John Craig Coolidge

Other Events and Attributes:

• History: According to his obituary, "He grew up in Petersham in the 1950's and 1960's. He was raised on the Carter Hill Farm. There he gained his life-long love of the outdoors and the environment. He also learned the virtues of hard work and determination, which formed the core of his New England Yankee spirit. He was a 1970 graduate of Mahar Regional High School in Orange where he was active in school politics, athletics, and the outstanding music program there in the late 1960's. Coolidge earned a bachelor of arts degree in history from Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., in 1974. From 1979 to 1983 he lived in Boston where he earned his law degree from Suffolk University Law School. Immediately following graduation from law school, he went to work at the Massachusetts State House where he served as Special Council to the Special Committee on Comparable Work, a select senate committee looking at issues of equal pay for equal work that were being explored in the 1980's. It was during his time in Boston that he met his future wife, Christina. They were married in 1985. Coolidge left the State House and began the full-time practice of law in Fitchburg. He moved to New Salem and opened a law office in Orange. In 1989, the Coolidge's adopted their three children from Costa Rica. After a time, he gave up his primary law practice to focus on family and public service, although he did continue providing legal counsel on a pro bono basis. He served two terms as selectman in New Salem, from 1986-1988 and again from 2002 to the present. He was a member of the New Salem School Committee from 1990 to the present and was a past chair of that committee. He was also a member of the Erving Elementary Union 28 School Committee, which he chaired for ten years in the 1990's. Coolidge was on the boards of directors of the Franklin County Regional Housing Authority and the Regionalization Study Committee, and he was the New Salem representative to the Franklin County Rural Transit Authority. He was passionate in his commitment to mental health services and served as a board member of Clinical and Support Options Inc. in Greenfield and the United ARC of Franklin and Hampshire Counties. He and his family were actively involved with the Special Olympics. He was a percussionist known to musical audiences throughout central Massachusetts. He was a member of the Orange Community Band, the Petersham Brass Band, the Ashby Band, the Narragansett Community Band, and several other musical groups. He was well known for his entertaining use of unusual percussion instruments and humorous props in the back of the band. He was also an amateur actor having appeared in plays in high school and then again in summer musicals at the Theater at the Mount in Gardner."

John married Christina Nell Lambert [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]