The Francestown Select Board honored 99-year-old Pauline Tower as the town’s oldest citizen earlier this week.
Chair Brad Howell presented Tower the town’s Boston Post Cane to Tower during the annual Vespers talent show on Monday.
The Boston Post Cane tradition started as a promotional campaign to boost the Post’s circulation in 1909 when 700 canes were distributed throughout Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The canes were to be awarded to a community’s oldest man, so Pauline would not have been seen as a future candidate for cane holder when she was born in 1920. In fact it was not until 1930, 10 years after women succeeded in getting the right to vote, that they also became eligible to be recognized with the cane.
Tower passed her 99 year mark on July 13, 2019, and is forging ahead to 100. She was born and raised in 1920 in West Haven, Connecticut. She married William Tower before World War II and moved to Massachusetts. In 1951 the Towers moved to Pelham, where she had one home and four addresses. No, that is not a mistake. She lived on Mammoth Road and as the area grew, houses were frequently renumbered.
Tower loves children. She had four of her own and fostered over 20 infants, mostly under the age of 6 months, until they could find permanent homes. In her spare moments she likes to make baby booties.
Despite remaining fairly local, Tower had over 40 pen pals which allowed her to travel and experience the globe through the written word.
In 2016 Tower moved to Francestown where she lives with her daughter Paula Eggleston on Poor Farm Road.