Meet Marjorie Barrows, Marine Corp. veteran, retired U.S. Postal Service officer and since 2022, Rochester’s town clerk.

            It’s no wonder her career path and upbringing led her to her current job. She was born and raised in Missouri, the only girl among six brothers, most of whom have served in the military. “So there’s nothing I can’t back down from,” she said.

            Barrows signed up to become a U.S. Marine at age 17, though she had to wait until she was 18 to be officially enlisted. She spent four years as a Marine at Parris Island and Camp Lejeune, married and settled in Rochester in 1980.

            After leaving military service, she joined the U.S. Post Office in July of 1982, working mainly in Rochester but also spending time in the post offices in Marion, Mattapoisett and Cuttyhunk before retiring in 2016.

            The last 20 of these 34 years, she said, were spent as third in the chain of command in Post Office management and even, for a brief time, Special Interim Postmaster General.

            Shortly after retiring from the Post Office, Barrows went to work for Great Hill Dairy in Mattapoisett as a food preparer, then seven years in the same job for Ocean State Job Lot. But the kind of work she did as a Marine and for the U.S. Post Office drew her back when in 2023, she saw that no one was running for Rochester Town Clerk in the Annual Town Election upon the announcement that Town Clerk Paul Dawson would retire effective in the spring.

            At the time, people around town only knew her as Margie, she said.  She asked a friend to put a “Vote for Marjorie Barrows” sign on her lawn, and the friend said, “Sure. But who is Marjorie Barrows?”

            To become better known, Barrows wrote a letter describing herself and her background that she handed out around the neighborhoods. And she wore a “U.S. Post Office” T-shirt when she stood with her campaign signs on Election Day. The strategy worked, and she is glad it did.

            Barrows said she wanted to apply for the job because “I didn’t think it was a good idea to leave it as a position that the selectmen would have to appoint someone to,” she said. “So I ran. And now I love it.”

            What does she love about her new job she’s held since May? “It’s nothing I can’t do. The work is the same idea as running a post office. You’re taking care of important papers. You keep birth, marriage and death certificates, post meetings and correspondence responsibly.”

            She added, “I get huge support from fellow town clerks as a member of the Massachusetts Town Clerks Association. I am not alone in this support group.  I attended their conference in September, and 21 of them were new town clerks like me.”

            The job hasn’t yielded any surprises, Barrows said. “You’ve got to know what you’re doing,” she said. “You learn, don’t be afraid to ask questions and admit what you don’t know. I’ve learned to find out answers on my own. But I can always call the former town clerk.”

            Barrows emphasized that Dawson has been extra helpful from her first day on the job and is always available to answer her questions.

            Barrows said she’s now starting the annual Town Election paperwork, and she is not daunted by the challenge. “Everything’s got to be done right. And I’m looking forward to it. It’s going to be a lot of work, but there’s nothing I’m not willing to learn.”

            She said she always utilizes a lesson she learned as a Marine. When a superior officer asks a question, the proper response when you don’t know the immediate answer is “‘I don’t know, sir. But I will find out.’ And then you learn the answer, and that’s another thing you’ve learned. I always find a way to solve a problem, answer the question.”

            Barrows also serves on the Rochester Council on Aging Board of Directors. Her husband is Board of Health member Dale Barrows.

            And how did he react to her running for town clerk? “He said ‘Go for it.’ And I did.”

By Michael J. DeCicco

I missed the recent Town Meeting, again. I regret that but they are held at night and since I became old, I no longer drive at night. I’ve tried going with friends, but I am a stay-until-the-end kind of guy, and they often want to leave early. Also, because I am old, I have to take a half-dozen pills every night precisely at 9:00 pm, and I don’t want anyone to see gulping down my stash in the men’s room for fear they might think I was some kind of a secret addict. So, I stay at home.

            Prior to the driving thing, I had not missed a town meeting in any town I lived in that held them. Town meetings go back to colonial times (I’m old but not that old) and are the purest form of democracy. Everyone gets to say their piece, trying to convince the opposition to vote for or against one viewpoint or another.

            Town meetings were once held in our upper Town Hall. I can remember attending one with my father. As the story goes, because there was no elevator in the building, Bill Suzan, a big, strapping, prominent citizen, was charged with carrying an important town official, who was incapacitated, up the stairs to attend a meeting. One night after a late meeting, Suzan went home, forgetting to retrieve the official who remained stranded in the upper hall.

            Whether that story is true is lost to history, but not long after, our town meetings moved to the Congregational Church Hall. (If that were today, no doubt someone would complain about separation of church and state. I guess we were more tolerant of those things back then.)

            In 1961, when Old Rochester High was completed, meetings were moved to the school’s auditorium where they reside still, too far to walk for village dwellers like me.

            Strange things can happen at town meetings. At one I attended elsewhere, an old timer, who everyone knew and who was familiar with the open end of a bottle, stood up to comment on some issue. He proceeded to rant about – shall I say – a minority “hiding in a wood pile.”

            I was shocked. Despite their political differences, every one of the 200 people in the hall stood up in protest. The moderator ruled the fellow out of order and had the police escort him out. I was proud to witness a group of Americans of differing opinions recognize that a rude, disgusting, racial slur was inappropriate. That was nearly 50 years ago! Today name calling seems to have become a bad habit in some government forums. But I digress.

            Everyone knew what a newcomer was going to ask when they got up to speak. The newbie would always ask why the town rented hydrants. The Water Department was an enterprise fund, which allowed them to be self-sufficient by renting the hydrants back to the town. It was sort of an initiation to be laughed at by the regulars.

            Everyone would sit in the same seats year after year. There was an older couple who sat on the aisle across from me. The first time I got up to speak I overheard the woman whisper to her husband, “bet he’ll ask why the town rents hydrants.” She was right. The next year as I returned to my seat after speaking about something or other, I overheard her say, “that young man sure asks good questions.” The following year after I made my way back from the lectern she muttered (rather loudly), “I wish he’d stop asking such dumb questions.” And so, it goes.

            My favorite experience at a town meeting was right here in our fair hamlet. A proposal was presented to allow a business that would be quite profitable to the owner and to the town, promising thousands of dollars to town coffers for virtually little effort. Such a deal! After much discussion back and forth, it looked as though it would pass overwhelmingly. And then someone asked who the business owner was. When the entrepreneur was revealed, an audible gasp was heard throughout the auditorium. Apparently, the citizens felt the town was rich enough without contributing to the person’s already significant assets. Oh well.

            I wish town meetings were held on Saturdays during the day. I miss the excitement.

            Editor’s note: Mattapoisett resident Dick Morgado is an artist and retired newspaper columnist whose musings are, after some years, back in The Wanderer under the subtitle “Thoughts on ….” Morgado’s opinions have also appeared for many years in daily newspapers around Boston.

Thoughts on…

By Dick Morgado