Beecher, Bartram, and related family papers, 1773-2006.
(Mixed Material)

Organized into six series: Series I. Norman Beecher papers, 1923-2006; Series II. Nancy Elizabeth Bartram Beecher papers, 1927-2006; Series III. Papers of the parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents of Norman Beecher and of the parents of Nancy Bartram Beecher, 1837-2001; Series IV. Norman and Nancy Beecher family and personal papers, 1947-2006; Series V. Lineage of Norman Beecher, 1828-2005; VI. Lineage of Nancy Bartram Beecher, 1773-2004.,Each series is further organized into subseries.

Colection stored in an off-site vault.,Researchers must provide at least twenty-four hours advance notice and specific citations to box(es) and folder(s) desired. Contact the William Munroe Special Collections (978 318-3342) for additional information or to arrange to use the collection.

An organic collection of the personal, professional, and family papers, 1773-2006, of Norman Buckingham Beecher (born 1923) and his wife Nancy Bartram Beecher (residents of Concord, Massachusetts), including papers and materials relating to the ancestors of each of them. Series I. Norman Buckingham Beecher papers, 1923-2006: This series includes a range of material -- especially correspondence -- on topics of particular interest to Norman Beecher (born 1923), among them: sex education; birth control; alcohol, tobacco, and drug use; the German concentration camps of World War II; the Vietnam War; race and gender issues; religion; abortion; population control; systems thinking; civil defense; and environmental issues. The topical files in Series I also contain material relating to Mr. Beecher's institutional and organizational involvements and interests (Asheville School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wellesley Institute for Foreign Students, American Field Service, fraternities Phi Delta Theta and Alpha Chi Sigma, Stowe-Day Foundation and Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, World Refugee Committee for Massachusetts, Tufts Center for Environmental Management, David H. Koch School of Chemical Engineering Practice, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, Concord's Year 2000 Celebrations Committee, Village University -- an adult educational program through Concord-Carlisle Adult and Continuing Education, in which Mr. Beecher participated as a teacher, and Concord's Trinity Episcopal Church). The series holds documentation of: his military service in World War II; wartime and post-war Germany; the Beechers' membership in the Evangelical Union Church of Pera in Istanbul; and Norman Beecher's real estate holdings in Concord and elsewhere. It also features Mr. Beecher's baby book, early trip diaries, school compositions, passports, material relating to his sister Ann and son Norman ("Bucky"), and typescript and photocopied printed versions of his book Pre-Meditated Life. The subseries containing separately filed correspondence includes mixed personal, professional, and opinion-related letters dating from 1931 to 2006. Correspondents cover a broad gamut: politicians and public servants (George W. Bush, Thomas Menino, Edward M. Kennedy, John F. Kerry, Cory Atkins, James Earl Carter, Jr., William Jefferson Clinton, Albert Gore, Marty Meehan, Hillary Clinton, Paul E. Tsongas, Edward W. Brooke, Olympia Snowe, and others); family (parents Norman B. and Miriam W. Beecher; siblings; Nancy Bartram -- during the Beechers' courtship days -- and later wife Nancy Bartram Beecher; grandmother Mrs. W. B. Woolley; Aunt Ruth); numerous friends, among them John Morgan Holden, Priscilla Perry, Patricia Peare, Kellogg Smith, Elizabeth -- "Betsy" -- Burns and Pomona -- "Pony" -- Davidson; son Norman and daughter-in-law Dawn. Correspondence and related materials generated by the Beechers' involvement with the Near East College Association and Robert College in Istanbul are also found in this subseries. The subseries reflecting Norman Beecher's professional life includes many scientific articles he co-authored or authored; some scientific articles by others; certificates; material relating to patents; material relating to Mr. Beecher's employment at Ledgemont Laboratory (Kennecott Copper Corporation), the National Research Corporation, and