Mabel F. Buker

Mabel F. Buker was a Billerica civic volunteer and local historian whose public service ran from the Finance Committee of the late 1940s to the town's Bicentennial in the 1970s. She lived on Hampstead Avenue in Precinct 2 and was the wife of L. Gordon Buker, longtime chairman of the Board of Appeals; the Historical Commission's 1973 report called its secretary simply "Mrs. L. Gordon Buker."

The Town Moderator appointed her to the Finance Committee in 1948, under chairman Roger H. Hildreth, and for 1949 she served as its secretary under chairman Lewis E. Belyea. In 1957 the Precinct 2 members of the representative Town Meeting chose her to fill a vacancy among them. She returned to Town Meeting in 1968 and was re-elected into the mid 1970s; in 1974 the Precinct 2 members made her their clerk.

Her most lasting work was in local history. In September 1970 she was one of four people added to the Town Flag Adoption Committee, and she signed its 1971 report recommending the design of green and white panels with a gold shield bearing the Washington Oak, an outline map of the town, the date 1655 and the First Parish steeple, with green and white as the official town colors; the design went to the 1972 annual town meeting as an article to adopt it as the official flag of Billerica. For the 1972 town report she wrote, as a member of the Billerica Historical Society, a short history of the town from its subsistence farms and brook-side mills through the Middlesex Canal and the Faulkner and Talbot mills, ending: "The Shawshin wilderness has been settled."

When the selectmen created the Historical Commission on November 27, 1972, she became its first secretary under chairman Charles E. Stearns. The commission's first task was an inventory of historic sites; Stearns wrote that the detective work was "time-consuming, dusty, dog-eared, often frustrating and occasionally very, very exciting" and that its secretary would welcome volunteers. By the end of 1974 more than 200 sites had been documented. Her term ended in December 1974, and the commission's report recorded "special gratitude" to its retiring secretary, "whose conscientious hard work has kept all of us moving ahead." She also served on the town committee for the 200th Anniversary of the American Revolution from 1972 through the Bicentennial year of 1976 and was a judge of the 1973 town report cover competition.

Mabel F. Buker died on December 19, 1985. The 1986 annual town meeting observed a moment of silence in her memory, and the 1986 town report listed her among its memoriams for her service in Town Meeting, on the Historical Commission and on the Bicentennial committee.

References

1. Committees Appointed by the Moderator, 1948: Finance Committee (Mabel F. Buker, member)
2. Committees Appointed by the Moderator, 1949: Finance Committee (Mabel F. Buker, Secretary)
3. Town Meeting Members, 1957: Precinct 2, appointed by other members (Buker, Mabel)
4. Report of the Town Flag Adoption Committee, 1971 (appointed September 14, 1970; signed by Mabel F. Buker)
5. Town history essay by Mabel F. Buker, Billerica Historical Society, 1972 town report
6. Appointed committees, 1972: Historical Commission (Mabel Buker, Secretary)
7. Report of the Historical Commission, 1973 (first annual report; secretary Mrs. L. Gordon Buker)
8. Report of the Historical Commission, 1974 (gratitude to retiring secretary Mabel F. Buker)
9. Town Meeting precinct chairmen and clerks, 1974 (Precinct 2 clerk, 20 Hampstead Avenue)
10. Memoriams 1986: Mabel F. Buker, died December 19, 1985