Martha Finn
Martha Finn was born in 1907 and grew up happily in Dorchester. She was confirmed at Temple Mishkan Tefilla, then also in Dorchester. (She was later also confirmed at Temple Beth El, when she accompanied a cousin to confirmation classes there). She attended Girls’ Latin, and despite a strong desire to attend Wellesley College, she attended Boston University because her parents wanted her to live at home. After graduation, she was a secretary to the Superintendent of Buildings in Boston. In her early 20’s, she met Bob Finn, a lawyer. They became engaged in 1933. As was the custom at that time, married women were not permitted to work for the city, so the couple waited to get married until 1935, when they felt they could survive on Bob’s salary alone. Despite the restriction on married women, Martha was able to get a job at the Boston Public Library. They moved to an apartment on Commonwealth Avenue. In 1950, the couple adopted a daughter, Ellie. When Ellie was young, she enrolled in school in Brookline and the family joined Temple Israel. Martha was very active in the PTA and the organization, ORT. Martha became a widow in 1985 but was able to maintain her health (despite a heart operation in the 1970’s) and her positive spirit. She considered herself to be a good person and a good friend and felt privileged to live to the age of 90.
Martha describes her early life growing up in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and shares her family history. She recounts her college experience studying at Boston University, commenting on the expectations placed upon women graduating college and moving into the workforce during the late 1920s into the 1930s; women were supposed to be engaged by their senior year of college, and they faced restrictions on where and how they could work. Due to laws instituted to combat unemployment during the Great Depression, Martha had to leave her job working for the city once she got married. She then moved on to the Boston Public Library, where she worked for a decade. She compares her college experience with her daughter’s time at Wellesley—she had wanted to attend Wellesley herself, but her parents had wanted her closer to home. Martha also talks about her adult family life—her 50-plus year relationship with her husband, Robert, and their experience adopting a child in the 1950s. Their daughter Ellie was diagnosed with dyslexia, and Martha touches on what this experience was like for her family. Martha also speaks about her volunteer and community work. She was very involved with ORT, a women’s organization that did educational and career work in Israel. She was also a PTA board member of Temple Israel and became very well-known within the community. She considers her work in the synagogue to be some of her most important accomplishments and humbly discusses how she mentored and supported new members of the congregation. Martha comments that, while she has not done anything “earth-shattering” in her life, she tried her best and hopes that she did some good in her ninety years.
