Anne Theresa Dunphy (1890-1956) was a beloved teacher and principal at Williamsburg High School for decades. The Haydenville native was born in 1890 to a factory-working family, attended the town schools, and was a member of the Smith College Class of 1913. After graduation, Miss Dunphy returned to Williamsburg to teach high school Latin. In 1918 she became the high school principal, at the young age of twenty-eight, and persevered in that post until her death in 1956. With her 38 years of service, she was one of the longest serving principals in the state. Miss Dunphy was known for her outstanding educational achievements, her unwavering dedication to her students, and her belief in inspiring her students to seek the higher education opportunities she so fervently believed in. She herself continued her own education, earning a master’s degree in classics. Miss Dunphy believed in education.
Anne T. Dunphy inspired her students, and they remembered her all their lives. The 1939 Williamsburg High School yearbook, “The Tattler,” was dedicated to Miss Dunphy, honoring her for 25 years of teaching: “To our beloved principal, Miss Anne T. Dunphy, we gratefully dedicate this issue of the “Tattler” in appreciation of her outstanding achievements, her inspiring friendship, and her encouraging advice. Teacher, friend and adviser, Miss Dunphy’s main interests always have been the welfare and the success of her students.”
Seventeen years later, the 1956 yearbook was also dedicated to her, in commemoration of her life: “It is to the loving memory of a wonderful person that we, the Class of ’56, dedicate this issue of “The Tattler.” To list the innumerable ways in which our principal and teacher gave loving service to the community in which she lived, the school in which she taught, the people with whom she came in contact would indeed be a tremendous and lengthy task. To attempt to summarize her accomplishments within this brief space without neglecting any, would be equally impossible, for Miss Dunphy’s charity and kindness encompassed all. But, in future years, should anyone of us be asked, ‘Do you remember Miss Dunphy?’ his answer would be the same as mine. ‘Who could forget her? She was my friend.’’’
She will never be forgotten in Williamsburg. The town’s elementary school bears her name—adding another honor to this beloved teacher who dedicated her life to public education. The original Anne T. Dunphy school opened in September 1955, just a few months before she passed away on February 24, 1956. The newly renovated and expanded Anne T. Dunphy School, built and opened in 2014, still bears her name.
Do you or a family member have a memory of Miss Dunphy? Share them in the comments, and or write something that can be preserved in the Meekins Local History Collection. You can read the late Williamsburg Town Historian Ralmon Jon Black’s moving tribute to Anne T. Dunphy by visiting our local history collection.
Daria D’Arienzo, Meekins Archivist. #throwbackthursday; #tbt.
Posted to Facebook 3/13/2025
