Taunton High grad's kindness and passion for history live on in scholarship

TAUNTON — Cassie Pearson wanted to be an educator.

At the start of 2020, the 21-year-old Taunton High grad had just one more semester to complete her bachelor’s in history at Salem State University. Her intention was to go on to get a master’s and then a Ph.D and become a history professor.

But while on a visit home to Taunton, Cassie came down with a fever. She was admitted to Morton Hospital on Jan. 30. After roughly a week and a half she was transferred to Massachusetts General Hospital. Then in mid-February 2020, she was diagnosed with NK T-Cell Lymphoma, a rare and particularly aggressive form of lymphoma.

Cassie’s chemotherapy coincided with the beginning of the pandemic.

“She had to do the treatments alone. We weren’t allowed to be there,” said Eric Pearson, Cassie’s father. He said Cassie had to endure multiple five-day-long sessions of treatment.

“She dealt with everything like a trooper.”

Just six months after the devastating diagnosis, Cassie Pearson lost her battle with lymphoma on Oct. 8, 2020, at the age of just 22.

Eric Pearson said he and Cassie’s mother, Rebecca, wanted to memorialize her by showcasing Cassie’s passion for education and helping others.

In December 2020, the Cassie Pearson Memorial Scholarship was founded. It started with offering scholarships for history and/or education majors at Salem State University.

Now, with the desire to localize efforts, the fund has started offering college scholarships for seniors from Taunton High School, where Cassie graduated in 2016.

So much life cut short

An “introverted extrovert” is how Cassie’s father described her. She was a big reader and writer who had “amassed a big library of books over time.” She didn’t mind and often preferred being alone, reading or focusing on her studies, but “she could turn it on when needed to be a leader and friend to people.”

Cassie especially loved reading about history. Her father recalled her “being enamored” with the feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

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A unique hobby of Cassie’s that her parents learned of after death was tracking down the history and families in old photographs. According to Eric Pearson, she would go to secondhand stores, like Savers, The Salvation Army and antique stores, and buy old photographs that had any notes or scribblings on the back.

“We’re talking old photos from the 20s and 30s,” he said, explaining families often donate boxes of stuff during house cleanouts, without necessarily knowing what they are getting rid of. 

Cassie would do research and track down the original owners or families of that photograph.

“It was important to her, finding the rightful owners,” he said.

What her father remembers the most about her years at Taunton High School was her participation, every year, with its golf team, which was inspired by his love of golf. He admits she was attracted to it because “it was a reason for her to get out of gym class” but she grew to love it.

“It fit her personality. Here, she can be part of a team, but not be relied upon, or rely on others. You make the shot yourself,” her dad said.

At Salem State University, Cassie was a very active student.

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Margo Shea, associate professor in the history department at Salem State, said Cassie “was very dedicated to the Honors program,” that she “greatly enjoyed" working at the campus Writing Center and “was a friend of the Student Historical Association” and also participated in The Alliance, an LGBTQIA+ association on campus for students and their allies.

Pearson said Cassie had been working on her thesis before she got sick: an analysis of the 1960s debates between political writers Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley.

“We read some of her edits. It blew my mind,” Pearson said.

With grief comes inspiration

While preparing for Cassie's funeral, Pearson said the family didn’t want flowers or gifts sent to the them, nor did they want to tell people to send donations in their name to charities.

“We wanted to do something more personal for her. We wanted something more meaningful,” Cassie's dad said.

Cassie’s passion for education sparked the idea of creating a scholarship fund. Pearson recalls Cassie talking to him about students at Salem State being forced to drop out of their programs because they couldn't afford tuition. He said he was told by spokespeople at Salem State that more than 20% of students struggle financially by their sophomore year to pay tuition.

The Cassie Pearson Memorial Scholarship became a 501c3 nonprofit by early December of 2020. By Christmas of that year, it had raised $10,000 in donations.

And it gave out its first scholarship of $2,000 at Salem State University for the 2021-2022 academic year.

The requirements for the scholarship are the student has to be either a history or education major, at least a sophomore, and be classified by the university as financially in need of assistance.

Last year the organization hosted its first golf tournament fundraiser. Pearson said it exceeded expectations, with 93 golfers participating, as well as an additional 30 attendees who bought lunch tickets.

“Word spread and snowballed. People from as far as Ohio and New Jersey came for this,” Pearson said.

By July 2022, after a year and a half of seeking donations and fundraising through events, the Pearson's succeeded in raising the $50,000 to establish a permanent endowment at Salem State.

Making a difference, in Cassie’s name

The Cassie Pearson Memorial Scholarship at Salem State University, in the amount of $2,000, is given out to one student each year, though Pearson said he hopes to increase the amount of annual recipients. 

Now the foundation is focused on localizing its mission in the form of scholarships through Taunton High School.  This 2022-23 school year, under the direction of the school's administration, three seniors, on their way to an undergraduate education, will be awarded $500 scholarships each.

“I am grateful for the family for doing this in their daughter’s name. I hope this scholarship, honoring her memory, will also inspire a generation of future history teachers as passionate and who love the subject of history as much as she did,” Taunton Public Schools Superintendent John Cabral said.

The scholarship will be awarded by the Taunton High School Scholarship Committee annually, and it is intended only for history and education majors.

“As long as the funds are there, we will continue to do this,” said Pearson.

The Cassie Pearson Memorial Scholarship Fund will host its second annual golf tournament on Monday, May 22, at Pawtucket Country Club in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. All proceeds go to continuing to offer scholarships.

This article originally appeared on The Taunton Daily Gazette: Scholarship honors Taunton High grad Cassie Pearson