Biographical Sketches

Below are brief biographical sketches of the individuals represented most prominently within the collection.

George Morgan Bacon (1872-1952), known as Morgan, was the husband of Isabel Dame Bacon and the brother-in-law of Ruth Dame Coolidge. He was born on 28 March 1872 in Worcester, Mass. to George A. and Susan Hillman Bacon. He had three siblings: Carl, Paul, and Anne. Morgan grew up in Syracuse, New York, and graduated from Cornell University with a degree in civil engineering. From 1894 to 1898, Morgan oversaw Boston street surveys for the Boston Transit Commission and helped build the local subway. He went into private practice in 1898 and worked on various sewer and electrical projects. On 5 February 1898, he married Isabel Dame, and the couple brought up five daughters in Salt Lake City. Morgan traveled throughout Utah and neighboring states as an engineer, overseeing the construction of dams, tunnels, canals, pipe lines, mines, power plants, and other projects. He worked as the U.S. deputy mineral surveyor for Utah, Idaho, and Nevada and became state engineer for Utah from 1925 to 1932. He belonged to many professional engineering societies such as the Utah Society for Engineers, American Society for Civil Engineers, and the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education. He was a Mason and wrote poetry as an avocation. Morgan lived and worked in Salt Lake City until his death in 1952.

Isabel Gerry Dame Bacon (1869-1933), often called Belle, was the daughter of Lorin L. and Isabel Arnold Dame and an older sister of Ruth Dame Coolidge. She was born on 7 June 1869 in Braintree, Mass. at the home of her maternal grandparents, John Bass and Nancy B. T. Arnold. She attended Medford High School and Symonds Kindergarten Normal Training Class in Boston. On 5 February 1898, she married George Morgan Bacon in Medford. Early in 1900, Morgan and Belle moved to Love, Colo. and then Colorado Springs, where Morgan worked as a civil engineer. In 1901, they settled permanently in Salt Lake City, Utah. Isabel and Morgan had five daughters: Isabel Lyman (1899-1973), Dorothy York (1901-1963), Lois Bigelow (1904-1986), Barbara Dame (b. 1905), and Priscilla Alden (b. 1910). Isabel was an educational and social service activist in Salt Lake City. She organized the first Salt Lake City PTA and served as its president for many years. She also helped to establish the Home and School League (also known as the Salt Lake Council of Parents and Teachers), which promoted home economics and manual training. In 1917, Isabel fought for and won passage of a law in the state legislature to aid under-nourished children and promote mandatory education for children. She was president of the Salt Lake City Civic Center for 12 years and was influential in establishing a community baby clinic, a visiting nurses association, a social welfare league, and a society for mental hygiene. In 1923, she became chairwoman of the Better Homes Committee and later served as a member of the Utah White House Conference on Child Study and Child Care and the Educational Relief Program. Isabel died on 10 June 1933 in Salt Lake City.

Olive Dame Coolidge Butman (1920-2008) was the third child of Richard and Ruth Dame Coolidge. Born on 26 January 1920 in Medford, Mass., Olive was named after her aunt Olive Dame Campbell. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1941 and, soon after, became a doctor's assistant at the Pine Mountain Settlement School in Harlan, Kent. In 1942, Olive left the Settlement School to marry Robert Charles Butman, who she had known since grade school. During World War II, Bob entered the Navy, and they moved to different naval facilities across the United States, including Washington, D.C., Oklahoma, and Philadelphia. Olive and Bob had three children: Marcia (b. 1945), Bradford (b. 1947), and John (b. 1951), before settling permanently in Concord, Mass. After raising her children, Olive worked as an elementary school guidance counselor in the Littleton, Mass. public school system for 17 years. An outdoor enthusiast, Olive was a sailor, skier, and skater who summered in Nantucket, Mass. throughout her life. She died on 23 May 2008, a victim of Alzheimer's disease.

Robert Charles Butman (b. 1920) was the husband of Olive Coolidge Butman and the son-in-law of Richard and Ruth Dame Coolidge. He was born on 9 September 1920. Bob graduated from MIT with a B.S. in electrical engineering, and in 1941, he began working in the Department of the Navy in Washington, D.C. A year later, he married Olive Coolidge and, in 1943, entered the Navy. During World War II, Bob and Olive lived at naval facilities in Washington, D.C., Oklahoma, and Philadelphia. In 1952, Bob began working at Lincoln Labs on the MIT campus outside of Boston. He and Olive settled in nearby Concord, Mass. where they raised three children: Marcia (b. 1945), Bradford (b. 1947), and John (b. 1951).

