Name/Title
Sarah E. Hawkes Heard (1833-1902)Description
Sarah Hawkes married John Augustus Heard in Boston in 1851. John had left Wayland at seventeen to learn the daguerreotype trade. They had two daughters, Grace and Blanche. Around 1868, Sarah brought the family back to Wayland to care for John's aging parents, and they eventually moved into the Grout-Heard House. In the 1870s, John traveled to Córdoba, Argentina to photograph the moon for the National Observatory, images that won a prize at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. John's name appears in astronomy records. He returned to Wayland in 1877 and died a year later.
Widowed, Sarah is involved with the Grout-Heard House being moved when the town wanted the land for a new hall. In 1880, she became one of the first ten women to register to vote in Wayland. In 1885, she became the town librarian and repeatedly petitioned for improvements. She advocated for more funding, expanding hours, and pushed for a better catalog. When the town slashed the budget, she was forced to tell patrons there was no money for new books. In 1901, she asked for extra compensation to open Wednesday evenings. The trustees refused and demanded her resignation. Townspeople petitioned to keep her; it didn't matter. She was replaced by a younger woman with a college degree.
Grace and Blanche, both teachers, returned each summer and eventually their items helped establish collections in the house and for the historical society. What does a legacy mean? Who gets remembered and how?