Mary Upton Ferrin Award Winners

2006 Peabody women who are builders of community and dreams are the
Peabody Chamber of Commerce's
Mary Upton Ferrin Award Winners

Builders of Community and Dreams Project

Mary Upton Ferrin
1810-1881

Peabody Chamber of Commerce

Peabody, Massachusetts

Women's History Month in Peabody: A Retrospective

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1998
NANCY CROWDER
by S. Buonopane

Nancy Crowder was born in New York City and currently lives in Salem, Mass. She has been working in Peabody for almost nineteen years and attended Warner College where she received a bachelor's degree in Science and Nursing. As a child, Crowder wanted to become a nurse and travel all over the world.

Crowder always dreamed of making the world fair and knew she could if she set her mind to it. She was extremely angry when she saw injustice occurring and was upset about unfairness at a young age. "It doesn't have to be this way," she told herself.

She became the executive director of a homeless shelter and found real estate for affordable housing. She also helps single mothers or women with abusive family members to be more

Nancy Crowder interview
Lions student interviews Nancy Crowder, April 3, 2006.

independent. This is her way of making the world a better place. "It's not about charity. It's about social justice," she confided.

Crowder hopes to become a role model some day. "My mom is my important female role model, she is outspoken and always believed in me," she said.

Crowder and all the other Mary Upton Ferrin Award winners have made a huge impact on the Peabody community - each in her own unique way.

"Award to us our proper station in society; abolish all unjust laws in regard to us; withhold from us no longer our natural rights as human beings, children of one Parent, members of the same family... As husbands and son, as fathers and brothers, show to the world that you are not only manly, but humane; that you know how to pity as well as to protect; which will reflect honor, not only to your head, but to your heart, and future generations will revere your memory. All that we ask, is what justly belongs to us; we ask it not only as a favor, but as a right." - Memorial of the Female Signers of the Several Petitions of Henry A. Hardy and Others, Presented March 1, 1849 to the "Gentleman of the Senate and House of Representatives" by Mary Upton Ferrin.