Helen "Eileen" Foley ( Dondero; February 27, 1918 – February 22, 2016) was an American politician. Foley served as the Mayor of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, eight terms from 1968–1971, 1984–1985, and 1988–1997. She remains the longest-serving mayor in the city's history. She represented the 24th District in the New Hampshire Senate for seven terms, including one term as the Democratic Party Minority Leader.
Foley followed her mother, Mary ( Carey) Dondero, the first woman to become mayor of Portsmouth (1945–47), into politics.
Portraits of Foley and her mother now hang side-by-side in Portsmouth City Hall. Portsmouth's city council chambers have also been renamed in Foley's honor.
Biography
Early life
Foley was born Helen "Eileen" Dondero on February 27, 1918, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She was one of four daughters of Charles and Mary (Carey) Dondero. Her father, was the first male baby of Italian descent to be born in Portsmouth. Her mother was of Irish descent. Her paternal grandparents, who had emigrated from Italy in 1883, owned and operated the Dondero's Fruit and Vegetable Store on Congress Street in Portsmouth. Eileen Foley and her sisters were raised in an apartment above the family's produce store.
On August 17, 1923, Foley, who was five years old at the time, cut the silk ribbon at the dedication ceremony for the Memorial Bridge, which connects Portsmouth with neighboring Kittery, Maine, over the Piscataqua River. The Newsreel Company captured her ribbon cutting on film. She then rode across the new bridge with New Hampshire Governor Fred H. Brown and Maine Governor Percival Proctor Baxter as thousands waited to cross the span, which had cost two million dollars to construct.
Following the outbreak of World War II, Foley worked at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard as a painter's helper to aid the war effort. However, she soon enlisted in the Women's Army Corps (WAC). Foley was stationed at Grenier Air Force Base in Manchester, New Hampshire, and the former Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., during her enlistment in WAC.
She returned to Portsmouth after the war and became the Chair of the Democratic City Committee by 1945. She and U.S. President Harry Truman held a 30-minute, sit-down meeting, also in 1945, as part of her duties as the city Democratic chair.
She earned a bachelor's degree from Syracuse University.
In 1948, she married John J. Foley, a shipyard worker and veteran of World War II in 1948. John Foley had spent two years as a German prisoner of war. He had returned to Portsmouth after the war and became a draftsman at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Eileen Foley, who had become Portsmouth city clerk in 1946, signed her own marriage license as part of her official duties. The couple had three children, Mary Carey, Jay and Barry. The couple remained married for 44 years, until his death in 1994.
Career
Foley followed her mother into politics. Mary Carey Dondero, who had never completed 8th grade, nevertheless became the first woman elected to the Portsmouth City Council by 1940. In 1945, she became not only the first woman elected mayor of Portsmouth, but also the first female mayor of any U.S. city east of the Mississippi River. She served as mayor from 1945 to 1947.
Upon her mother's death in 1960, Foley focused much of her professional energy into politics and public service. Foley later wrote of her mother, "I lived with a lady who was a political person for 24 hours every day, and who loved every minute of it."
Mary Carey Dondero had held office as the city's first female mayor from 1945 to 1947, at a time when there were very few elected women officials in the United States.
Eileen Foley enjoyed an extensive political career in local and state politics. She served as the mayor of Portsmouth for eight terms (equaling 16 years) from 1968 to 1971, 1984 to 1985, and 1988 to 1997. She remains the longest-serving mayor in the city's history. Under Mayor Foley, the city experienced the economic impact of the closure of Pease Air Force Base in 1991 and the transition of the city's North End through urban renewal. Foley strongly opposed any attempts to close the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, one of the major employers of city residents. She presided over the city's transition to a cultural and tourist destination, but lamented the loss of the character of some of its older neighborhoods, including Little Italy, Christian Shore, Atlantic Heights, Puddle Dock, and the city's South End to gentrification and new development.