AMHERST – Former Congressman John Olver, who represented the Massachusetts 1st Congressional District in the US House of Representatives from 1991 to 2013, has died. According to an online obituary, Oliver died at his home in Amherst on Thursday. He was 86 years old.
While a US Congressman, Olver represented all of Berkshire and Franklin counties and parts of four other counties, including Worcester County. In Worcester County, he represented as far as Fitchburg and Leominster in the north and as far east as West Brookfield to the south.
Olver was born in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, graduated high school at the age of 15, and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic University at 18 years old. He went on to earn a Master of Science from Tufts University and a Ph.D from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both in Chemistry. He was a professor of chemistry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for eight years before being elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1969.
After two terms in the Massachusetts House, he was elected to the Massachusetts Senate in 1973 and served until he resigned to serve in the US House of Representatives in 1991.
In a 1991 special election after the death of Rep. Silvio Conte, Olver became the first Democrat to win that congressional seat since 1893. Jane Swift, who would later become Lieutenant Governor and Acting Governor of Massaachusetts, challenged Olver for the seat in 1996.
After Olver defeated Swift by six percentage points in 1996 he stood for election seven additional times, never receiving less than 60 percent of the vote.
Olver strongly supported abortion rights, consistently voted against increasing military budgets and military operations, frequently opposed development of agricultural land, supported immigration reform and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and was one of 87 co-sponsors of the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act in 2009, which died in a committee.
Olver was heavily critical of the US policy toward genocide in Darfur and was arrested in both 2006 and 2012, alongside US Congressman Jim McGovern, protesting at the Sudanese Embassy in Washington D.C.
In a statement released Friday, McGovern said:
“Jon and I were arrested together twice while protesting the genocide in Darfur outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, D.C. The first time I asked him, I noted that we would likely be arrested and spend hours in jail. He agreed right away—his conscience would allow no less. The second time, I didn’t have to ask. John knew what was right and just did it. It was an honor to share a cell with him. His integrity and support of human rights remains a source of great inspiration for me and so many others around the world.”
In 2011, redistricting eliminated the district Olver served. Rep. Richard Neal’s district now sits across much of Olver’s former district. Around the same time, Olver’s wife, Rose Richardson Olver, was diagnosed with Ovarian cancer. Rose was a professor of psychology and the first woman to achieve tenure at Amherst College. She died in 2014, after 55 years of marriage.
The couple is survived by two daughters, a son, and a grandson.
The full obituary of former Rep. Olver is available here.
Photo Credit: “Congressman John Olver” by United to End Genocide is licensed under CC BY 2.0