Tufts University; and material relating to job searches (by Norman Beecher and others). Series I also includes a dozen books from Norman Beecher's library -- yearbooks, titles related to his military service (among them Deutschland Erwacht, which documents the Nazi rise to power in Germany), and a few miscellaneous titles, two of them histories of Clearwater, Florida and Asheville, North Carolina. Series II. Nancy Elizabeth Bartram Beecher papers, 1927-2006: This series holds items relating to Nancy Bartram Beecher's education at Northfield Seminary (Northfield/Mount Hermon), Wellesley College, and Harvard University Extension School, and reflecting her subsequent association with Northfield and Wellesley. It includes college research and term papers, her Wellesley College scrapbook and her Harvard University Extension thesis (Feminism: A Quest for Self-Determination). It also documents (through correspondence, reports, speeches, clippings, and other materials) Mrs. Beecher's professional and public service activities: her membership on the Massachusetts Civil Service Commission during the Sargent administration (including legal documents generated by the case Castro v. Beecher); her teaching public policy at Suffolk University; her long membership in the League of Women Voters; her service on the General Committee for the 1975 celebration in Concord of the bicentennial of the Concord Fight and on the Concord Board of Selectmen; board membership on the United Community Planning Corporation, the Episcopal Divinity School, and Concord Alternative Residence, Inc.; and associations with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, the Concord Fair Housing Committee, the Save Your Town Meeting Committee/Coalition to Preserve Town Meeting, and other organizations. Dating from 1940 to 2005, the personal correspondence of Nancy Beecher includes letters primarily to and from family and friends. Among her personal papers: her baby book; a childhood diary; several early writing attempts (a botany notebook, autobiography, and vacation newspaper); date books; manuscript and typescript poetry and original artwork by Mrs. Beecher; her passports; magazine articles about her (including a feature article about her in the May 25, 1948 image of Look); photographs; material relating to the bankruptcy of the Waverly Trading Co. (Mrs. Beecher was a creditor); and a history of Nitro, West Virginia. Series III. Papers of the parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents of Norman Buckingham Beecher and of the parents of Nancy Bartram Beecher, 1837-2001: Series III includes papers of Norman Buckingham Beecher (1877-1965) and his wife Miriam Woolley Beecher. Among them: family and professional correspondence; legal, financial, investment, tax, and insurance material; photographs; diaries; school compositions; documents relating to Norman B. Beecher's work as a lawyer, on the International Maritime Committee, on legal proceedings regarding the liability of the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company for the steamship Titanic disaster, on the Oil Division of the United States Fuel Administration, and as Admiralty Counsel to the Shipping Board; a Woolley family clipping scrapbook; obituaries and memorial items; and miscellaneous other documents and ephemera. It also holds some papers of the parents -- George B. and Anne (Nannie) O'Hara Beecher -- of Norman B. Beecher (born 1877) and of his grandparents, George and Sarah Sturges Buckingham Beecher (property, finance, tax, and probate items; compositions; items relating to livestock ownership). Papers of Thomas Walsh Bartram and Mildred Shelling Bartram -- Nancy Bartram Beecher's parents -- are also represented in Series III. Thomas W. Bartram material includes: an inventory of family papers; baptismal and confirmation records; baby books; military service documents; marriage certificate; clippings; a mortgage document; a will; a typescript poem; letters by T. W. Bartram to parents; material relating to patents; Masonic membership certificate; and photographs. Mildred S. Bartram material includes: birth and church-issued marriage certificates; order of marriage service; wedding invitation and announcement; will; recollections; real estate document; and letters.

