Pearl (Katz) Wise, 1901? -

Pearl Katz Wise, a Cambridge, Mass., public official, had a long political career in local government. The eldest child of Julius Katz, she was born in Kovno, Russia, in 1900 or 1901. She emigrated with her mother and two older siblings, Benjamin and Abraham, to Boston, Mass., in 1905. Two other sisters, Ruth and Anna, were born in the United States. The family settled in Colchester, Conn., where her father and uncle were the village blacksmiths. PKW graduated from Bacon Academy in Colchester in 1917; her teacher advised her father to send her to Smith College because she was such a talented student, but her father said that "only boys go to college; girls get married." While her formal education thus ended after high school, PKW was an avid reader who believed strongly in the importance of public libraries, and later worked diligently to establish libraries during her terms on the school committee and city council.

The family moved to Cambridge, Mass., in 1921. PKW's first job was as secretary to the chairman of the Democratic State Committee, a position that introduced her to local politics and civic activism. In 1927 she married Henry Wise, a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. HW had a long career in labor law, continuing to practice well into his eighties. Active in both the private and public sector, he also served on the Cambridge Housing Authority and was a major proponent of public housing and urban renewal legislation in Massachusetts.

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