Dr. Hazel Richards: World War II Doctor

Dr. Hazel Richards Inspecting an X-Ray, Springfield Armory, NHS

When you think of an Army medical doctor during World War II, you probably aren't expecting them to be a woman. But Dr. Hazel Richards of Longmeadow did indeed serve in that capacity. Hazel Hortop Richards (1905-1981) was the only child of Fannie and Frederick Richards. She was born in Longmeadow and raised on South Park Place. 

South Park Place home of Hazel Hortop Richards

In a time before Longmeadow had its own high school, Hazel attended high school in Springfield where she graduated from Classical High. She then attended Skidmore College and went onto Middlesex Medical School, graduating in 1930. She pursued postgraduate training in Chicago.

She practiced family practice in Chicago after her internship and in 1940 moved to Malden, MA where her practice was primarily pediatrics.

In 1943 Dr Richards became a contract (civilian serving in the military initially without rank) surgeon in the US Army Medical Corps assigned to the Springfield Armory. She served until 1946 working as an industrial physician and obtained the rank of captain.

She was the first female physician from New England called into U.S. Army service in World War II. In 1940 only 4% of United States physicians were female. Dr. Richards had moved back to Longmeadow with her daughter by her first husband and initially resided with her parents in their home on South Park Place.

In 1949 she purchased a historic home at 766 Longmeadow Street which at one time served as a tavern and a dormitory/boarding house for employees of Dimond Chandler’s button factory which opened in 1848.

After the war, Dr. Richards went on to have a varied career. She was the examining physician for the Hampden District Court and Juvenile Court, a school physician, and active in the Well Baby Clinics in Springfield. She lived in Longmeadow for the remainder of her life dying at 76 years of age in November 1981.

Sources:

Springfield  Daily News

Springfield Republican 

Ancestry

Grassy Gutter

Our town of Longmeadow is filled with street names that reflect its history such as Bliss Road, Williams Street, King Philip Drive, and Cooley Drive. Other names invoke a somewhat idyllic notion such as Greenacre, Forest Glen, Morningside, and Bellevue. It is not clear where Grassy Gutter fits in. An older definition for "gutter" is a furrow or channel made by running water: “A small stream flowing between eroded banks of its own making and amounting to a mere trickle in dry seasons, but a torrent in the time of melting snows.” This is different from a dingle which has higher sides and perhaps a deeper depth of erosion. “Grassy Gutter” is referred to in town records from 1791 as an eastern boundary for the middle school district, a deed from 1799 from Thankful Colton to Joanna Coomes, and also a deed from the Coltons to Orrin Cooley in 1874. 

The gutter was located within a large tract of land “on the plains northerly of Hale’s Meadow bounded by the highway that leads from Hale’s Meadow to the meeting house in East Longmeadow and southerly by the highway that leads from Hale’s Meadow to South Wilbraham.” South Wilbraham became Hampden in 1878. Grassy Gutter is identified on an 1854 map and is present but unnamed on an 1894 map. 

In 1912 a plan was put forth to connect the Grassy Gutter Brook to the town water supply to increase what was stored in the standpipe situated in what is now Laurel Park. The Grassy Gutter land was largely undeveloped for years.

In 1915 there was a Longmeadow musical group performing as the Grassy Gutter Trio.

The Grassy Gutter Brook apparently was a great spot to fish and at one time was stocked with trout in the Spring during the 1930s. In 1950, it was voted to accept the so-called Grassy Gutter right of way as a public way or street. It ran between Bliss and Williams Streets. It was initially called Grassy Gutter Lane but became Grassy Gutter Road.

In 1950 there was a push to establish a high school in town. At that time 198 students were being sent to Springfield and 41 students were enrolled in private high schools. According to the Springfield Union on March 3, 1950, “It was estimated that a building to accommodate 600 pupils would cost $900,000 and operating costs would be $90,000 per year.”

It was eventually decided to build the high school on land adjacent to Grassy Gutter Road and the town approved the plan in November 1953. The land that had been purchased from Arthur and Selma Arenius.

In November 1953 approval for the construction of Longmeadow High School was obtained. It was also suggested that the road be renamed Remy Road, named after retired school superintendent Ballard Remy, or Wilkin Road, named after Longmeadow Medal of Honor winner Edward Wilkin. Neither change was approved.

Ground-breaking ceremonies were held on July 1, 1954.

The high school at 95 Grassy Gutter Road was completed in 1955.

The Grassy Gutter no longer exists and the large undeveloped tract of land that surrounded it has dramatically changed over the years. Longmeadow High School and the fourteen homes located on Grassy Gutter Road, which were all built between 1954 and 1957, are all the ties that remain. 

