CHS English Dept. chair, Citizen co-founder to retire

By Mary Ann Price

For Marilyn Roache, teaching has been a calling. The Canton High School English Department chairperson is retiring this month from a career that took her from education to journalism and back to education.

Marilyn Roache (Mary Anne Price photo)

Roache began to teach as a child, playing school with friends. As a teenager she taught swimming and senior lifesaving lessons to children ages 4-16 on Nantasket Beach in Hull, where she lived. Roache spent five summers on the beach and in the waves at Nantasket, where the lessons were sometimes cancelled because of rain but not because of the cold water.

Roache attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, majoring in French. “I seemed to have an affinity for language,” she said. “I liked the mechanics of language, the sounds of language.” She had won the French Award at Hull High School and wanted to teach the language.

While at UMass, she decided to spend a semester studying in France. UMass did not have a formal exchange program, so Roache decided to write a letter in French to French universities on her own. She eventually received a letter from the Université de Caen in Normandy and set off to expand her study of French.

Her first teaching job was in Newton at the now-closed Weeks Junior High School, where she taught French to seventh, eighth and ninth grade students.

“It’s challenging,” Roache said of working with that age group. “It really establishes a lot of strategies and skills a teacher needs to be effective in the classroom. If you teach middle school, you can teach any age group.”

Roache left Weeks after three and a half years to start a family with her husband, Joe. They have two sons, Joe and Brian. In 1980, she got a job working a few evenings a week as a typesetter for the Canton Journal. She also began to write for the Journal and credits Jerry Morris, who was the Boston Globe Sunday travel editor, with teaching her how to improve her writing. Morris worked at the paper one night a week and used to edit Roache’s writing.

“I wasn’t a confident editor,” she said. “I was wordy and I put words in inappropriate places. He was positive and direct with his critique. He would read what I wrote and say, ‘So what?’” It was Morris’ “So what?” that helped Roache to see what was essential about her work.

It was there that she met photographer and writer Beth Erickson. David Mahn owned the Journal, but when Mahn sold the paper, Roache and Erickson decided to strike out on their own.

“We said, ‘Why don’t we start our own paper?’” Roache recalled. “We created the [Canton Citizen] together. We were co-publishers. It was tough. You’re responsible for everything. You oversee everything.”

Roache recalled that she and Erickson drove out to the first Staples store in Framingham and shopped for supplies for the paper.

“We were so excited, like little kids,” she said. “We worked so hard. It was just such an adventure and a project that seemed to be of such a huge scale. I’m so happy and proud that she’s kept it going all these years. There was also a lot of dedicated staff.”

In 1992, five years after starting the Citizen, Roache made the difficult decision to leave the paper. Her two sons were approaching college age and she felt the call of the classroom again. Because of her experience in journalism, she decided she wanted to return as an English teacher.

“There are really a lot of parallels between journalism and education,” she said. “Communication, organization, the level of responsibility, creativity, accountability to the public. There’s an important trust that shouldn’t be broken with parents and there’s that same trust with the community.”

Roache began to work as a substitute teacher in the Canton Public Schools, including at Canton High, where her husband, Joe, had started out as a history teacher and switched to English. She also entered a graduate program at Bridgewater State College, earning a master’s degree in English. She became certified for teaching English through portfolio submission.

She taught English at King Philip Regional High School for three years, working with people that she said were wonderful and supportive. In 2000, she was hired as an English teacher at Canton High School. Her husband was still teaching English at CHS and later became the department chairperson. Roache said that working with her husband was something that felt very natural.

“We’ve always taught together,” she said. “We always shared that common bond. He went on a trip to Quebec with me when I was at Weeks and I went to fundraisers at Canton High. We’ve shared our family and love and careers. It’s a gift. Not too many people get to do that and understand the challenges the other person feels. I’m grateful to him.”

Words like gratitude, gift, mentor, and support fill Roache’s thoughts and conversations. It’s evident that she’s going to miss her students deeply.

“Every year you get those eager, bright minds,” she said. “It’s been a gift to work with so many interesting and gifted young people and their families. They’re inspiring. I always felt like a writing coach. I’ve learned more from them than they have from me.”

She has also earned a lot from her colleagues. “I’ve worked with wonderful people in the department, in years past and in the current one. It’s a great department. They all work so hard.”

Roache, who has a progressive vision impairment, acknowledged the help of Matt Masciarelli and Ernest St. Jean. “They assisted me after school to help me manage the work load,” she said.

She also recalled with great respect several former administrators, including Paul Callanan, Al Nodrgren, Ed Mulvey and Alan Dewey, and she noted her gratitude to current members of the CHS community, especially Derek Folan, Henry McDeed, Jennifer Henderson, Maureen Dickie, Jim Goff and the custodial staff.

She worries that she may leave someone off her list of those to be thanked, and she is grateful to everyone who has supported her during her career. “It really has to do with a lot of people who have helped me along the way,” she said.

She is looking forward to gardening, fishing, and spending time with her husband and their family. Their son Joe and his wife, Vivian, have a daughter Caitlin, who will turn 4 on June 28, her grandmother’s last day of school. Their other son Brian and his wife, Nheeda, have a daughter Celia, who is 10 months old.

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