Mildred B. McKeen

Mildred B. McKeen was born in October 1887 and trained as a teacher and musician; the Billerica teacher tables list her as a graduate of the Plymouth Normal School in New Hampshire and of conservatory courses at Northampton and the New England Conservatory. A violinist living in Lowell, she first came into the Billerica schools in 1919, when "Mrs. McKeene of Lowell" began giving weekly violin classes to high school pupils at 25 cents a lesson to build up the new school orchestra of Mary B. Raynes. Miss Raynes reported in 1921 that she had "conducted the classes from the start with marked success", and her successor at the violin classes, Mildred Precious, was McKeen's own pupil.

After Miss Raynes's untimely death in 1922, the School Committee chose Mrs. McKeen as Supervisor of Music because she had "an intimate acquaintance with Miss Raynes' methods and aims." In her first report to Superintendent Eugene C. Vining she described teaching individual singing in the second and third grades so that pupils would become independent singers, stressing tone quality over loudness, gathering the seventh and eighth grades into large choruses so that boys with changing voices would gain confidence, and dividing the high school into separate boys' and girls' choruses, after which "the boys are now singing four-part music with evident enjoyment."

For twenty-four years she ran the whole music program of the town's schools, from first-grade singing to the Senior and Junior Orchestras, which practiced after school on Thursdays and Fridays. Each spring the department gave a May Musicale or festival concert; in 1927 she and Beulah Linscott directed the operetta "Aunt Drusilla's Garden", and in 1929 the high school performed "Tulip Time" under her direction. The superintendent noted in 1927 that the musicale "speaks of the superior work done in this department under Mrs. McKeen" and that every year several graduates left the school well trained in orchestral music. From the proceeds of the concerts she kept instruments in repair and bought instruments that were lent to pupils without charge.

Her groups competed and performed beyond Billerica. In the state contest reported in 1937 the Junior Orchestra and Junior Glee Club were rated excellent and the High School Orchestra and Glee Club superior, the Glee Club receiving 100 per cent, and her pupils took part in the New England and Massachusetts high school festival concerts at Hyannis and Boston. The 1944 Howe yearbook said the orchestra "has maintained a high standard for many years under the capable direction of Mrs. Mildred B. McKeen", and a student's class will of 1941 left his love of swing music to her.

She retired in June 1946. She died on December 14, 1977, aged 90, and the 1978 town report listed her among the town's honored dead as "Music Supervisor in Billerica School System from 1922 until retirement June 1946"; a moment of silence was observed in her memory at the 1978 annual town meeting.

References

1. Report of the Superintendent of Schools, 1919: violin classes taught by Mrs. McKeene of Lowell
2. Report of the Supervisor of Music (Mary B. Raynes), 1921: loss of Mrs. McKeen as teacher of the violin classes
3. Report of the Superintendent of Schools, 1922: Mrs. Mildred B. McKeen succeeds Miss Raynes
4. Report of the Supervisor of Music, 1922 (signed Mildred B. McKeen)
5. Report of the Superintendent of Schools, 1927: the May Musicale and the music department under Mrs. McKeen
6. Report of the Superintendent of Schools, 1937: musicale proceeds used for instruments
7. Report of the Supervisor of Music, 1937: state contest ratings (signed Mildred B. McKeen)
8. Howe High Yearbook (1944), p. 39, Orchestra under Mrs. Mildred B. McKeen
9. Town Report 1978, In Memoriam: Mildred B. McKeen, died December 14, 1977, Music Supervisor 1922 to June 1946