Trailblazing Alumna: Ann Decain Blackham ’45 (1927 - 2021)

Every Beaumont student and alumna stands on the shoulders of those Beaumont women who came before them. Occasionally, we pause to remember a trailblazing alumnae who lived our mission and changed the world. Special thanks to Ann’s son Bill Blackham for letting us share this life story.

The Honorable Ann R. DeCain Blackham ’45 was a proud and outstanding graduate of Beaumont School and earned her BA in 1949 from the College of St. Mary of the Springs, now Ohio Dominican University, in Columbus, OH. She passed away peacefully on July 25, 2021.

Ann embarked on what would become an amazing journey that resulted in numerous outstanding contributions to so many, but, in particular, women.

Her career covered her passions of real estate, business and politics.

After the birth of her two children, she began a real estate career in 1961 that would span 50 years. By 1966 she was the top selling realtor and sales manager of a Winchester based company before she founded her own highly successful real estate agency named Ann Blackburn & Company in 1968. In 1985 she was named New England Business Owner of the Year.

During this same time, she elevated her political career by running against incumbent Massachusetts Senator Philibert Pelligrini and establishing herself and becoming highly visible in the Republican Party.

Between 1966 and 1975 she was extremely active in the National Federation of Republican Women serving as Secretary and then Vice President. In 1969, she began an over four decades long role of serving and advising Governors of Massachusetts and Presidents of the United States, becoming a member of the Board of Economic Advisors to the Governor of Massachusetts and a member of the President's task force on Women’s Rights and Responsibilities.

This led to her co-authoring “A Matter of Simple Justice” written to further the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) effort. She took on numerous other state and national appointments in the 1970's such as Co-Chair of the Governor's Commission on the Status of Women, Regional Director of the Interstate Association of Commissions on the Status of Women, and to the National Defense Advisory Commission on Women in Service for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Over a period of 28 years she was appointed seven consecutive times to the Massachusetts delegation for the Republican National Convention. In conjunction with a Presidential advisory role, she was pivotal in the installation of the first childcare facility in a U.S. Government building ironically constructed in the basement of the U.S. Department of Labor.

Ann was a finalist candidate to become Treasurer of the United States, a position that even today has been held by few women. She was included in the publication "The 2500 Women Who Changed the Face of America" and was individually identified for her accomplishments in the New York Times best seller “Common Ground.”

All the while, she continued to experience success as a businesswomen. She became a rare woman director of a bank in 1974, serving 13 years as a trustee of Charlestown Savings Bank and its successor. In 1984 she began her service as Chair of the Board of the Massachusetts Registration of Real Estate Brokers and Salespeople having been reaffirmed to that role by four Massachusetts Governors, serving until 2011.

Despite all the demands Ann always made time for providing advice to women, donating her time and resources to enhance her community, and was a constant contributor to an extensive list of organizations she believed made a difference.

She always changed her schedules for the chance to spend time with her grandchildren and later in life loved to sit and observe her great-grandchildren for whom she had so much love and aspiration for their journey in life.

Original Article From: https://www.beaumontschool.org/news/2022/05/31/beaumont-news-spring-2022-the-heart-of-beaumont-campaign