Home of the Massachusetts Elks Association
Joseph V. Balestrieri, Jr.
Billerica Lodge of Elks, No.2071
Massachusetts Elks Backgrounder
Elkdom was introduced to Massachusetts with the establishment of the Boston
Lodge in 1878 and flourished to the degree that by 1883, Boston's Edwin A. Perry
was the first Massachusetts Elk to serve as G.E.R., ( then called Exalted Grand
Ruler. ) The Massachusetts State Elks Association was founded in 1901,
reorganized in 1910 and again in 1914 and recognized by Grand Lodge in 1917. It
represents 48,000 Elks of 74 Lodges in 9 districts.
Mass. Elkdom has offered six chief executives to the Order; the most recent
being Framingham Elks #1264's Edward J. Mahan who served as G.E.R. in 1995-1996.
The Founder of our Order, Charles Algernon Sidney Vivian, died in his wife
Imogene's arms while on theatrical tour in Leadville, Colorado. His grave was
marked only by a wooden plank upon which someone had crudely scratched his name
with a nail. In 1889, when word of the condition of the grave reached
Massachusetts, Grand Lodge Trustee, Willard C. Van Derlip of Boston #10
organized the exhumation and transportation of Vivian's body and its
reinternment in the Elk's Rest, at the Mt. Hope cemetery. An appropriate
memorial to Vivian and our absent members was erected and is the site of a
specially created memorial service performed there annually ever since. Mrs.
Imogene Vivian, who had spent her final years in Bergen, 'New Jersey on a modest
pension from the Elks, died in 1931 at the age of 84 years and was buried next
to her husband.
In Massachusetts, on the Mohawk Trail, stands a magnificent bronze elk; silent
sentinel in honor of those members of the Massachusetts State Elks Association
that have been lost in war. But the Mass. Elks remember its members, veterans
and service people not merely with honors and ceremonies but with actual
practical help, physical assistance and that which is most often needed; time
and cash. In 1918, in Boston's Parker Hill neighborhood, the Massachusetts Elks,
under the auspices of the Elks War Relief Commission, built what would become
the first veterans hospital in the United States. The Elks Reconstruction
Hospital, which was turned over to the federal government as a donation rebuilt
soldier's broken bodies and helped restore their broken lives. The blindness
caused by chemical warfare, the disfiguring and maiming injuries caused by
bullets and shrapnel, the infection and disease run rampant in battlefields and
field hospital conditions, all found treatment here. Although there were more
than 700 beds, the hospital operated at full capacity for more than three years.
With treatment there came hope. Hope for recovery and then for a semblance of a
normal life. The Mass. Elks were there, too.
What is troubling, however, is the tendency of the media and the public alike to
remember the round number anniversaries and not the veterans; the flash and bang
of battle and not the broken bodies left in its wake; the song hits and feeling
nostalgic and not the men and women who made the sacrifices that kept this
nation free. Across our Commonwealth and country, in hundreds of veterans home
and hospitals, tens of thousands of war veterans would live shut away lives,
forgotten by their country and countrymen, were it not for such groups as the
Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. The Mass. Elks have never forgotten
them and never will.
In 1927, Springfield #61's John F. Malley (soon to be G.E.R.) proposed the
creation of a permanent charitable fund that would support state and local lodge
major projects, help combat disease and disaster and assist the children of
deceased Elks get a good education. The fund was to be created with an initial
contribution by Grand Lodge of $ 100,000 and the voluntary donations of Elks and
their supporters. Thus was born the Elks National Foundation. Massachusetts'
Edward J. Mahan saw the largest per capita contribution ever ($3.195) during his
term as G.E.R. in 1995-1996. Massachusetts is home to several national award
winners for per capita contributions.
The Hoop Shoot was enthusiastically welcomed to Massachusetts when introduced
here by its "father", Brother James Colbert of Somerville #917 in the early
1970s. This is doubly appropriate in that Springfield, Ma is the birthplace of
basketball and the home of the Basketball Hall of Fame. The names of the annual
Hoop Shoot champions are added to the roll of past champs that is maintained and
on display at the Hall of Fame.
The Massachusetts Elks Scholarship has been the major charitable project of the state association since 1928 and awards more than $450,000 in grants each year. Applicants attending or planning to attend a four year college program may pick up scholarship applications from their local Elks Lodge in November.
It is with both pride and pleasure that Massachusetts Elks remember their Brother, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, H.L.M., who was an active member of Boston Lodge # 10, (member #13300). The call to service, the commitment to excellence and the ambitious hope for the future embodied by the administration of President Kennedy find their exemplification in the programs, efforts and accomplishments of the Massachusetts State Elks Association.
State Sponsor
Hon. Dr. Leonard J. Bristol
Saranac Lake, NY Lodge No. 2808
Elks History and State Association Facts
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