Clara Bancroft Beatley

Clara Bancroft was born in Shirley, Massachusetts, January 12, 1858. Her father, Edmund Dana Bancroft, a native of Pepperell, Massachusetts, and in early life a teacher, was the son of Luther and Anna Bancroft, who were members of the Unitarian Church in Pepperell. Upon removal to Shirley, Mr. Bancroft became the organist and choir leader of the First Congregational (Unitarian) Church, rendering that service for 45 years. He was president of the North Middlesex Conference. Beatley's mother, Mary Park Morse, After a high school education, she became a student at the Bridgewater Normal School (now Bridgewater State University) where she completed an advanced course. The Unitarian influence of the home was so strong that it was considered an act of disloyalty to attend the services of other churches. When Beatley was a student at the Bridgewater Normal School and asked for permission at home to attend the services of the Orthodox Congregational Church (the service generally attended by the student body), a decisive "no" was meant to teach her the lesson of loyalty to the family's church. ==Career==

After leaving the Bridgewater Normal School, she taught in the Grammar and High Schools of Cambridge, Massachusetts and Boston. while teaching in Cambridge, at the age of 25, she went for the first time to the Church of the Disciples on West Brookline Street, Boston, to hear the preacher, Rev. James Freeman Clarke, and after hearing Clarke a second time, continued in attendance of that church. She gave many addresses before Alliance Branches and Clubs, selections from which were printed in Joys beyond Joy She compiled Apples of Gold, a book of selected verses, in 1903. Forget Me Not was compiled in 1906, in association with Anna Stearns. Beatley also compiled several services for Sunday schools. ==Affiliations==

Beatley was a director of the Children's Mission for several years. She served as chair of the Moral Education Department of the Boston Equal Suffrage Association, as well as chair of the Conference Committee for Moral Education, a committee made up of delegates from many women's clubs and other organizations interested in promoting Moral Education. She served two terms of three years each as director of the Unitarian Sunday School Society, and since the formation of the Unitarian Hospitality Committee in 1900, she served as its secretary, assuming the executive work. She was a member of the Board of Managers of the Tuckerman School, In 1897–98, she served as Treasurer of the Boston Browning Society. ==Personal life==

In the Church of the Disciples, she married James Augustus Beatley. ==Selected works==

• Reverence : its cultivation and perversions, 1892 • Apples of gold; a book of selected verse, 1901 (Text) • Joys beyond joy, 1902 • Treasures new and old; a memorial to James Freeman Clarke, celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of his birth, 1910 • A Christmas service and songs around the Christmas tree, 1911 • Forget-me-not; a year of happy days, 1912 (Text) • Disciples services, 1912 • Social service for young people in the church school, plan of the Disciples school, Church of the Disciples, Boston, Mass (n.d.) • How to organize a Sunday School. (n.d.) ==References==