(2013)
Macher is not a Provincetown word. It’s how we New Yorkers describe a special kind of mover and shaker; impeccably — sometimes invisibly — plugged in and tremendously influential, a figure that other powerful figures turn to if they want a Gordian knot cut clean. John C. Snow (1920-1985) was more than a lawyer, realtor, Town Moderator, Town Manager, Town Counsel, selectman, and planning chairman. He was a macher. He and his wife, Joan FitzGerald Snow (1922-2011), a longtime teacher and civic leader, bought this house in 1953 from Churchill T. and Ethel B. Smith. Snow was born in Provincetown to Madeline Cook Snow (±1893-1955) and Ralph Powers Snow (±1888-1957), both of whom were also Provincetown natives. He graduated from P.H.S. and Boston University Law School. In 1949, he established the law firm that is continued today as Snow & Snow by his son, Christopher J. Snow. Apart from a brief spell as a trial attorney at the Justice Department in Washington, Snow spent his life in town. Mrs. Snow, born in Cambridge, also attended Boston University Law School before receiving a master’s degree in education from B.U.’s School of Education. She moved to Provincetown to be with her husband and took up her long teaching career in Wellfleet. “Her home on Carver Street was often a focal point of community and political life,” said an obituary in The Cambridge Chronicle on 9 March 2011. She sold the property in 1988. It has been owned since 2016 by Jared Bartok and his wife, Rebeca Collins Hayes, of Swampscott.
¶ Last updated on 12 May 2017. ¶ Image courtesy of the Town Assessor, Key 1422.