowheads found along the Concord River to be presented to Billericay School. She was a member of the Historical Society committee from 1968 and of the first Historical Commission, appointed in November 1972 under Charles E. Stearns.

She did not seek re-election in March 1972, "after twenty-five years of service as Town Clerk," but when the newly elected clerk John F. Monahan died on April 22, 1972, the selectmen recalled her to finish a year that brought four elections and two special town meetings. In her last report she wrote that she would "miss Billerica and my sincere friends" and remember "the many pleasant years I spent in Billerica with my husband." F. Lillian Turner was elected to succeed her in March 1973, and she resigned from the Industrial Commission when she moved out of town. Alton died that August. Mildred Westhaver died at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on January 15, 2003, and is buried beside him in Blue Hill Cemetery, Braintree; the 2003 town report printed her record of service among its memorials.

Mildred A. Meldon Westhaver

Mildred A. Meldon Westhaver

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