Leslie Tarr Laurie

Abstract

So much of who I am and what I believe comes from my mother. I hope that I can be as positive an influence on my daughter as my mother has been for me. I think that I always have thought of myself as a feminist. To me that is a very positive description of a woman. In my case it was genetic as my mother was a feminist. I am as much a social reformer as a feminist.

Leslie Tarr Laurie grew up in Great Neck, New York and attended Buckley Country Day School. She received her B.A. from Chatham College and an M.S. from Columbia University. She was Director of Education and Outreach at Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania. She moved to the Pioneer Valley in 1970 and began working as the Western Massachusetts coordinator for the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. She helped found the Family Planning Council of Western Massachusetts, now Tapestry Health, in 1973 and remains the President of Tapestry Health. She served two consecutive terms as President of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association and is also a past president of the Massachusetts Family Planning Association. Leslie has testified many times before Congress in support of reproductive health measures and was one of five women in the United States Delegation to the First International Conference of First and Third World Women on Reproductive Health. She resides in Pelham, Massachusetts, with her husband Bruce Laurie, Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Their daughter Rebecca Laurie is a student at Sarah Lawrence College. Leslie continues to find inspiration from her family, including mother Elvira Tarr, Professor Emeritus at Brooklyn College, New York and her brother Lawrence Tarr, a lawyer who is Commissioner of the Workers’ Compensation Commission for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Leslie Tarr Laurie was interviewed by Kris Woll on February 20, March 28, and April 17, 2002.