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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2006
AUDREY GORDON
by H. Simard

Women in our community have many different roles.  Women are mothers, daughters, aunts and, perhaps most importantly, community shapers.  Every year since 1993, the Peabody Chamber of Commerce has chosen  a woman who has done incredible things for our community to receive the Mary Upton Ferrin Award.  In 2006, Audrey Gordon was chosen for this great honor.

Gordon was born in Lynn, Massachusetts in 1962.  She has lived in Peabody all her life except for five years when she lived in Miami, Florida.  She attended the Center School, John F. Kennedy Jr. High School, Peabody Veterans Memorial High School, Tufts University and Northeastern University.

When Gordon was thirteen she wanted to be a teacher or a lawyer.  As women's role have changed, her dreams have changed.  She now feels more reinforced to know she can do whatever she sets her mind to.  She knows she can be whatever she wants to be, and nothing can hold her back. She describes herself as a driven, sensitive, hard working perfectionist. 

The characteristics of Mary Upton Ferrin that Gordon admires most are her perseverance and the determination to do something so big, pretty much alone.

Gordon thinks the role of women in our community today is to set a good example and volunteer.  "Just getting in there and being a part of it," she said.

Her significant first is helping to find  a cure for progeria. She is the founder of the Progeria Research Foundation which has raised millions of dollars and was instrumental in the discovery of the Progeria gene. The number one thing that compelled Gordon to work so hard was her nephew, Sam. 

Sam has progeria, which causes premature aging in children.  Sam in nine years old and is like any other nine-year-old. He plays baseball, is in Cub Scouts and plays the drums.  He is popular and smart.  Progeria hasn't stopped him from doing anything.  He only looks different from other children.  He doesn't have hair and his nose is very thin. 

Jean Delios, chairperson of the Peabody Chamber of Commerce's Community Service Committee said, "We received a number of outstanding nominations for  the award.  Ms. Gordon was selected based on criteria representing some of the same struggles Mary Upton Ferrin faced in her lifetime.  These include championing a humanitarian based effort, a struggle to overcome obstacles, as well as intrepid determination in achieving success."

"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.