February 18, 1976
Page 3564
MARY GINN WORTHLEY
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, Mary Ginn Worthley, one of the most enthusiastic, dedicated, and energetic people it has been my pleasure to meet, celebrates her birthday this week. She is one of those people who are difficult to describe, because no adjective seems quite enough for her talents, her work or her personality.
Forced to retire in 1945 from her teaching job for health reasons, Mary began to get involved in humanitarian causes, and while she has always volunteered her help to those who needed it, she is very much a professional. She still serves on a dozen citizen boards, in and out of government, and always serves the cause of people.
I believe her first governmental job was a mental health study commission she chaired at my request during my years as Governor of Maine. The time, energy, and persuasive power she brought to that job were of incalculable value to the people of Maine. And she has continued to contribute — freely, effectively, and just as actively as when she began her humanitarian career.
The February 1976 issue of Yankee magazine published an article on Mary by Elizabeth Starratt, and as usual, Mary summed up herself better than anyone else could. "I was given 1 year to live at 45," she said, "but I am still creaking along. I have things to do."
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the article on Mary Ginn Worthley from the February 1976 issue of Yankee, be reprinted in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[From Yankee magazine, February 1976]
HOW THE LADY FIGHTS
(By Elizabeth Starratt)
"I've found that where I like to be is out on the cutting edge, where new ideas and thoughts are forming. I'm one that likes to plow the ground. I like it when the going is hard. When anything really gets started, and other people can take it on, I want to get into something else."
This is Mary Ginn Worthley speaking. The first woman ever to present a major bill before the Maine Legislature, she succeeded in getting a bill passed in every session of the Legislature from 1947 through 1972. When both chambers of the Maine Legislature proclaimed May 7, 1975, "Mary Ginn Worthley Day," they gave recognition and a standing ovation to a courageous woman who belongs to a vanishing breed — the humanitarian volunteer.
"On the retired teachers' death certificates — I went through hundreds of them — was written 'Death by Malnutrition.' "
For 30 years she has struggled to better conditions in Maine, and many have benefited from her concern: retired school-teachers, the mentally ill, the elderly, women alcoholics, and schoolchildren.
Born in 1902, Mary became a school teacher upon her graduation from Bates College, but in 1945 she suffered "one or two slight heart attacks" and was forced to retire. The doctors gave her a year to live.
Mary took up year-round residence in North Berwick, Maine, with her father, a Congregational minister. They had many friends, and the house was always filled with people.
"I can remember so often in summers, there'd be one big group on the front porch, another on the back porch, another inside in the front room, and perhaps another in the kitchen, and each one would think I was with the other, so I could scoot upstairs to rest a little! But we never sat down to a meal alone, always people coming and going, and I loved that kind of life, but I wasn't able to keep up with it."
Mary's father died after a long illness, and her health deteriorated further. At this point, Amelia Shapleigh, a friend some 30 years Mary's senior, invited Mary to come and live with her in West Lebanon.
"All this seemed at the time a deprivation: I lost my health, and, to take care of my father, I'd used up everything I had. I had been going to the principal of a big high school in Washington — and that might seem a deprivation. Well, life works in very mysterious ways, because I've got involved in humanitarian work and a completely new career here, and I wouldn't change it for anything. It's been a wonderful, wonderful life.
"I'm a great believer that faith works things out, because I've had it work so in my own life. The mainspring of my life has been faith — I was brought up in it, and it's natural to me. Life brings you a lot of hard things, but adversity is the best teacher there is. People who have lived to be 50 and haven't lived through any really hard things seem a little shallow. They're not the people that you would go to if you were in any difficulty. Too many people surround themselves with people of their own kind, of their own social and economic level: they don't learn. You do better if you involve yourself in something that is really life-engaging, but many people are satisfied to pass out little cups of cold water."
Miss Shapleigh shared her home and her work for the WCTU with Mary until her death eight years later. Through her work, Mary gained confidence in her ability to persuade others and to organize for political action. She wrote many pieces on the danger of alcohol for school children.
In the early 1950s, retired teachers in Maine were receiving as little as $67.50 a month in pension, and they asked Mary to try to get their pensions raised.
"I worked like a dog! I found they were starving to death behind their lace curtains. On their death certificates — I went through hundreds of them — was written 'Death by malnutrition.' They starved to death. I went through the records of every single one and took out all the information that was needed, and from that I made a report.
"And it's the first time that a woman had ever gone down to the Legislature and taken a major bill. Women had spoken, but it was the first time a woman in government had fought for a major bill. Well, some of those old ones didn't like it! 'We don't like pushy women,' they told me. But I put on an elegant, stage-managed campaign. Frankly, I was scared to death of my capacity to approach them!"
So Mary organized a large group of retired teachers and instructed them in the fine art of political reform.
"Write buckets of letters! Write to your own legislators. Write to any student you ever had who is in the Legislature. So I got them drilled, and had big meetings, and it was a going thing. Then I got out a paper called the 'Clarion' to the teachers once a month — wrote it all myself, addressed the 2,500 envelopes. I struggled to get that bill through!"
A reporter for the Portland Press Herald recalled Mary's campaign in an article in May 1972:
"She would tell teachers who were to testify at hearings, 'Don't wear your good things. If you've got an eight-year-old coat, wear it!' And they did."
