Our Teachers

Charles D. Burgess, 80; 'Mr. Wellesley High School'

Thursday, November 20, 2003

Charles D. Burgess Sr., a retired Wellesley High School teacher, died in Coral Springs, Fla., on Monday, Nov. 17, 2003. He was 80.

The former Wellesley resident began his career in education in 1954 as a history teacher and quickly became involved in a wide array of school activities that earned him the nickname of "Mr. Wellesley High School" during the three decades of his tenure at WHS.

Mr. Burgess graduated from Cambridge Latin School in 1940. He served in World War II as a non-commissioned officer in the U.S. Army Signal Corps. He was trained as a cryptographer and operated the top-secret "SIGABA" coding device, the successor to the well-known "ENIGMA" machines. In June of 1944 he was attached to a Marine Division and participated in the invasion of Siapan, often referred to as the Pacific D-Day, at Charan Kanoa.

After the war, he earned a bachelor's and master's degree in history from Boston University, graduating summa cum laude, and was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.

Mr. Burgess was an innovative, popular and respected teacher at Wellesley High School, known for his willingness to support and encourage his students through a wide range of activities. He instituted a creative new social studies curriculum, teaching history through the use of classics, popular novels and literature. He also introduced the first driver-education curriculum to the school.

Partnering with local auto dealers, he and his department colleagues taught thousands of Wellesley teenagers how to drive in the 1950s, '60s and '70s.

In the late 1950s the Wellesley High School cheerleading squad was in need of a faculty sponsor, normally a duty for a female staff member. Mr. Burgess stepped in to help when, for a variety of reasons, no other staff was available. To his knowledge, he was the only male cheerleader coach in the nation at the time and was amused when he received correspondence addressed to him as "Dear Madame."

In 1960 Boston Patriot Football team owner and Wellesley resident Bill Sullivan called Mr. Burgess to see if his cheerleaders might be available to support the new American Football League team in Boston. The School Committee granted permission, and he and his WHS cheerleaders became the first official cheerleaders for the Patriots.

Mr. Burgess also spent nearly 30 years in the press booth high above Hunnewell Field as the announcer for the WHS football team. Known affectionately as the "Golden Voice of the Raiders," Mr. Burgess was featured on a nationally televised special commemorating the 100th anniversary of the fabled Wellesley-Needham Thanksgiving Day rivalry.

He was the grandson of PGA Hall of Fame golf professional Charles M. Burgess of Woodland Golf Club, founder of the New England PGA. His father was also a golf pro and was a delegate to the annual national PGA conventions in the late 1920s. Mr. Burgess continued the family golfing tradition as an accomplished amateur and as the longtime golf coach of the Raiders, coaching his team to many Bay State League Championships and producing several individual scholastic state champion golfers.

In 1987, he and his wife, Rita Sullivan Burgess, retired to Pompano Beach, Fla., and spent many summers with his children on Cape Cod. The Burgesses were to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary Nov. 24, 2003.

He will be missed by all who worked with him, who knew him, and who were the beneficiaries of his friendship and generosity of spirit.

Besides his wife, he is survived by his sister, Mary Tower of Newton; six children, Charles D. Jr. and his wife, Catherine, of Norwood, Kathleen H. Burns and her husband, Keith, of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., David A. of Lauderdale Lakes, Fla., Elaine Hegarty and her husband, Kevin, of Oceanside, Calif., Gail Diaz and her husband, Michael, of Coral Springs, Fla., and John A. and his wife, Karin, of Framingham.

He is also survived by 12 grandchildren, Charles Dismas Burgess and his wife, Heather, Gregory Burgess and Catherine Ann Burgess; Aaron Burgess White; Jacqueline, Sean, Megan and Connor Hegarty; Micheal Murphy, Matthew Murphy; and Alex and Kelly Ann Diaz; and a great-grandchild, Charles Dylan Burgess.

A funeral will take place at 9 a.m. Monday, Nov. 24, from the George F. Doherty & Sons Funeral Home, 477 Washington St., Wellesley, followed by a funeral Mass at 10 a.m. at St. John the Evangelist Church, Wellesley Hills. Interment will be in Newton Cemetery, Newton. Visiting hours will be Sunday, Nov. 23, from 2 to 5 and 7 to 9 p.m. at the funeral home.

George Kerivan, Hall Of Fame Baseball Coach At Wellesley
Adam D. Krauss, Globe Correspondent

George F. Kerivan Sr. of Westwood, a standout athlete who later taught and coached for more than four decades at Wellesley High School, died Dec. 15 of diabetes at the Harrington House in Walpole. He was 82.

Raised on a Wellesley farm that dated to 1840, Mr. Kerivan led a life of fortuitous circumstance, said his son, Gig, of Harvard, who played high school baseball for his dad in 1961. When Mr. Kerivan was in high school, thumbing home from football practice in the fall of 1936, he was picked up by a Boston College law student who happened to be responsible for recruiting the next year's crop of football talent.

Mr. Kerivan played football for the school his freshman year on a full athletic scholarship. But "it was obvious his game was baseball," his son said. And it was a good thing Mr. Kerivan realized this, for he went on to a career in which he batted over .400 for BC, his son said.