Olive Arnold Dame Campbell (1882-1954) was born in Medford, Mass. on 11 March 1882, the youngest child of Lorin L. and Nancy Arnold Dame and the sister of Ruth Dame Coolidge. She attended Medford High School, where her father was principal, and like her father and her sister Ruth, she studied at Tufts College where she helped write and edit The Tufts Weekly and The Tuftonian, Tufts' literary magazine. On 21 March 1907, she married John C. Campbell, president of Piedmont College in Demorest, Georgia, and the couple had two daughters, Jane and Barbara, who died in infancy.

In 1908, John received a grant to survey the people and living conditions of the Southern Mountain Region of Appalachia for the Russell Sage Foundation, and Olive assisted him with his work. During their travels, Olive began to document the ballads sung in the Southern Mountain Region with connections to English and Scots-Irish folk songs. With Cecil J. Sharpe, a British musicologist, she later published a compilation of ballads, English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians. John and Olive moved to Asheville, N.C. in 1913 when John became secretary of the Russell Sage Foundation's newly established Southern Highland Division. Upon his death in 1919, Olive assumed his position and, in 1921, completed John's unfinished work, The Southern Highlander and his Homeland. After touring folk schools in Scandinavia in 1922 and 1923, Olive established the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, N.C., which she directed for over 25 years. Olive summered on Nantucket at her cottage, Cachalot, where she entertained many nieces, nephews, and family friends. She died on 14 June 1954.

Harry M. Cary (1910-1988) was the husband of June Coolidge Cary and the son-in-law of Richard and Ruth Coolidge. He was born in Cragsmoor, New York to Maude Simington Lyon and Henry Monfort Cary. His father was a Universalist minister, and he grew up in Elbridge, Auburn, and Little Falls, New York. As a teenager, he and his parents moved to Tokyo, Japan, where his father served as a Universalist missionary. Harry attended Tufts College in the mid-1930s, where he met June Coolidge. In 1936, after graduating from Tufts, he and June moved to Japan and married. Two years later, they returned to the United States, settling in Brasstown, North Carolina and working for the John C. Campbell Folk School. Harry became the publicity and extension agent for the school, a position he held until 1942. With the outbreak of World War II, Harry joined the Navy as an intelligence officer. After the war, he was recruited by the CIA, where he worked until his retirement. He and June had two sons, Lorin and Richard.

Ruth Alden Coolidge Cary (1912-1996), always called June, was the oldest child of Richard and Ruth Dame Coolidge. A native of Medford, Mass., she was born on 19 June 1912. June attended public elementary and high schools in Medford and chose Swarthmore College in Philadelphia for undergraduate study. She transferred to the Museum School of Fine Arts in Boston and eventually to Tufts College, the family alma mater. At Tufts, June met her future husband, Harry Cary, before graduating in 1935. A year later, June and Harry married in Tokyo, Japan, where Harry served as a missionary for the Universalist Church. In 1938, they moved to Brasstown, N.C., where Harry became the publicity and extension agent for the John C. Campbell Folk School and June taught art classes. June and Harry had two children, Lorin and Richard. The Cary family settled in the Washington, D.C. area after World War II, where June taught art at the Sidwell Friends School. She passed away in 1996.

Jean Elizabeth Thoits Coolidge (1913-1996) was the wife of William Bradford Coolidge and the daughter-in-law of Ruth Dame Coolidge. She was born on 27 September 1913 in Palo Alto, California, the second child of Willis C. and Hazel Lamson Thoits. Jean grew up with four siblings: Eleanor, Warren, Edward, and Willis. She attended San Jose State College, but graduated from Stanford College. In 1936, Jean moved to Tokyo, Japan to tutor the son of Cabot Coville, an American diplomat. While in Japan, Jean met William Bradford (Bread) Coolidge, and they married on 22 June 1943 in California.

