“Westford’s first Apple Blossom Queen”
By James VanBever (November 2020)
On May 20, 1935, Reverend John Day of the Westford Unitarian church and originator of the Apple Blossom Festival introduced legendary Governor James Michael Curley who spoke to a large Westford crowd at Whitney Playground during its first Apple Blossom Festival. The governor compared the Westford’s Apple Blossom Festival to “the Mardi Gras of New Orleans, the Rose Festival of Oregon, and cherry blossom time in Washington, “but he added “that Westford’s apple blossom display outclassed them all”.
The governor went on to praise “the beauty and virtues” of the town of Westford. He also complimented the granite industry in town which Governor Curley said was the second largest in the United States. Finally, at the end of his speech, Curley asked that the queen come forward and he formally crowned 18-year-old Phyllis Wright as the first Apple Blossom Queen.
The towns of Acton, Ayer, Chelmsford, Concord, Groton, Harvard, Hudson, Lincoln, Littleton, Stow, and of course Westford were eligible to select a contestant to be Apple Blossom Queen. Phyllis Wright, who was a 1934 graduate of Westford Academy and a student at Emerson College had gone to the state house along with her mother Mrs. William Wright, Reverend Day, and Representative John H. Valentin to formally invite the governor to attend the festivities. Governor Curley not only gladly accepted the invitation but also said that he hoped that “Westford and other towns in the state hold festivals annually to impress the beauty of the Bay State.”
Miss Wright went on to graduate from Emerson College of Oratory where she was president of her sorority. Phyllis married Mansfield Branigan of Groton in 1938, the couple had two sons, Edward M. and Carter, and a daughter Elizabeth. The family resided in Littleton. Phyllis did participate in several Apple Blossom events when former queens were honored by the town of Westford.
Tragically, Mansfield Branigan passed away at the age of 40 in 1953. However, the family remained in Littleton where Phyllis became active in town affairs. She was a member of the Littleton Woman’s Club and in 1958 she became the chief operator of the Littleton Communication Center.
Later in life Phyllis moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida where she died in 1998 at the age of 81.
She is buried at the Westland Cemetery in Littleton. (Jim VanBever 2020)