When World War II began, Mr. Kerivan, whose father was a machinist in silk mill factories and whose mother emigrated from Newfoundland, worked as an electrician at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy. He worked on the USS Massachusetts, and in 1943 married Rita Kelly of Hyde Park before entering the Navy.

In 1947, a science and math teaching position opened at Mr. Kerivan's alma mater, Wellesley High, and he began a 41-year career at the school.

"He could make a quick transition from the Pythagorean Theorem to memories of childhood - when cows were driven to pasture from Brookline to Natick, right down to the Worcester Turnpike by his house," his son recently wrote. Among other highlights of his teaching life, Mr. Kerivan created a course called technical math, with the intent of giving students the opportunity to apply mathematics to the building trade, his son said.

"He was living history at school right up to the time he retired in 1988," his son wrote. Known as "Big George," Mr. Kerivan was head and assistant football coach for 23 years and varsity baseball coach for 31. Two of his baseball teams - in 1954 and 1961 - were runners-up in the Class A championships. In 1968 his football team won the Bay State title. "He was an old-school coach preaching fundamentals, hard work, and focus on the task at hand. He would quote Ted Williams in a booming voice, `Practice, practice. Hell, you've got to practice.' "

Gig Kerivan said people were always struck by the similarities between his father and the baseball legend. "He taught many of the tenets that Ted Williams espoused about hitting a baseball," his son wrote. One day in 1959, the two men came as close as they ever would, after Williams decided to catch some of a Wellesley High baseball game at the old Cedar Street ballpark.

Williams, who was not traveling with the Red Sox because of an injury, was out for a ride when he spotted the ballgame. He parked his car way out in right field, thinking it would be out of the way. He was wrong. Mr. Kerivan stopped the game and ordered the umpire to have Williams move his Cadillac - after all, it was in fair play. The next day the local news ran headlines like "Ted Williams kicked out of ball park," Gig Kerivan said. Williams later said he would have done the same thing if he were the coach.

A skilled carpenter, Mr. Kerivan spent four years in the 1950s building his own house in Westwood, when it resembled a small country town. "Summers, weekends and vacations - from breaking rock to hanging rafters, dad did it all," his son wrote.

Mr. Kerivan served as chairman of the Westwood Conservation Commission from 1966 to 1996, his son said. In 2000, Westwood chose Mr. Kerivan as "one of 50 most major contributors to the town over the past 100 years," his son said.

In 1989, Mr. Kerivan was elected to the Massachusetts State Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

In addition to his wife of 59 years and his son, he leaves another son, Jack of Westwood; and a daughter, Joanne Ross of North Walpole.

James T. Lape, 91; Former WHS Assistant Principal

Thursday, June 3, 2004

James T. Lape of Lexington died on May 28, 2004, of congestive heart failure. He was 91.

Born and raised in Canton, Ohio, he was the son of Melvin B. and Amelia (Uebelhart) Lape.

Mr. Lape received his bachelor of arts degree at Mt. Union College in Ohio, where he received the Alembroic Society Award for chemistry, and he earned masters' degrees at Western Reserve University and at Harvard University, Class of 1945. Mr. Lape was a retired teacher, school administrator and editor.

While residing in Ohio, he taught at schools in the towns of Wadsworth and Alliance and at Mt. Union College. In Connecticut, he was the coordinator of language arts at New Britain High School.

Upon moving to Massachusetts, he became the assistant principal of Wellesley High School. He taught at Northeastern University School of Education and later became the principal of Weston High School, ending his career in education as head of the English Department at Lexington High School.

He was past editor of the education section of the Atlantic Monthly, editor of "The English Leaflet" and "Literature of the Northeast" and co-editor of "Art and Craft in Poetry."

Mr. Lape was a member of the English Lunch Club, a member and vice president of the National Council of Teachers of English, the National Educational Association, the New England Association of Teachers of English, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the New England Poetry Club and Beta Iota Sigma Nu Fraternity. He was the recipient of the Ridpath Scholarship at Harvard, the John Hay Fellowship at the University of Chicago, and the Charles Swain Thomas Award.

For many years, Mr. Lape and his family enjoyed their summer home in Nelson, N.H.

He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth (Baymore) Lape, and his daughter, Rose Aylmer-Lape, both of Lexington; grandchildren, Caitlin Tilton of Swanzey, N.H., Gwyneth Tolman of Nelson, N.H., and Colin Tolman of Driggs, Ida.; nieces, Barbara Helwegge of Jefferson City, Mo., Patricia LeMieux of Avon Lake, Ohio, Jaci Milner of Lakewood, Ohio, and Marjorie Greenho of Texas; nephews, Larry Lape of Dublin, Ohio, and Niki Fish of Hartville, Ohio. He was the brother of the late Margaret Fish, John H. and Carl Lape.

A memorial service was celebrated on June 1 in St. Mary's Chapel at Boston College in Chestnut Hill.
Memorial contributions may be sent to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Central Middlesex, c/o Claire Boudreau, 55 Littleton Road, Unit 24B, Ayer, MA 01432.

Arrangements by Anderson-Bryant Funeral Home of Stoneham.