Despite Mary's efforts, things did not look promising for her bill.
"There was one legislator who was much opposed to this, and he tried to get out another bill which would limit it to just a very, few teachers. (Ours was going to cost $300,000) And I was sitting there, looking very glum, when one of the liquor lobbyists approached me. I'd fought liquor like grim death, but I'd always got along with the men who lobbied for it very well, and he said, 'Well, how's your bill coming for old teachers?' And I said, 'Not well at all. They're trying to kill it, they're just trying to kill it! He said, 'I will speak to a few.'
"So, when that bill went before the House, each of the liquor boys got up and said how he loved his dear old teachers, and how gladly he was to see them! Of course, I had a lot of other support besides that, but really, it gave a big boost, and it went right through! I didn't get $300 for them the first time — I got $250 — but, in five different sessions of the Legislature, I increased the teachers' pensions."
Her fight for the teachers didn't end there, however. It became apparent to Mary that the teachers would be better off if they were included with the State employees.
"So I took down the record of every state employee, and added them all up. I did tremendous amounts of work. I made graphs showing that state employees had always been favored over retired teachers in retirement policies and pensions. Then I said I wanted to go before the Retirement Board. The Board was all state employees at that time and had just one school superintendent on it. And so I asked the Governor, who was Reed at the time, to come, because I knew they'd take me apart at the seams. I was scared to death.
"I presented all these graphs, and they got madder and madder. And then the Governor said, 'Mary, you have presented a wonderful program. We are proud of you. I want a copy of this. I'm going to use it.' And no more was said! It all sailed right through!"
Mary noted with a mischievous grin that she was denied access to State records after that episode.
Impressed by her efforts on behalf of the retired teachers, the Governor approached her to serve on a committee to study mental health conditions.
"I picked up the paper one night and saw that I was the Chairman of that Committee! So, I got right into my automobile and I went right down to see the Governor, who was then Muskie, and said, 'I don't know anything about mental health. I only know what the average person knows. I'm not a mental health expert! On this committee there are professors and psychologists.' And Muskie said, 'Mary, I've watched you work like a horse; you go right home and get to work. You're the one I want.' "
She went home and got to work, reading and studying the subject of mental health, comparing mental health institutions and systems in other states, and marshaling support from citizens all over the state.
"I went through the state like a whirlwind. I made 250 speeches over the state, trying chiefly to change the image of the mentally ill. That they were sad, sick people who needed love and understanding was the basis of what I said."
Her committee spent long hours preparing the bill for the Legislature, calling for the statewide establishment of the community mental health centers we now have. Mary remained active on the Committee until 1970.
In the 1960s, the minister of her Congregational Church in Sanford became ill. For six months during his illness Mary served as minister at the church and was commissioned a lay minister.
In addition to filling in at various churches, her ecumenical approach to religion allows her to preach two or three Sundays a month in a tiny Quaker church in Gonic, New Hampshire ("Eighteen souls when they're all there.") Sometimes her health or other commitments prevent her from preaching in Gonic, but she has preached an average of 30 Sundays a year for the past ten years.
"I feel more at home in the pulpit than any other place. I love it. I was born and brought up in it, and it's been the backbone of my life, although I do shake them up now and then!
"In Les Miserables there's something I've never forgotten: 'Life is to give and not to take.' If you have that kind of belief that's a model that people will carry with them. We lack those models, and life is impoverished because of it."
Mary served as Chairman of the Governor's Advisory Committee on Welfare, and worked to get pauper laws abolished. In the course of her work for this committee, it was decided that the members should fly to Vermont to consult with a group there. She recalls the trip from the little Sanford airport with much amusement:
"It was January 2nd or 3rd, and the Governor was lending us his little plane. Well, it was a ghastly day, very icy. When I got on the other four were already inside, and they said, 'We've been waiting for you to speak to the Lord, to make sure we get there safely!' "
She serves "on some eleven or twelve boards now," including Crossroads and the Milestones Foundation, both treatment centers for alcoholics; on the Southern Maine Comprehensive Association, Area 5 Board; on Homemakers; the Pine Tree Legal Association; and Literacy Volunteers. She's also on the Consumer's Council for Blue Cross-Blue Shield, on the Governor's Advisory Committee for Rehabilitation Services, and is a Trustee of the library in her hometown.
She describes herself as a liberal with one foot firmly on the ground.
"I've worked with the Civic League — most of the Board are Fundamentalist ministers. I'm the only one they regard as a liberal. 'Liberal' is a bad word to them. I try to show them that somebody can be a liberal and still be a human being, and try to keep them from going quite as far as they might do otherwise."
Although her health has forced her to give up some activities, her determination remains strong.
"My greatest fear, really, is of not using the rest of my life well. The thing I want to do the most is to be able to use what I have learned to help others ... I'm not afraid of dying.
"Now I want to do something about nursing homes, rural crime, and education, and, if I were five years younger, I would just sweep through the state like a flame! I would make up a group of people who care, and, if you get enough citizens to bear down, that's the only way. It's never going to be done by the bureaucracy.
"I sometimes think that if it's to be done, and nobody else comes up with it, I'll be given the strength to do it. I have the faith that I'll have the strength. And I get it. So you may hear me sweeping through! I was given one year to live at 45, but I'm still creaking along. I have things to do."