Cornelia
Blanche Furbish, the only child of Louis and Cornelia (Clowser) Furbish,
was born 19 December 1909 in Boston, Massachusetts, and died there on 25
June 1996.
Cornelia (Connie), after the death of her mother, and
the subsequent remarriage of her father lived with her aunt and uncle,
Rena and Burton S. Allen and her grandfather Frederick in Medford, Massachusetts.
She worked for 38 years as a Secretary for the Massachusetts
Division of Employment Security. When she was forced to retire at age 62,
she taught classes in creative writing at Roxbury Community College.
Later she was a secretary at both the Department of Elder
Affairs and at the Roxbury Community College.
For several years, she was a representative to the Silver
Haired Legislature, an elected group of senior citizens who lobby for senior
citizen issues. She was also a delegate to the White House Conference on
Aging in 1981.
A prolific poet, she wrote hundreds of short poems during
her lifetime. She would write them at the spur of the moment, depending
on her mood and the surroundings. Her passion for literature, she once
recalled was fueled by her grandfather's habit of reading Shakespeare and
Stevenson aloud after dinner. She once recalled that "He started when I
was about two, but, I always liked the words, even the sound of the words."
A few of her poems are included on the
Furbish Poetry
Page.
