By Ralph Wright

The following column was submitted by Bob Stannard, a friend of former Speaker of the House Ralph Wright.

Ralph G. Wright passed away on June 17, 2026. He wrote his own eulogy. These are his words.

Born in Arlington, Ma on June 10, 1935 he was taken home to the “honeymoon cottage” up on the hill in Lexington. There his day care was named “grandma” as he got delivered each morning across the dirt road. He was to move around a lot over the first 17 years and he often credited his life-long ability to “fit in” to these years of bouncing from relatives to family friends. The fact that these relatives and friends hugged and loved him as their own made all the difference.

He admitted to being a “free range” kid. He often bragged that he had a great childhood maintaining that the total freedom he was afforded in these different homes would probably have threatened court action today. But the city streets of Somerville had a lot to offer a young lad and he always claimed that a whole lot of political skills were learned on them. 

He found a somewhat permanent abode when he joined the Marine Corps after being asked to leave Somerville High School in his senior year. He did his hitch in the Corps serving 10 months in Korea with the 1st Marine Air Wing as an MP (irony of all ironies). He always maintained his pride in being a Marine explaining that “…that they taught me three things … how to march; how to fire a weapon; and how to take orders. I was pretty good with two of those.” 

It was in the Corps that for the first time learned what equality meant – always the new kid he was delighted to find he was just like everyone else as the Corps treated all equally- equally bad. He savored the opportunity to jump off from the same platform as everyone else. Everyone’s parent had the same name – Staff Sargeant James Patrick McCrory

Upon discharge he struck ‘gold’ as he met his life long friend –the little Italian girl down the street, Cathy Farese; they were married on October 19, 1957 in the Immaculate Conception Church and began a lifetime filled with love and respect. He always thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world and never stopped wondering what he had done to deserve her. He was certain that her only flaw was choosing a partner. 

It also marked a turning point in his life as arriving with her was that moment when he realized he had better get busy being busy.

He enrolled in Boston University’s back door (Junior college).- amazed that someone would pay to send him to school (GI Bill). He smiled when telling of the cost he accrued getting through college – $0. Because of the GI Bill he proudly stated “I actually had beer money left over – paying a grand total of $900 for my first year”.

Is this a great country or what!

It was at BU that he found his love for learning. He always admitted that he had been let in the back door, having been asked to leave Somerville High School in his senior year, but it was here at the Junior College that he met a staff that though not much older than he took him under their wings and allowed him to discover a new world. He had always had a profound respect and love for books –once admitting that the first thing he could ever remember stealing was a book (Andy Jackson Goes to War) from the Somerville Public Library. 

BU made that love pay off. He would often mention that when a lot of his friends were stealing bikes and hub caps he was stealing books -and it made all the difference.

Upon completing his two years at Junior College he managed to win the “Most Improved Student Award at BU” –always maintaining that next to being elected treasurer of his gang (the Jets) as a teenager back in the late 40’s, it was the highest honor he ever received. 

Starting a family and working a full time midnight shift added an extra year to graduation, but he would receive a BA degree from the Liberal Arts College in 1961. 

He felt so lucky to follow the teaching profession (he had set out in pre-law hoping to be a lawyer and FBI Agent, but family came and that dream deferred). Like so much of his life he found himself in a place he was meant to be. He would spend better than 55 years doing what he loved.

He didn’t know it then, but it was the perfect landing for his not so subtle need to be telling people that they could do better. 

After three years teaching at Ashland High where he also coached, he accepted a position as principal of a small (very small) high school in Vermont. It was here in Newbury, Vermont that he received his GED diploma from the state of Massachusetts – three years after he had obtained his Master’s Degree in Education. (It’s a long story.)

So, as it were, he somehow failed to get through both high school and college –at least on schedule. Not the perfect model –to be sure.

He often explained that once he proved his incompetence in job after job they kept promoting him. He skipped and hopped through Assistant Headmaster jobs at St. Johnsbury Academy and then in 1967 up to Lyndon State College as an assistant professor, where he insisted with no small degree of pride that he got himself fired for protesting the war in Vietnam. (The college always denied that they took that action.) 

Though he distinguished himself at neither institution he did write and direct the first Upward Bound program in Vermont which he somehow managed to align with Governor Hoff’s and Mayor Lindsey’s Vermont/New York Program. Perhaps, a precursor, to his dual interests in education and politics. 

He finally landed in his “settling-down” job in Bennington, Vermont where he set out to set in, building his own house, and raising their growing family. He laughed often about how he didn’t have a clue as what to do with the $25,000 worth of lumber they dropped on the hay field he had purchased with a loan from a friend. He recalled that first very hot July 4th day when he got busy trying to build a house and having to comfort Cathy as she fought back tears because she knew “ … you have no idea what you’re doing –we’ll end up on the street”. 

Somehow the house got up and livable (in six weeks he always boasted) –sheer audacity perhaps. 

He taught U.S. History at Mount Anthony Union High School for two years before being the co-author of the Bennington Program – an alternative school for kids struggling with the established high school. Here the Program won awards for innovation and actually proved over the next 20 plus years to be a safe landing for hundreds of kids struggling both in school and in life. He always got puffed up with pride over being with “his” kids.

It was during these years that the political bug bit him. Those who knew him well always assumed politics was just part of who he was. He would be quick to remind folks that politics like anything else took long hours and hard work- though he never denied that growing up in Boston in the 1940s made it come a bit easier. Anyone watching had to admit he had a wonderful time doing it. He was a democrat, to his core, often joking that he never met a republican, or for that matter a cow, until he moved to Vermont -expressing, only to very close friends, that he much preferred meeting the cow.

His first elected post was as a Bennington selectman –which he promptly quit after one year. All but assuring an end to any thoughts of an extended political career. 

He seemed to be always failing, or at least, too often, not completing things on time. Usually a sure sign of a loser and many had raised eyebrows as to how much of a political career remained. But that wasn’t how things worked in his life for 5 years later he got elected to the Vermont House. He would go on to serve a pretty long time as Speaker –much to the chagrin of a whole lot of people. That he won by a single vote in a legislature with a republican majority meant there would be no “honeymoon”. He would spend the next 10 years frustrating and angering many by taking to heart what he truly felt “…if one has power –he probably ought to use it.”

He also took more than a little self satisfaction in being called a “flaming liberal” – arguing he chose the right end of that spectrum. And it would bring a smile when those who disagreed referred to him as that “%#@$ Boston, Irish, Pol”. He was proud of three of those four adjectives.

In the late 1980’s Boston University inducted him into its Illustrious Alumni. Accepting this honor along side of him was the renowned Norman Vincent Peale. He often explained that ‘odd couple’ by claiming BU was just trying to not show partiality to accomplishment. He was proud of that moment, of course, but always claimed he got more satisfaction out of being fired from a pretty comfortable job and walking a picket line.

He got himself beat after 16 years up in the capital and later admitted that he deserved it. He knew well that he had overstayed his welcome.

He and Cathy made the decision that it was now their time and finally retired to Florida where they told whoever would listen that life was good. They traveled in their RV all over the country enjoying each other’s company. Two so different in so many ways except from where they came and where their love for one another took them. Their secret finally revealed -they needed each other. 

He would lose his “Cath” nearing their 63rd year together, after a long battle waged with Alzheimer’s – a test he accepted as the true measure of his love for her. 

He never did get over just how lucky they were to have found each other that long ago summer when two very young and very naive kids just knew they were meant to be together, sustained by their deep love, to the end.