(cont.) Series IV. Norman and Nancy Beecher family and personal papers, 1947-2006: Series IV holds the personal papers of Norman and Nancy Beecher as a couple, in the context of their shared life It includes voluminous correspondence, with many letters written to or signed by both Beechers jointly. The series features letters to and from family members (parents, siblings, cousins, children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and others) as well as Norman and Nancy Beechers' letters to each other. There is correspondence with friends from all periods of the Beechers' lives, and a file of Beecher family Christmas letters over decades. The series also includes separate files on each of the four Beecher children, family trip notebooks, family calendars, material by or relating to the Beecher grandchildren, church certificates for Norman and Nancy Beecher as godparents, notes documenting the history of the Beechers' house at 1100 Monument Street, and family photographs. Series V. Lineage of Norman Beecher, 1828-2005: This series documents the ancestry of Norman Beecher (born 1923) and holds personal papers of some of his predecessors -- his great-grandfather and great-grandmother George and Sarah Sturges Buckingham Beecher and George Beecher's brother William; his grandfather and grandmother George B. and Anne (Nannie) Price O'Hara Beecher; his aunt Georgiana Beecher Allen; his second cousin Eliza Stowe (daughter of Harriet Beecher Stowe); his great-great-grandfather and great-great grandmother Ebenezer and Eunice Hale Buckingham; members of the Trimble family (relatives of the Buckinghams by marriage); and his father Norman and uncle Lyman Beecher. It also includes information about his great-great-great-grandfather, General James O'Hara (found in the printed volume Fort Pitt and Letters from the Frontier (1892). Among the material types in these family papers: correspondence (including Colonel William H. Trimble letters describing his Civil War experiences); a passport; wills; a ledger; tax receipts; a surveying notebook (Ebenezer Buckingham was an early surveyor in Ohio); property documents; obituaries; and railroad ephemera. The small amount of Norman B. Beecher (1877-1965) material in Series V overlaps with material in Series III. Series V also holds some papers of and material relating to Norman Beecher's grandparents Walter Barrett Woolley and Marian Pierce Woolley and genealogical research (including charts) and family history about the Beecher, Buckingham, O'Hara, Trimble, Woolley, and Pierce families, much of it gathered specifically in preparation for the Beechers' 1993 book Fortunate Journey: Our Lives, Our Family, and Our Forebears. Series VI. Lineage of Nancy Bartram Beecher, 1773-2004: Series VI documents Nancy Beecher's Bartram, Greer, Shelling, and -- particularly -- Walsh ancestry. Like Series V, it features both family papers and genealogical research compiled for Fortunate Journey. Bartram material includes papers of or information about Edward E. Bartram, John W. Bartram, Levi S. Bartram, and -- overlapping with material in Series III -- some papers of Nancy Bartram Beecher's parents, Thomas Walsh Bartram and Mildred Shelling Bartram. The series includes notes on family history by Ruth Jo Bartram, a published Bartram genealogy, and a history of Black Rock, Connecticut (containing significant information on the Bartram family). Greer material includes papers (mainly correspondence; of Agnes Greer/Agnes Greer Walsh, Caroline I. Greer, Henry Greer, John M. Greer, Caroline Forrest Greer/Mrs. John M. Greer, Robert Greer, Richard W. Greer, W. R. Greer), a typescript "Greer Letters at the Time of the Civil War," obituaries and other clippings, the broadside "Remember Dorothy Greer, 1824," and genealogical research. Shelling material includes family letters and photographs, military papers, Civil War letters, the will of Emanuel R. Shelling, and genealogical research. The abundance of Walsh material in this series includes documents, letters (original, transcribed, and photocopied), photographs (a particular highlight -- an 1859 ambrotype by Mathew Brady of Richard James Walsh and Eliza Lepper Walsh), transcribed diaries, notes, a manuscript essay, trip journals, a marriage certificate, poetry in manuscript, ephemera, obituaries, photographs of a family Bible record, a certification of death and a death notice, printed articles, the 1992 book Japan Through American Eyes: The Journal of Francis Hall, Kanagawa and Yokohama (edited and annotated by F. G. Notehelfer), and genealogical notes and research material (some of it gathered by Ruth Jo Bartram and Mary Aiko Yamaguchi Wiborg). Among the Walshes and Walsh connections represented in Series VI: Richard Walsh (including his 1826-1827 manuscript diary, covering his passage from Ireland and arrival in America; foldered with Greer material); Richard James Walsh; Eliza Lepper Walsh; the Lepper family; David Walsh; Thomas Walsh; George Walsh; John Greer Walsh; Marianne (Minnie) Walsh; Sarah (Sallie) Walsh; Caroline Agnes (Carrie) Walsh; members of the Barnes family; Agnes Greer Walsh; Agnes Greer Walsh Bartram; Jane and Thomas Worthington; Ai Yamaguchi; Bosio and Barberini Walsh descendants in Italy; Annie Van Cortlandt; Mary (May) Lepper Walsh; Lizzie Walsh; members of the Barnes family; Jane Barnes Walsh; Robert Greer Walsh; Kuni Yamaguchi; Tsuneko Eguchi; Kiyohumi Matuura; and Kei Sakayama. Information about the Kobe Paper Mill Company/ Mitsubishi Paper Company is also found with Walsh material in this series.