In the early 1940s, Jean became a YWCA administrator in San Jose, Calif. Part of her work was to help Japanese American students who had been relocated from war zones into internment camps in the western United States to transfer into colleges in other parts of the country. During World War II, Jean and Brad moved to Minneapolis, Minn. and Ann Arbor, Mich. so that Brad could attend U.S. Army Japanese language schools. After the war, they settled in Washington, D.C., where Brad worked as a State Department research analyst. Jean and Brad had three children: Eunice Ann (b. 1947), Oliver (b. 1949), and Elizabeth (b. 1951). Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Jean and the children accompanied Brad to his Foreign Service postings in Tokyo and Nagoya, Japan; Bangkok, Thailand; and Ankara, Turkey. Upon the family's return to the Washington, D.C. area, Jean became involved in the River Road Unitarian Church and in community affairs. She was especially active in the Home Study program for African American children at Cabin John and the Girl Scouts. Jean was also interested in the arts and had a special talent for ikebana, kiri-e, and ceramics. On 1 June 1995, she died of cancer at her home in Bethesda, Md.

Merrit Bradford Coolidge (1839-1926) was the father of Richard B. Coolidge. Born on 8 April 1839 in Hallowell, Maine, he was the third child of Merrit and Flora Coolidge. Merrit, brought up in the Universalist Church, attended Westbrook Seminary and Tufts College. He taught grade school in Maine during college vacations. In 1876, Merrit married Lucy French, and the two settled in Portland, where Merrit helped run the family's wholesale foods business. He later became the treasurer of the Standard Oil Company office in Portland. Merrit served as a trustee of Westbrook Seminary and treasurer of the Universalist Maine State Convention. On 1 February 1926, he died in Portland at the age of 87.

Richard Bradford Coolidge (1879-1957) was born on 14 September 1879 in Deering, Maine to Merrit B. and Lucy French Coolidge. Richard attended the Ocean Street Grammar School in Portland and Westbrook Seminary in Deering. In 1898, he entered Tufts College, where he was a member of Theta Delta Chi and Phi Beta Kappa and served as editor-in-chief of The Tuftonian, a student literary magazine. Richard met his future wife, Ruth B. Dame, at Tufts. Like Ruth, he graduated with both a B.A. and M.A. after only four years of study. In the summer of 1903, Richard worked as a reporter for the Portland Evening Express and considered becoming a journalist. He opted instead for Harvard Law School, where he graduated in 1906. Soon after, Richard joined the law firm of French and Curtiss, the practice of his uncle William B. French. Upon his uncle's death in 1912, Richard became a partner in the firm. In September 1908, Richard married Ruth B. Dame and settled in Medford. They had three children: Ruth Alden (June) (b. 1912), William Bradford (b. 1916), and Olive Dame (b. 1920).

Richard became active in Massachusetts politics during the 1910s. Around 1912-1914, he ran unsuccessfully for the state legislature as a Progressive Party candidate. His first successful election came in 1917, when he was elected to the local Board of Aldermen. From 1920 to 1922, Richard served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives for the Medford/Winchester District. His final elective office was that of mayor of Medford, a position he held from 1923 to 1926. Richard left politics in 1926 to become president and director of the First National Bank in Medford. He remained director until 1950, when he became a board member of its successor Middlesex County National Bank. In addition to his political and business contributions to Medford, Richard was active in the social and civic life of the city. He belonged to the Medford Historical Society and the Royall House Association and was a founder and president of the Lawrence Memorial Hospital. A treasurer of Tufts College from 1934 to 1952, he was elected a lifetime trustee in 1950. On 17 February 1957, Richard died at the home of his daughter Olive in Concord, Mass.

Ruth Burleigh Dame Coolidge (1880-1951) was born on 21 November 1880 in Medford, Mass. She was the third child of Lorin L. and Isabel Arnold Dame. Ruth attended Medford High School, where her father was principal. After graduating in 1898, she entered her father's alma mater, Tufts College, where she was a member of the Delta Sigma sorority and the Tower Cross Society. She also served on the editorial board of the Tufts literary magazine, The Tuftonian. Ruth was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and graduated in four years with both a B.A. and an M.A. After graduating in 1902, Ruth taught in the public schools including Medford High School. Ruth married Richard B. Coolidge in 1908, and they had three children: Ruth Alden (June) (b. 1912), William Bradford (b. 1916), and Olive Dame (b. 1920). Ruth worked as a writer and journalist. She penned articles for magazines and newspapers, specializing in pieces about colonial Massachusetts. She also wrote several historical pageants: The Pageant of the Royall House (1915), The Pageant of the Mystic (1930), and The Pageant of the Centenary of Medford High School (1935). Ruth's love of history led to her membership in many historical organizations, including the Royall House Association and the Nantucket Historical Society. In the 1930s, she served as president of the Medford Historical Society for four years and of the Bay State Historical League for two. She was also a member of the Medford Shakespeare Club, the First Parish Unitarian Church, and the Medford Girl Scouts. Ruth and her family summered in Nantucket at Hinckley Farm. On 20 September 1951, at the age of 70, Ruth died of a heart attack while vacationing in Nantucket.

