Helen Storrow - Marriage To James J. Storrow

Marriage To James J. Storrow

Helen met her future husband, James Jackson Storrow, Sr., in 1882, while touring Europe with her relatives. Though James was just one year behind her brother Thomas at Harvard, the Storrows met not in Massachusetts, but in Switzerland, while scaling the Matterhorn. They were married, after a lengthy engagement, in 1891.

The shy and studious James, was described as "unassuming," but "magnetic", "a born leader and a keen judge of man; unassuming, yet in his quiet way exerting a strong influence over his fellows...a dominating personality." Temperamentally, he was the polar opposite of the out-going, effervescent Helen. However, behind his stiff mien lay an idealistic nature and a keen sense of humor. Their marriage was described as "a perfect partnership” of equals, and Mr. Storrow's biographer claimed that “no two people ever saw more completely eye-to-eye on all the things that count."

James was descended from a long line of Boston Brahmin families, including the Jacksons, Higginsons, Tracys, and the Cabots who famously “talk only to God.” His father, also named James Jackson Storrow, was a prominent attorney, whose clients included Alexander Graham Bell and the government of Venezuela; his mother, Ann Maria Perry, was the grandchild of naval hero Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, and a distant cousin of President Thomas Jefferson.

James graduated in 1888 from Harvard Law School, and for twelve years was employed as a corporate lawyer. In 1900, he disbanded his law firm and accepted a position at Lee, Higginson & Co., an investment bank. James proved to be an astute businessman, quickly achieving the position of senior partner at Lee, Higginson & Co., and accumulating a vast personal fortune. Though he was employed by one of America’s most conservative banks, James remained politically moderate and socially progressive, positions that set him at odds with other members of his social milieu.

The Storrows longed for a large family, but had only one child, James Jackson Storrow, Jr., who was born on November 20, 1892 in Boston, Massachusetts.

"When the hoped-for larger family did not materialize, they extended the mantles of “Aunt” and “Uncle” to include not only their own nieces and nephews, but also their son’s companions and the children of friends. Helen wrote warmly of those precious years and the activities they sponsored for a stream of youthful guests at the country home she and Jim eventually built on a hillside in Lincoln."

From the earliest days of their marriage, the Storrows were interested in the settlement movement and charity work, helping to build playgrounds in poor immigrant neighborhoods, sponsoring night schools, vocational schools, and evening centers. James also took a keen interest in civil service reform, educational reform and legal reform, spearheading an effort to diversify the makeup of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, and helping to establish a juvenile court. In a testament to how highly regarded he was by Bostonians from every social strata, on multiple occasions James was asked to act as a mediator between corporate interests, the city, and labor unions. Elected on the Democratic ticket, James served for several years on the City Council, and during the First World War held the post of New England Fuel Administrator. He was largely responsible for preventing a severe coal shortage, actually using his own credit to ensure vital shipments of coal reached the Northeast, during the winter of 1917-1918.

The Storrows rejected "Nativist" ideology, i.e., the anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant stance widely embraced by the American upper classes during the late 19th and early 20th century. While serving on the Boston School Committee, James quickly “gained a reputation” among Irish-Catholics “for absolute fairness in the sensitive matter of hiring and promoting Boston teachers and administrators.” He insisted that teachers should be hired and promoted on the basis of “merit regardless of religious background,” whereas before, Catholics had been routinely discriminated against. When James ran for re-election to the School Committee in 1905, he received a ringing endorsement from The Pilot, Boston's leading Irish-Catholic newspaper:

"Mr. Storrow is a Protestant, but he has a host of friends and admirers among the Catholics, clergy and laity alike, for his philanthropy which knows no test of religion nor of color; for his upright life; for his sincere devotion to the best interests of those citizens who most need the public schools. He will be found where he has been found heretofore, alert for the largest possible moral, material and intellectual benefits for the neediest, rather than seeking to control appointments for personal or political motives..."