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 45,000 Elks of 71 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.