death_date birth_place nationality party profession term_start article_title name
december 1992 dorchester , massachusetts american rnc newspaper compositor 1947 john f. parker
 '' ` john francis parker '' '
john f. parker

john francis parker -lrb- may 29 , 1907-december 1992 -rrb- was the last of a long line of part-time mayors of taunton , massachusetts .
by his efforts the city council decided to make the position full-time .
parker was elected to the state senate in 1953 , and served for many years as the minority leader of the massachusetts senate , the post he held when he retired from public life in 1989 .
he was also a member of the taunton school committee .
parker desired to succeed congressman joseph william martin , jr. -lrb- r-ma -rrb- in the u.s. house of representatives , however parker refused to oppose the elderly former speaker in the republican primary of 1968 .
martin was defeated in the primary by governor 's councilor margaret heckler -lrb- r-ma -rrb- effectively ending parker 's efforts of attaining higher office .
a middle school within the city is named in honor of his service to the city , and a section of u.s. route 44 is named in honor of parker and his wife , mae , who had no children .
the taunton municipal golf course was changed to the john f. parker municipal golf course .