William Bradford Coolidge (1916-2010), the second child of Richard B. and Ruth Dame Coolidge, was born on 20 January 1916 in Medford, Mass. William, nicknamed Brad, grew up in Medford with his two sisters, June and Olive, and his maternal aunt Daisy Dame. Brad attended Medford High School and graduated in 1932 at the top of his class. Brad summered in Nantucket, often with extended family. From 1933 to 1937, Brad studied at Tufts College on a Trustees Fellowship and was editor of the college newspaper, The Tufts Weekly, in 1936, leading him to explore a career in journalism. Upon graduating from Tufts in 1937, Brad moved to Tokyo, Japan, where his sister June and brother-in-law Harry Cary taught at a Universalist mission. In hopes of becoming a foreign correspondent, he wrote copy for The Japanese Advertiser, an English-language newspaper printed in Tokyo. In 1939, he traveled as a string correspondent for United Press to Japanese-occupied northern China, Manchuria, and Canton. While in Tokyo, Brad met his future wife, Jean E. Thoits, the governess to the children of an American diplomat. On his return to the United States in 1939, he courted Jean by mail before they were married on 22 June 1943. They had three children: Eunice Ann (b. 1947), Oliver (b. 1949), and Elizabeth (b. 1951).

In the fall of 1939, Brad returned to the United States to begin graduate work in international affairs at Harvard University. Upon graduation in 1941, he accepted a position with the Foreign Broadcasting Information Service (FBIS) in Oregon, where he helped to translate Japanese broadcasts for the U.S. government. In 1944, Brad was drafted into the U.S. Army as a foreign language specialist. He was sent to the Army Intensive Japanese Language School at the University of Michigan in 1945 and to Alabama in early 1946 for basic training. In the fall of 1946, Brad became an analyst for the State Department's Office of Intelligence Research. His first assignment took him back to Tokyo, where he served as a political officer at the U.S. Embassy. He was then chosen as the head of the American Consulate in Nagoya. After two years stateside, Brad and his family moved to Bangkok, Thailand for a posting on the international staff of SEATO, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. Later, the Coolidge family moved to Ankara, Turkey, where Brad served as the assistant to Abbas Ali Khalatbari, Secretary General of CENTO, the Central Treaty Organization for the United States, United Kingdom, Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan.

From 1968 to 1969, Brad served as diplomat in residence at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He retired from the State Department in 1972 and returned to his home in Bethesda, Md., where he became involved with the River Road Unitarian Church, the John C. Campbell Folk School, and the Japan-America Society. He was a member of the board of directors for the John C. Campbell Folk School from 1976 to 1992.

Daisy Gertrude Dame (1868-1932) was the oldest sister of Ruth Dame Coolidge. She was born on 5 March 1868 in Nantucket, Mass., the first of four daughters born to Lorin and Isabel Dame. Daisy attended public school and graduated from Medford High School in 1885. A graduate of Symonds Kindergarten Normal Training Class in Boston, Daisy taught kindergarten beginning in 1887. In 1892, she was appointed principal of the James A. McDonald Kindergarten in Boston, a position she held until her retirement in 1922. From 1909 to 1910, Daisy took a leave of absence without pay to help establish a kindergarten in the mountains of Kentucky at the Oneida Institute. Daisy never married. She lived with her mother and Ruth and Richard Coolidge and their family in Medford, Mass. In 1922, Daisy accompanied Olive Campbell and Marguerite Butler to Scandinavia, where they studied folk schools. The trip photographer, Daisy captured images of the trip that appear in Olive's book, The Danish Folk School. Daisy enjoyed genealogy and was an active member of the West Medford Reading Club. She died in September 1932.

