Abigail B. Homer family papers

Historical/Biographical Note

Historical/Biographical Note

Abigail B. Homer was born on December 15, 1938, at Richardson House, part of the Boston Lying-In Hospital. Her three younger siblings arrived during and shortly after World War II. Abigail and her siblings grew up in Sherborn, Mass. and attended school in nearby Framingham. Abigail went on to study at Middlebury College in Vermont, graduating in 1960.

Abigail’s mother, Helen Homer, née Barksdale (1902-1990), was raised in modest circumstances at her family home in Sherborn, Massachusetts. She graduated from Middlebury College in 1924. Helen’s first job took her to Atlanta, where she taught for two years at a school for African American girls. She married Thomas J. Homer III in 1934 but soon lost her teaching position in Medfield, Mass., due to the financial constraints of the Great Depression. During World War II and following the births of Abigail and her sister Susan, Helen commuted to Harvard and earned a master’s degree in history.

Abigail’s father and his family had a more privileged upbringing. The Homers lived on a sizeable urban estate on Winthrop Street in Roxbury, Mass. Her paternal grandfather, Thomas J. Homer II (1858-1937), had attended Harvard Law School with future president Theodore Roosevelt, who later invited him to work at the Library of Congress around the turn of the century. Abigail’s paternal great-aunt was Augusta Fisher Saint-Gaudens, née Homer (1854-1926), wife of famed sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907). Abigail’s father, Thomas J. Homer III (1898-1980), attended the Roxbury Latin School and enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but his studies were interrupted by his service in World War I, and he never returned to complete his degree. Thomas would later join the Army Corps of Engineers and have a career in civil service.

Sources

Abigail Homer, personal communication to Lorna Condon, March 24, 2006.