Remembering Our Past: Mary Louise & Ruth Eddy
In the 1890s, Mary Louise and Ruth Eddy’s grandfather, Augustus Larkin Thorndike, had purchased land all along Lower Road in Brewster, buying up what was then considered “worthless” shorefront property.
As children, Mary Louise (born 1915) and Ruth (born 1921) spent summers with their grandparents Augustus Thorndike and Cora Nickerson Thorndike at the family farm, “Pinecroft,” at 667 Lower Road in Brewster.
Pinecroft’s pastures eventually stretched from Lower Road for a half-mile to Cape Cod Bay.
As children, the sisters frolicked on the beach along Cape Cod Bay, and in the pastures and open lands along Lower Road.
Pictured: Mary Louise, their sister Jean, and Ruth.
Mary Louise grew up in West Newton. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College, and later earned a master’s degree from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. She taught and worked for about 30 years in schools in Newton, Boston, and Concord.
Educated in the Newton schools and Wheaton College, Ruth went to work in the insurance business as an underwriter when it was unheard of for a woman to do that job. She remembered vividly those years in the 1940s and 1950s when, if a woman was single, she could work, and if she got married, she got kicked out. Ruth had a good head for numbers, and she put her skill to use for a host of organizations, beginning with The Second Church of Newton, where she was raised in the Christian faith from childhood, and for the Newton Community Center.
In 1970, Mary Louise and Ruth moved to Brewster full-time. Once they made their long-time summer home their permanent abode, they wasted no time in getting involved in the Brewster community.
The sisters inherited a parcel of their grandfather’s real estate – about 31 acres with about 400 feet of frontage on Cape Cod Bay. In 1974, the sisters became the first Brewster landowners to place their land (32 acres of it) under a conservation restriction. The Brewster Conservation Trust did not yet exist, so they asked the town to hold the restriction, which they did.
In 1983, the Eddy sisters were original founders of the Brewster Conservation Trust and two of its early donors.
In 1984, they gave the Trust 18 acres of farm fields and an old bog, including the site of what is now the community garden on Lower Road.
In 1988, they donated the matching share of an acre of swamp land on Lower Road.
Cumulatively, with this gift, they personally preserved 51 acres along Lower Road and stimulated the Trust to acquire another 31 acres from several different families – with Lower Road always representing their vision of a small-town Brewster, where the citizens recognize they have something special in the modern world and want to hang on to it.
In the summer of 2000, they donated 32 acres of pine woods to the Brewster Conservation Trust. Together, the sisters had a great sense of the town of Brewster, and this gave them the understanding that preserving the town would be good for everyone, including the business community.
During their years in Brewster, Mary Louise and Ruth served on many different community boards, including Mary Louise serving on the Brewster School Committee for 9 years and the Nauset School Committee for 10 years. She was also a member of the building committees for both Brewster Elementary Schools. While serving as President of the Brewster Ladies’ Library during their expansion project, she offered a $15,000 matching grant to assist with the fundraising efforts.
Ruth served as the Brewster Town Clerk and Treasurer, as a Selectboard Member, on the Nauset Regional School Committee, Brewster Ladies’ Library Board, Brewster Historical Society and Brewster Conservation Trust.
In 2005, Ruth was named the Brewster Chamber of Commerce and Board of Trade United’s Person of the Year.
In an unusual move, during the planning for the construction of the new elementary school in Brewster, the town decided to name the school after the sisters while they were still living. When The Mary Louise and Ruth Eddy Elementary School opened in February of 1996, the kindergarten class presented the sisters with crowns. It is reported that the sisters were delighted and never took them off throughout the day.
Through all this time, Mary Louise and Ruth were both active members of Brewster Baptist Church and served in a variety of ways.
Over the years, Mary Louise served as Church Clerk, Assistant Auditor, Church Historian and as a member of the Library Committee.
Ruth served as the Church Historian, the treasurer and actually set up the books in the way that they were used for many years. She served as a member of the building committee for the 2001 expansion of BBC. At Ruth’s memorial service in 2005, Pastor Doug shared the following story, “When I first came to BBC in the fall of 1995, I had been here for about two months when a member of our choir told me after worship that I was a very good preacher because Ruth wasn’t sleeping in worship!” Before she passed away, Ruth shared with Pastor Doug that she felt unequivocally that their years in Brewster “were the best years of our lives.”
Brewster Conservation Trust shared in their Fall 2000 newsletter:
“If a pair of sisters had a more consistent and long-lasting impact on the quality of life of their community than Mary Louse and Ruth Eddy, we’d like to hear about it.”
From Cape Cod Times April 23, 2000:
“The ‘Eddy girls’ seem to have lived in town forever. Almost everywhere you look, there is something they have touched. The library, the schools, town government, business organizations, open space protection, civic groups, the Brewster Baptist Church, and even The Captains golf course. All have felt the embrace of these two dynamic women.”
Their legacy continues to this day. In a final bequest from the sisters, the Mary Louise and Ruth N. Eddy Foundation was formed.
Each year, select groups are invited to apply for funding assistance for specific projects.
Brewster Baptist Church has continued to be blessed by their generosity through the Eddy Foundation Grant.
BBC has received more than $600,000 over the last 20 years, helping us to add lighting and improve technology in the Sanctuary, build the playground and complete major renovation projects, including the parsonage, the bathrooms, the Student Ministry area, the new automatic doors and the inside and outside of the Chapel.
In 2016, Greg Scalise created the Eddy Bay Trail on Lower Road as part of his Eagle Scout project.
This is now one of the most visited conservation trails in Brewster, and our student ministry often uses this trail for hikes and other fun activities; which Mary Louise and Ruth would love!
As the Brewster Historical Society shared, “Mary Louise and Ruth Eddy are women who left their mark on Brewster in ways that will never be forgotten.”
Thank you to Diane Jones and the Brewster Historical Society for their help in putting together this article.