Marion resident Virginia Hathaway was honored recently with the Boston Post Cane by Selectman Jon Henry and Council on Aging Director Susan Schwager.

The cane is given to the town's oldest resident, Hathaway turned 98 in October. Joining Hathaway during the ceremony was her daughter Ann.

Hathaway was born in Hartford, Connecticut. She and her brother Edward lost their mother when she was 7 years old. After her mother’s death, her father, Albert Humphrey, moved the family back to Rochester where he was from. Her husband Alonzo Hathaway owned the Marion General Store, and when he passed away, Hathaway sold it to Jack Cheney.

Her hobbies include tole painting, reading, making pickles and decorating. She graduated from the Swain School of Design and taught art at Friends’ Academy.

“She always had an artistic bent,” said her daughter Ann, with whom she lives.

She lost her brother, Edward, when he was in his 30s. He was a paratrooper in the U.S. Army when he jumped from a plane and his parachute failed to open.

The awarding of Marion’s Boston Post Cane has been ongoing since 1909. That year, the now defunct Boston Post newspaper sent each town in Massachusetts a cane to be presented to the oldest citizen of each town. The cane is subsequently passed down to the next surviving oldest resident.

The “fine gold-headed ebony stick is to be carried by the oldest citizen,” declared the Boston Post in an August 1909 announcement. The canes were manufactured by J.F. Fradley & Co. of New York. The canes are of Gaboon ebony from the Congo. The ebony was shipped to the United States in logs about 7 feet long, which were then cut into stick lengths. It took approximately one year from the arrival of the logs to the completion of the canes.

It has a 14-karat gold head with the town’s name inscribed and a plaque with the initials of those who received the cane over time.