Marion Frances Backer
World War I Veteran
By Camille Arbogast
Marion Frances Backer was born on July 17, 1898, at 79 Salem Street in Boston’s North End. Her parents, Rebecca (Levin), known as Lena, and Gabriel Backer, had immigrated from Russia. Gabriel and Lena had five other children, the oldest three of whom were also born in Russia: Harry born in 1888; Grace in 1890; Ida in 1891; Jennie, known as Jeanette, in 1899; and Rose, known as Rosamond, in 1904. Gabriel came to the United States first, arriving in New York in 1893. Lena and their older children joined him in the late 1890s.
Gabriel was a tailor. In the early 20th century he was a co-owner of a men’s pants business, the Central Pants Manufacturing Company of 20 North Washington Street, Boston. This company went into bankruptcy in 1903. Later, he was a partner in Backer and Mann. In 1916, he went into business with his son, forming the clothing company Backer and Son. After the First World War, he was the president of the Central Clothing Company.
In 1900, the Backers lived at 15 Spring Street in Boston’s West End(located north of Massachusetts General Hospital, Spring Street and the surrounding neighborhood was replaced by a different streetscape during the West End urban renewal project.) In 1902, they were back in the North End at 37 North Margin Street. They moved to Cambridge around 1906, living first at 266 Western Avenue, then moving to 270 Western Avenue in 1910. Marion graduated from Cambridge’s Webster School in February 1912. In August 1913, the Cambridge Chronicle reported Marion played shortstop with the Cambridge Mill Pond girls’ baseball team. Around this time the family moved to Dorchester; Gabriel purchased 66-68 Fowler Street in 1912, appearing in the Boston directory at the address in 1913.
On August 28, 1918, Marion enrolled in the U.S. Naval Reserve Force at the Navy recruiting station in Boston. Marion served as a Yeoman (F), or a female Yeoman. Sometimes called “Yeomanettes” or “Yeowomen,” female Yeomen were officially enrolled in the Navy and received the same rate of pay as men. The Naval Act of 1916 included a line permitting the enlistment of “all persons who may be capable of performing special useful service for coastal defense.” The non-gendered language was interpreted to include women and they were recruited beginning in March 1917. By the end of the war there were over 11,000 female Yeomen. They most often served in clerical roles, though some held specialized positions. Marion was probably a stenographer, her occupation after the war.
She was assigned to duty on a receiving ship in Boston from September 25, 1918, until November 11, 1918. Marion probably lived at home during her service, as the Navy did not have female barracks and women had to make their own living arrangements. Placed on inactive duty on July 31, 1919, Marion was honorably discharged on December 31, 1919. Many female Yeomen were appointed to Civil Service jobs in their previous workplaces and this seems to have been the case for Marion, as she was still a stenographer with the Navy in 1920. She was possibly the Marion F. Backer who appeared in the Washington, D.C. directory in 1921, working as a stenographer.
In September 1924, Marion married Harry Nathan Stone in his hometown of Malden, Massachusetts. In the early 1920s, Harry had served in Battery A of the 1st Field Artillery. Their son, Earl Ross Stone, was born in Dorchester on March 21, 1925. It appears Marion and Harry’s relationship ended by 1930. That year, the census recorded Marion and Earl living at 41 Gleason Street, Dorchester, with her parents and sister Jeannette. It is possible that Marion’s husband was the Harry Nathan Stone of Evans Street, Dorchester, who in September 1930 was arrested for robbing an acquaintance. Harry died in 1958. For the rest of her life, Marion sometimes used her maiden name, and at others her married name.
In the early 1930s, Marion worked as a government stenographer at 8 Court Square in Boston. Around 1933, her parents moved to 46 Bicknell Street, while Marion and Earl remained at 41 Gleason Street. Marion was a clerk in the US Post Office building in Boston in the mid-1930s.After her father’s death in 1934, Marion lived at 42 Gleason Street for a year, then at 43 Gleason, before moving to Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1937. There she made her home at 353 Russett Road in South Brookline. In 1940, she began working for the U.S. Naturalization Service as an examiner. Her son, Earl, reported on his 1942 World War II draft registration that he and Marion were living at the Hotel Canterbury, 14 Charlesgate West, in the Fenway. Earl served in the Navy from 1943 through 1946. By 1956, Marion lived at 1470 Beacon Street in Brookline. She lived in Brookline for the rest of her life.
Marion appears to have enjoyed travel. At the end of 1935, she travelled to Hamilton, Bermuda on the Furness Bermuda Line’s Monarch of Bermuda. At the same time the next year, she took a cruise on the United Fruit Company’s ship, Veragua. In 1959, she visited Paris, traveling by plane.
Marion died in Boston on November 29, 1984. She was buried in Beth El Cemetery in West Roxbury, where a graveside funeral service was held for her.
Sources
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