Billie (Lambert) Lawrence, 74

By Cathy Boudreau and Sandra Miller
Beacon Hill Times
Not too soon after she said her goodbyes to her friends and fellow Beacon Hill activists, the fiery activist Billie Lawrence was gone.
Billie Rose (Lambert) Lawrence, 74, had just decided to scale back her work with the Suffolk University Task Force due to her battle with terminal cancer, when she died Nov. 26.
Most people knew her as a community activist, although she was also an educator, editor, and television personality.
“Billie was a tireless and fearless advocate for upper Beacon Hill,” said Representative Martha M. Walz. “She asked the hard questions and would insist on answers, even when developers and others didn’t want to give them. I admired her tenacity, and I will miss her.”
Born in Huntington, West Virginia, she moved with her family to Erlanger, Kentucky, when she a young girl. Lawrence was a child prodigy, playing Mozart at the age of five.
Lawrence was actively involved since she was a little girl, she told our reporter recently. “If I didn’t like the answer, I would try to do something about it.” An anti-war activist during World War II, she ran a training program for those trying to avoid the draft. She also worked to preserve Kentucky’s Red River Gorge from development.
She graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a BA in Education, with a focus on psycho-linguistics.
In the 1950s, “Billie Savely” starred as Miss Nancy Lee, of “Jellybean Acres," a children’s educational television show in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she also wrote TV and radio jingles. In the 1960’s while teaching at a Cincinnati inner city school, she became frustrated because police routinely removed her students for theft. In response, she decided to teach her students the importance of earning their own money and helped them produce and sell a successful Appalachian cookbook. Years later many of her students cited this as a major turning point in their lives.
From a young age, Billie was involved in many social and charitable organizations. She was the first president of the Junior Board for Crippled Children in Cincinnati.
Lawrence moved to Indiana as a contract designer for MAC’s Family Restaurants, supervising the design and construction of interiors for 16 steak houses and 27 hamburger restaurants, as well as handling press and public relations. Billie returned to TV/film/attractions in the 1970s when she moved to Key Biscayne, Florida, and handled public relations for Miami Seaquarium, home of “Flipper” and “Salty the Sea Lion.”
Coming to Boston 27 years ago to receive treatment at Mass General, she fell in love with Boston and stayed.
She was a faculty assistant at the Harvard Business School, where she also did editing and wrote speeches, moved onto the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the JFK School of Government, where she handled logistics for international speakers and guests in areas of Arms Control, the Aspen Institution, National Science Foundation and the Science Fellows Program.
She became the building manager and system designer for 30 offices at the JFK School of Government. After leaving Harvard, she worked for The Beacon Group as a manuscript editor for a variety of authors, as well as working privately for more than 20 clients.
In 1982, Lawrence joined the Massachusetts Teachers Association, for 15 years in the Human Resources Division until three days prior to her death. “Billie was a very unique and a very special person,” said MTA President Anne Wass. “She touched many lives in the MTA. She always brought humor and a colorful flair to MTA gathering. She will be deeply missed.”
As a local activist, Lawrence fought against what she called “hit and run development.” Lawrence was a force to be reckoned with, since her activism was not about her; it was for those whose voices could not heard, for maintaining the character of the city she grew to love, and for her commitment that Boston “shouldn’t just look like anyplace. We took our beautiful old City Hall and put a chain steakhouse in it. We have faceless buildings going up all over the place.”
She founded the Upper Beacon Hill Civic Association to direct attention to Suffolk’s 20 Somerset Street project, helping to scale back the number of dorms originally proposed.
"I really feel a sense of personal loss with Billie's passing,” said John Nucci, Vice President for External Affairs at Suffolk University. “We could sometimes disagree on certain things, but at the end of the day, we'd sit and talk about life and family like best of friends. Those were special moments for me. She was a fighter, often with a loud bark, sometimes a painful bite, but always with a heart of gold and the best interests of her neighbors in mind."
She battled liquor licenses on the Hill, protected limited-income elderly residents from being pushed out of the neighborhood, and most recently opposed a proposed restaurant on Boston Common.

She was also interested in the significance of her own apartment building, formerly the historic Hotel Bellevue, and the home, at times, of John F. “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, and his grandson, President John F. Kennedy.
In 1999, Lawrence planned and hosted the 100th anniversary celebration of the Hotel. The reception was held on the rooftop overlooking the State House and Boston Commons, and Senator Edward M. Kennedy was the keynote speaker.
You could find Ms. Lawrence most nights at 5:15, next door to her condo, at Fifteen Beacon’s Moo restaurant—one martini, shaken 50 times, and one cup of black coffee, surrounded by friends and, most often, talking politics and current affairs.
In lieu of a memorial service, last night a celebration of Lawrence’s life was held at her old watering hole. In her honor, Mooo created a signature Martini in her honor. “Billie was a like a member of our family,” said Mooo Restaurant General Manager Alexa Demarco. “We have her signature martini on our drink list called the Billie Lawrence Martini.” All the proceeds will be donated to Billie’s favorite charity, the Autism Society of American-Massachusetts Chapter, said DeMarco, who added, “She will be deeply missed, and it was an honor for all of us to be part of this unique’s person’s life.”
Billie is survived by four children: Sandra (Shane) Nickell of Barbourville, KY; Suzanne (Dacre) Hancock of Wakefield, MA; Jay (Lea) Savely of Andover, MA; Stephanie Lind of Mariemont, OH; a brother Leslie Lambert, of Erlanger, KY; sisters Judith (Thomas) Hodge of Florence, KY and Donna (Arnold) Lively of Cocoa Beach, FL; eight grandchildren; and many more friends and admirers. Lawrence was an active member of the Women’s City Club of Boston and the Boston Atheneum. She was a member of King’s Chapel, and belonged to a group of weekly bridge players.
Donations in her memory can be made to Hospice & Palliative Care Federation of Massachusetts, 1420 Providence Highway, Norwood, MA 02062 or The Autism Society of America-Massachusetts Chapter, c/o Autism Services Association, 47 Walnut Street, Wellesley Hills, MA 02481.