Marion D. Gould

Marion D. Gould was a Billerica attorney who in 1954 became the first woman to serve as the town's moderator, an office she held for fifteen years. Every moderator before her had been a man; Charles H. Eames presided from the 1920s through 1948 and A. Warren Stearns after him. The town records call her "Mrs. Marion Gould," and she was evidently the Marion Deschenes of Woburn whose marriage to Frederick H. Gould Jr. of Billerica is entered in the town's register of marriages for November 1938. Frederick Gould, for many years chairman of the Board of Health, later sat beside her in town meeting as a member from the same precinct. The state historic inventory of the John A. Richardson House at 398 Boston Road names her as a later occupant of that house and describes her as a "successful attorney."

Her public service began with the town's zoning by-law. When Billerica adopted zoning in 1945, the selectmen appointed a Board of Appeals in August of that year, and she was a charter member, serving with Orland S. Marshall, Fred L. Smith, Ellis E. Cram and John B. Keaney. She sat on the Finance Committee in 1946 and 1947. In 1948 she acted as counsel to the selectmen, and the board reported that "with the assistance of its counsel, Mrs. Marion Gould," they had carried a school teacher's workmen's compensation claim to conclusion before the Industrial Accident Board. The same year the moderator named her to a committee of three to codify the town by-laws, and she was still reporting its progress to town meeting in 1951. In 1950 the selectmen noted that "Attorney Marion Gould," handling the matter for the town, expected to acquire the lots wanted beside the Ditson School.

When the Board of Appeals was reorganized late in 1950, she became its chairman, and she signed its reports as chairman from 1950 through 1953. At the annual election of March 1954 she was elected moderator over Forrest Paradise, 1,958 votes to 1,562. Closing her report for that year, she thanked the town officers, committee members and townspeople for "making my first year as your Moderator such a pleasant one." She was re-elected to the one-year office every year through 1968, and from 1956 she was also an elected town meeting member. Illness kept her from the opening of one town meeting in 1960, when the town clerk called it to order in her absence. When the members gathered in 1969 under her successor, John E. Lecomte, they paid tribute to her.

In March 1970 she won the two-year unexpired term on the Housing Authority left by the resignation of Leonard H. Harmon, serving as its assistant treasurer and then its vice chairman until 1972. According to the state inventory, ill health later led her to retire to Ipswich. She died at Marathon, Florida, on May 5, 1974. Town meeting observed a moment of silence in her memory, a memorial service was held on June 23, 1974 at the First Congregational Church on Andover Road, and the town report's memorial page listed her years as moderator, finance committee member, member of the by-law codification committee and of the reorganized Board of Appeal, and town meeting member.

References

1. Marriages, 1938 (Frederick H. Gould Jr. and Marion Deschenes)
2. Selectmen Report, 1948 (counsel to the Board)
3. Board of Appeal Report, 1951 (reorganization, chairman)
4. Election Results, 1954 (Moderator)
5. Moderator Report, 1954
6. Annual Town Meeting, 1969 (tribute to former Moderator)
7. In Memoriam, 1974
8. MACRIS BIL.43, John A. Richardson House, 398 Boston Road