Person

Ella M. Reilly

Town Music Teacher
In Office	1910 - 1912

Ella M. Reilly, whose name was also written Riley, was Supervisor of Music in the Billerica public schools after the death of J. Avison Baker. She lived in North Billerica, and the School Committee reported that it had been "fortunate in securing the services of Miss Ella Riley of North Billerica as Instructor in Music to succeed Mr. Baker." Her first report began with the remark that "so short a time has elapsed since I began the work in the public schools in Billerica." She praised Mr. Baker's work, took it up "in so far as possible, where it was left," and introduced the Weaver system of individual sight singing, which she had seen in the public schools of Boston and its neighbors; under it "marked attention is paid to each child individually with the aim to have every child able to read and sing at sight." She gave the purpose of school music as threefold: to enable the largest possible number of children "to participate correctly and tunefully in the singing," to develop in them a love for good music, and to teach as much sight singing as conditions allowed.

Her second report, printed in the town report for the year ending February 1913, described voice training through breathing, the open throat and the direction of the tone, and said that pupils in the upper grades could "sing at sight in all keys, and write melodies that they hear." The monthly magazine Billerica called the reports of the supervisors of music and drawing, Misses Ella M. Reilly and Gertrude Nason, "thoughtful and suggestive." She also directed the entertainment at the fair of the "Willing Workers" of the North Billerica Baptist Church in December 1912. The town dated the service of her successor, Mary B. Raynes, from September 1912.

Ella M. Reilly

Ella M. Reilly

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