104-year-old woman walks through history with Boston Post Cane
When Laura Camello graduated from Wareham High School in 1939, the United States had not yet entered World War II.
When the U.S. joined the war, Camello took a job at a factory in New Bedford, making parts for the military. While working there, she lived in the home her father built on Doherty Street in Wareham, the same home where she received the Boston Post Cane award on Wednesday, Nov. 20, as the oldest resident of the town at 104-years-old.
Select Board members Judith Whiteside and Jason Chadwick read a proclamation and presented Camello with Wareham’s Boston Post Cane along with yellow roses, the color of Camello’s high school class and a replica of the cane for Camello to keep.
The cane itself is a historical artifact and part of a New England tradition which began in 1910 when Edwin Grozier, publisher of the Boston Post newspaper, sent gold-headed ebony canes to over 600 towns across New England, aiming to generate publicity and support for the paper.
Originally, the cane was awarded to the oldest male resident, but in 1930, the tradition was expanded to include women as well.
As the cane belongs to the town, not the recipient, it is passed on to the next oldest resident upon the previous holder's death.
Mary Rose was the last recipient of Wareham’s Cane. The Select Board presented the award to the then 105-year-old Rose in August 2019.
Although the Boston Post newspaper shut down in 1957, the practice of awarding the Boston Post Cane continues in many communities. While some towns have since abandoned the tradition, Wareham preserves it—not only to honor the custom but also to protect the cane itself.
Born in Canton, Camello said she moved to Wareham with her parents and two older siblings before starting kindergarten, and has lived in the town ever since. On Wednesday, she sat surrounded by three generations of nieces, nephews, and other relatives who gathered at her home to celebrate.
“She had no children and no grandchildren and she never married, that’s why she’s 104,” Camello’s nephew Gene Dias said with a laugh.