Lorin Low Dame (1838-1903) was the father of Ruth Dame Coolidge. Born on 12 March 1838 in Newmarket, N.H., he was the only child of Samuel and Mary Ann Dame. In 1845, his family moved to Lowell, Mass., where he attended public high school. From 1856 to 1860, Lorin studied at Tufts College and after graduation became a high school principal in Braintree, Mass. The Civil War intervened, and late in 1862, Lorin mustered into the 15th Battery, Massachusetts Volunteer Light Artillery, as a second lieutenant. On 1 March 1863, eight days before reporting to duty, he married a former Braintree student, Nancy Isabel Arnold. During the war, Lorin served in New Orleans and saw action in the Arkansas expedition and the fall of Mobile. He was promoted to first lieutenant before mustering out on 4 August 1865. After the war ended, Tufts College honored Lorin by granting him an M.A. Over the next 11 years, Lorin served as the principal of high schools in several Massachusetts towns including Lexington (1866-1867), Nantucket (1867-1869), and Stoneham (1869-1876). In 1876, he became the principal of Medford High School, a position he held for 27 years. In addition to administering the high school, he taught Latin and Greek.

Lorin was an avid botanist, as well as an educator. During the 1880s, he served as president of the Middlesex Institute and published several articles about New England flora. He is best known for his two books, Typical Elms and Other Trees of Massachusetts, published in 1890 with an introduction by Oliver Wendell Holmes, and The Handbook of the Trees of New England, with Ranges Throughout the United States, co-authored with Henry Brooks and published in 1902. In recognition of his scientific achievements, Lorin received an honorary doctorate of science from Tufts in 1895. Literature, writing, and history were also of keen interest to Lorin. To earn additional income, he wrote for newspapers and magazines, often under pseudonyms including J. Gerry, J. M. Arnold, and Viator. Lorin was a member of the West Medford Reading Club and the Medford Historical Society. From 1895 to 1903, he served as a trustee of Tufts College and sat on its Executive Committee. Lorin belonged to the First Parish Unitarian Church in Medford and founded the Unitarian club connected to the church. On 27 January 1903, he died of a heart attack.

Nancy Isabel Arnold Dame (1844-1916) was the mother of Ruth Dame Coolidge. She was born in Braintree, Mass. on 20 September 1844 to Nancy B. T. and John Bass Arnold. The seventh of nine children, Isabel was a bright student and fine musician. In 1860, she met Lorin Dame, a new teacher at her high school. They married on 1 March 1863, eight days before Lorin mustered into the Union Army. Lorin served in the gulf theatre of the Civil War until 1865, when he returned to teaching. He held jobs as a high school principal in several Massachusetts cities including Lexington, Nantucket, and Stoneham. In 1876, the couple permanently settled in Medford, where Isabel and Lorin raised four daughters: Daisy Gertrude (b. 1868), Isabel Gerry (b. 1869), Ruth Burleigh (b. 1880), and Olive Arnold (b. 1882). The family summered on Nantucket, and Isabel bought a house and land there called Hinckley Farm. Isabel was socially active in Medford and belonged to many charitable organizations and clubs. She was especially devoted to the musical work of the Women's Club. During 1915, Isabel became ill with an eye affliction. She died on 10 December 1916.

William Riley French (1814-1893) was the maternal grandfather of Richard B. Coolidge. He was born on 8 June 1814 in Turner, Maine to Charles and Nancy French. Nancy died of consumption when William was small. At the age of ten, he was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker in Turner, who allowed him to attend high school while working for him. After finishing his apprenticeship, he attended Kent's Hill Academy to prepare for college and taught school to support himself. In the late 1830s, William entered Waterville College (today known as Colby College), where he embraced the Universalist Church. In 1841, after reading theology with the Rev. Zenas Thompson, he became a Universalist minister. William preached in Lewiston and Auburn, but needed to teach school to make a living wage. In 1843, he married Marcia Bradford in Lewiston, and they had four children. Several years later, William moved to Turner to become minister of the First Universalist Church. He remained in Turner for 20 years and became a leader of the Universalist church in Maine. In 1885, Tufts conferred upon him an honorary doctorate of divinity. William died on 7 August 1893 after many years of illness.

Barbara Bacon McConnell (1905-2000) was the fourth daughter of Morgan and Isabel Dame Bacon and the niece of Ruth Dame Coolidge. Born on 11 September 1905 in Salt Lake City, Utah, she attended the University of Wisconsin, where she earned a degree in psychology. She married Phillip McConnell and they lived in La Crosse, N.J., where they brought up three sons: Mark, Allen, and David. Barbara taught eighth grade for many years. After Phillip's death in 1959, she entered the Peace Corps in 1962 and spent 15 months in Nigeria teaching mathematics at a teacher's training college. In the 1970s, Barbara moved to Alexandria, Va. to live near her sisters. She traveled extensively through Europe, the former Soviet Union, China, and the Americas. Barbara died on 1 January 2000.