Blanche Dean
Blanche Partridge Dean (1881-1975) shown in her Buxton Town Clerk home office at Dearborn Hill in 1941. Blanche Dean was the first woman in Maine elected to public office in March 1921 after women were first allowed to vote in September 1920. She had been doing much of the town clerk job as the assistant clerk while her husband, Charles, and father-in-law, Supply Dean, were in the office before her. Town records as early as 1914 are in her handwriting. She was elected Buxton Town Clerk for 1921-1927 and 1934-1951. In 1958 she was elected to the Maine Legislature.
Her early years were spent on a River Road farm. She helped with haying and each Monday in the summer a fish monger from Portland would deliver lobsters for the family. The lobsters were 6 for 25 cents! Her Partridge parents moved the family to Buxton Center in 1888 so the children could go to Buxton’s first high school there which opened that September. She was a 1897 graduate of Buxton High School at age 16. After high school, she taught in Buxton and Baldwin grammar schools until marriage in 1901.
Her early years were spent on a River Road farm. She helped with haying and each Monday in the summer a fish monger from Portland would deliver lobsters for the family. The lobsters were 6 for 25 cents! Her Partridge parents moved the family to Buxton Center in 1888 so the children could go to Buxton’s first high school there which opened that September. She was a 1897 graduate of Buxton High School at age 16. After high school, she taught in Buxton and Baldwin grammar schools until marriage in 1901.