MANCHESTER, NH – A forgotten piece of women’s history has been found deep within the records of Manchester Historical Society’s archives.
As a historian for Manchester Historical Society, it is Stan Garrity’s job to dig through the piles and piles of records that jealously horde Manchester’s forgotten stories and secrets and decipher them for the rest of us.
Garrity has risen to prominence of late as Manchester’s self-appointed Black history expert, recently spearheading an effort to erect historical markers around Manchester centered around Black History, most recently commissioning a plaque on the corner of Manchester and Elm street that tells the story of Manchester’s role in the Underground Railroad.
And as most historians know, when you go searching for a story, you often find dozens of other stories among them.
“This story came about – the police department gave us a lot of their archives, and the fella who was going through it came across a picture of the first six parking control officers of Manchester and they were all women,” Garrity said.
The picture is dated June 1, 1965.
“And one of them was a Black woman, so I started researching her so I could see if I could find out who she was and what happened to her,” Garrity said.
The woman was Shirley Anderson and, according to Garrity and Manchester PD records, she was the first woman of color hired by Manchester PD.
“Being that it was mentioned in her obituary, it seems like she and her family were quite proud of it,” Garrity said.
According to Anderson’s obituary, she served as a parking control officer in Manchester for a few years before moving on to Newport News Virginia, where her husband would continue his service in the Air Force. She would live there for the remainder of her life as a security officer for the Newport News school system.
“There’s only one left still alive,” Garrity said. “Sandra Hurley. She’s retired, living in Florida and I think she told me that she worked for the police department for 28 years.”
A newspaper article from June 1st, 1965 titled Six Meter Maids Prepare for Duty Watching 2,433 Parking Meters welcomed the parking officers to the force, outlining their duties, their pay of $60 a week, their crackdown on “feeding meters,” and, oddly enough, their addresses and relationship status.
According to the article they were all in their twenties and eager to start working. Hurley is quoted, “This is something I always wanted to do.” And Anderson said, “I’m going to love my job.”
Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot more information on the women who served as Manchester’s first parking control officers. Most of them have either passed, moved far out of state, or faded from public record. Hurley could not be contacted and Garrity found obituaries for Patricia Tanguay, Fern Seneca and Janice Peringer.
One officer, Constance Gagne, spent her whole life in Manchester. Gagne eventually left Manchester PD to work in the cafeteria at Parker Varney School. She would remain active in the community until she passed in November of 2014.
The others seem to have been lost to time, dead ends that left a sour taste in my mouth. I craved present-day context and quotes from primary sources, but ultimately found none.
When asked about past and present parking officer practices, Christopher Goodnow, Manchester’s Parking Manager said, “I do not have any personal knowledge on who the first female Parking Control Offer may have been.” And declined to comment further.
Garrity however, seems to delight in the stories we can glean from the tidbits of information people leave behind.
“It’s just kind of neat to research them and see what happened to them,” Garrity said. “There are dead ends to every story. Sometimes you find more than other times. The Best thing about this hobby is there is always more to learn, and you discover something new every day.”
Garrity has no plans to stop discovering. There are a few more historical markers in the works and he takes pride in helping to tell the full story of our city.
“I had one guy say, ‘we don’t have any Black history in Manchester,’ and that’s just not true,” Garrity said.
When telling someone about his research into Black history in Manchester someone else asked him “Now what would you want to do that for?” Garrity rolled his eyes and said “We have all the Irish, French, Greek history. It’s time to tell the whole story.”
If you feel like doing any digging yourself Garrity urges you to visit Manchester Historical Society yourself. “There’s a lot of stuff that’s happened, that people don’t realize.”