Beecher, Bartram, and Related Family Papers. Vault A45 Beecher Unit 2. William Munroe Special Collections, Concord Free Public Library, Concord, Mass.

Gift;,Norman Beecher and Nancy Bartram Beecher;,2005 December 1; with additions to 2009

Norman Beecher and Nancy Bartram Beecher Correspondence, 1941-1952 (William Munroe Special Collections, Concord Free Public Library; Vault A45, Beecher, Unit 1).

Norman Buckingham Beecher and Nancy Bartram Beecher are long-time residents of Concord, Massachusetts. Norman Beecher's family history includes Beecher, Buckingham, O'Hara, Trimble, Hale, Sturges, Woolley, and Pierce ancestors; Nancy Beecher's ancestry includes include Bartram, Greer, Shelling, Lepper, and Walsh ancestors, and Japanese connections (Yamaguchi among them) through the Walsh family. Norman Beecher was born in Clearwater, Florida, in 1923, the first child of Miriam Woolley Beecher and Norman Buckingham Beecher. His sisters Ann and Barbara were born in 1926 and 1927, respectively. He attended school in Clearwater through the tenth grade, then completed high school at the Asheville School, a private boarding school in North Carolina, where the family summered. He entered M.I.T in 1940. During his sophomore year he enrolled in advanced R.O.T.C., and in his junior year he received basic training at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, and the Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. In February, 1944, he began Officer Candidate School at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. When not in training, he attended M.I.T. In the spring of 1944, he received his Bachelor of Science from M.I.T and graduated from Officer Candidate School as a second lieutenant. In the fall of 1944, he shipped out with the 136th Armored Division to Marseilles, France. He served as Automotive Officer in "B" Company, 136th Ordnance Battalion, which was part of the 14th advanced through France and Germany. For a short period he had special assignments as a liaison officer. He was discharged at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on June 18, 1946, and returned to M.I.T. to attend graduate school in chemical engineering. He completed his M.S. degree and married Nancy Bartram in June of 1948. Nancy Elizabeth Bartram was born in 1927 in Nitro, West Virginia to Thomas Welsh Bartram and Mildred Shelling Bartram. She grew up there with her older brother Thomas and frequently spent summers in northwestern Connecticut. She graduated from Northfield in 1944 and in 1948 from Wellesley College, where she was a student government leader. After their marriage, the couple served as teachers at Roberts College in Istanbul from 1949 through the spring of 1952. They returned to the U.S. in August of 1952, settling in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Norman Beecher pursued doctoral studies and served as an assistant professor. They moved to Concord, Massachusetts in 1955, raised four children, and have been active in community affairs. Norman Beecher pursued a successful engineering career. Nancy Beecher was appointed chairman of the Massachusetts Civil Service Commission in 1970 for a five-year term. The family has enjoyed summer homes in New Hampshire and Maine and travelled extensively.

Finding aid available in library and onlilne via the Internet on the William Munroe Special Collections website, Concord Free Public Library, Concord, Mass;,Folder level control.

Accession, First installment;,AMC131;,20051201

As of the completion of this finding aid, the collection includes a significant number of newspaper clippings not yet photocopied for preservation purposes.