Alberta Mae Knox
Educator Alberta Mae Knox (1896-1991) was the first Black graduate from the newly built New Bedford High School in 1913, when she was elected class salutatorian by the faculty.
Suzanne Marjorie Stockard Underwood
Pioneering modernist architect Suzanne Marjorie Stockard Underwood (1917-2001) was one of the first women to graduate from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.
Rebecca L. H. Taber
Artist, philanthropist, and anti-suffragist Rebecca L. H. Taber (1854-1940) was born in Fairhaven to whaling ship master John S. Taber and Mary Ann (Spooner) Taber.
Theresa Dougall
In a career that spanned 44 years at Bishop Stang High School, Theresa E. Perry Dougall (1946-2016) was known as a distinguished teacher, department head, coach, and administrator.
Mary Hall Leonard
Rochester’s Mary Hall Leonard (1847-1921) graduated from Bridgewater Normal School in 1867 and was soon hired as an instructor there, where she trained students to be teachers.
Ora M. DeJesus
Elders and their caregivers had a dedicated advocate in geriatric nurse practitioner Ora M. DeJesus (1927-2000). Ora was a compassionate clinician, skilled nursing facility manager, university professor, and first executive director of The Gerontology Center at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (UMD).
Lena Britto
Born and raised in Rochester, entrepreneur and activist Lena Britto (1921-2007) owned and operated Van-Lee Beauty Salon in East Wareham for over 18 years.
Elizabeth Piper Ensley
Born in New Bedford to parents who had been enslaved, educator Elizabeth Piper Ensley (1847-1919) was an active leader in African American women’s clubs and the women’s suffrage movement in Colorado.
Mabel Knipe
From 1931 through her retirement in 1974, Mabel taught at Fairhaven High School, where she directed 21 school plays, initiated the school newspaper, and became English department head.
Tryne Costa
New Bedford social worker Tryne G. Costa (1922-2018) lived by a poem that she learned as a young girl, “Let me live in my house by the side of the road / And be a friend to man.”