Helen L. Potter

Helen L. Potter was a Billerica Town Meeting member for more than forty years and the chairman of the committee that planned and built the new Billerica Public Library, which opened at the start of the 1980s. In March 1969 the annual town meeting, under Article 9, created a Library Study Committee to be appointed by the moderator, and she was its secretary, under chairman Eva J. Marshall, from its first year until the mid-1970s. In 1970 town meeting voted to continue it as the Library Building Committee, and by 1977 she was its chairman, with Marshall as secretary and Bernard F. Hoar as treasurer; Ralph R. Bacon was among the members.

Her report for the committee at the end of the 1970s told of "major extensive delays due to manufacturing strikes affecting the project schedule" and of the Economic Development Administration grant of $1,083,000 "which made our library possible." It recalled that in 1880 Mrs. Eleanor Bennett had given the town its first library building, "an exciting, new design built with traditional materials; brick slate, wood and copper," and said the committee "felt this tradition of quality should be continued with the best materials our times could offer; water-struck brick, stainless steel, and copper," adding that "the library will provide service for 100 years with possibilities for expansion." The committee was still raising private gifts toward a goal of $118,000. In its report for 1980 the library thanked the committee, Potter first among them, "for their diligent and untiring efforts in making the new Billerica Public Library a reality." The committee continued through the 1980s, and in 1990 she moved at town meeting that it be discontinued and "that all gifts, accounts and duties of the Billerica Library Building Committee become the responsibility of the Billerica Public Library Trustees," which carried unanimously.

When the town appointed a Billerica Public Library Board of Trustees on July 10, 1978, she was its chairman, with Onorio Cerrato, George F. Hickey Jr. and Eva Marshall among the trustees. In 1986 she sat on the Municipal Building Use Study Committee. She was a member of the Arts Council in 1980 and 1981 and again from 1994 to 2001; in February 1997 she, Colleen Sgroi and Patty Roy represented the council at the MAASH awards banquet in Boston. She was the treasurer of the Billerica Museum Committee in 1999, when it was working on the Old Howe School, and served on it as the Billerica Historical Society's appointee from 2000 to 2012; in 2001 the committee reported that Nortel had awarded the museum $12,500 "based on Helen Potter's landscaping and sculpture proposal." She was elected to Town Meeting from 1973 to 2003 and again from 2008 to 2019.

References

1. Billerica Town Report 1969, committees: Library Study Committee, Eva J. Marshall, Chairman; Helen L. Potter, Secretary
2. Billerica Town Report 1977, committees: Library Building Committee (Art. 9, March 1969), Helen L. Potter, Chairman
3. Billerica Town Report 1978: Billerica Public Library Board of Trustees (appointed 7/10/78), Helen L. Potter, Chairman
4. Billerica Town Report 1979, report of the Billerica Library Building Committee signed by Helen Potter, Chairman (EDA grant, strikes, materials)
5. Billerica Town Report 1980, library report: thanks to the Library Building Committee, Helen Potter and others, for making the new Billerica Public Library a reality
6. Billerica Town Report 1990, town meeting: Chairperson Helen Potter moved that the Library Building Committee be discontinued and its gifts, accounts and duties pass to the Library Trustees
7. Billerica Town Report 1996, Arts Council report: Helen Potter, Colleen Sgroi and Patty Roy at the MAASH awards banquet, February 1997
8. Billerica Town Report 1999, Billerica Museum Committee: Helen Potter, Treasurer
9. Billerica Town Report 2000, committees: Museum Committee, Helen Potter, Historical Society appointee
10. Billerica Town Report 2001, Billerica Museum Committee report: Nortel Funds award of $12,500 based on Helen Potters landscaping and sculpture proposal