Nona was born in Milford, Maine on April 28, 1889. Her parents were Daniel (born in Ireland) and Ellen M. (Kelleher) Dougherty (born in Bangor, Maine.) She was an Honors graduate of the Massachusetts General Hospital School of Nursing. It was through her nursing that she met Mr. Babson. He had just returned to Wellesley after World War I service with the Department of Labor in Washington when he developed problems with his appendix. His wife Grace, also a graduate of the Massachusetts General Hospital School of Nursing, asked the school to send over one of their best recent graduates. Nona arrived and nursed Mr. Babson through his recovery. It was in conversations during this recovery that the planned Babson Institute went from being a strictly correspondence school to a residential school.  When Mr. Babson emphasized the importance of character building as part of the educational plan Nona wondered out loud how he planned to build character at a distance. Roger took her her point and included a residential school as part of the planning for Babson Institute.

She stayed on, first to nurse Mr. Babson’s company through the influenza outbreak, and then in many roles with Babson’s Reports over many years. For much of her years in Wellesley she was the intermediary between Mr. Babson’s businesses and Babson Institute. Roger’s wife of 56 years, Grace Knight Babson, died on April 30, 1956. Roger married Nona on June 1, 1957. She died in Gloucester, MA July 13, 1963. Roger Babson died March 5, 1967.

Most of the Nona’s influence on the Institute was behind the scenes. She did, however, leave a visible mark on the campus.  In 1950 she funded the creation of a gate at the main entrance on Wellesley Avenue. This was known as the “Doughtery Gate” and was the main entrance to the campus until the 1970s.  (At the back side of the Lunder parking lot one can see the remains of the pillars of this entrance.) The building of Babson Hall, Gerber Hall, and Kriebel Hall with the added construction of new residence halls forced the reworking of campus roads which created College Drive and the current Forest Street entrance.  When the Forest Street entrance was built the plaque from the Dougherty gate was moved there were one can still find it.

R. C. (Rip) Rybnikar

Babson College Archives

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