 Sources

Longmeadow Historical Society Archives

Longmeadow Town Reports

Springfield Republican

Springfield Union

Duckert, A. R. (1956). Gutter: Its Rise and Fall. Names, 4(3), 146–154.

Letter from Call Field

Recently, a fellow researcher discovered and alerted me to a letter in our archives from Berkeley Taylor to his friend, James D. Booth of Longmeadow. Dated July 7, 1918, and written on Call Field letterhead, the letter brings us back to the early days of aviation during World War I.

When the U.S. entered World War I, officials quickly realized that the new airplane technology could play a decisive role in winning the war. Mobilization efforts included not only building aircraft but also training pilots to fly these airplanes. The letter from Berkeley connects Longmeadow and Springfield to both of these military endeavors.

Berkeley Taylor, who grew up in Longmeadow, was eight years old when the Wright brothers first flew at Kitty Hawk in 1903; intrigued, he developed a life-long passion for flying. He joined the military two months after the U.S. entered the war and he became part of the aviation corps. Taylor learned to fly at the Curtiss Flying School and, in October 1917, he became a licensed pilot. Skilled at flying, as well as a natural teacher and leader, Berkeley Taylor became an aviation instructor, working first at Mineola, NY, then at Call Field in Wichita Falls, TX.  

Flying an airplane in 1918 was not for the faint of heart. Military pilots needed to learn showy maneuvers such as looping the loop and corkscrews so that they could avoid enemy fire during a dogfight – in an airplane with an open cockpit. Training itself could be hazardous and many men were injured or lost their lives during training exercises – there were 34 fatalities at Call Field alone. Berkeley Taylor was one of the injured. As described in the Springfield Republican, “While giving a lesson March 25 looping the loop and other difficult maneuvers the machine went into a tail-spin and not being sufficiently high in the air to make the turn crashed to the earth.” Taylor was severely injured; he recuperated in Longmeadow, returning to his duties at Call Field in June 1918. 

Several weeks later, he wrote the July letter to his friend Jim Booth back home in Longmeadow. Transcribed below, the letter gives us a lively glimpse of Berkeley Taylor’s experiences at Call Field. Undeterred by his recent crash, Taylor evidently continued to push the limits of his aircraft as he experimented with new flying techniques.

July 7, 1918

 Dear Jim:-

 I am sorry not to have answered your letter sooner but with the thermometer at 110° in the afternoon and an average of 4 hrs flying to do in a day with the cockpit 115° I am glad to be able to write you today. I’m glad to hear you have cleaned up the college exams. Here’s wishing you the best of summers.

We have no word of commissions here yet; expecting that they are coming through soon(?). I was walking out of the post last Saturday when I overheard a cadet say that there were some Springfield Curtisses just come in and I was glad to hear it. This school is equipped only with Curtiss machines now and is used entirely for advanced work; I think we will start night flying in a few weeks. The first week’s work was very interesting and the surrounding country is mapped out and suitable fields have been chosen for cross-country work and I have had lots of fun finding them and looking them over. Last week we spent teaching stunt flying and incidentally I pulled a new one for this field. It is called a corkscrew and consists of twisting completely over while traveling in a straight line; I got by with it all right although my form wasn’t proper by any means as we lost 1000 ft of altitude. These curtisses look very comfortably contrary to the opinion of the officers here, who probably try to pull them over in too much of a hurry.

To answer your questions Jim: the plate holder and film tank are yours but I prefer to retain ownership of the drawing sedan. I fully expect to have use for it later. You may however use it until I need it; certainly not for some time.

Give my regards to your mother Jim. And accept my wishes for a prosperous summer.

From your friend.

Berk.

The “Curtisses” that "Berk" was referring to were Curtiss JN-4D aircraft. Popularly known as a Curtiss “Jenny”, it was a training airplane. It is estimated that more than ninety percent of American pilots trained during World War I were trained to fly on the Curtiss Jenny. After the war, decommissioned Jennys became the principal aircraft flown by barnstormers at aerial circuses that toured the country during the 1920s. One of these airshows was held at Dunn Field in Longmeadow during Labor Day weekend in 1927. The Jenny was so iconic that it was featured on the first airmail stamps which were issued in 1918.

Berkeley Taylor also mentions that the “Springfield Curtisses” had just arrived at Call Field. What were “Springfield Curtisses”? They were Curtiss Jenny airplanes which had been manufactured in Springfield, Massachusetts by Springfield Aircraft Corporation. Founded in mid-1917 to help the war effort, Springfield Aircraft Corporation leased and retooled the Wason Manufacturing plant to build Curtiss JN-4D airplanes. The Wason Manufacturing facility, which was located on Wason Avenue in the Brightwood section of Springfield, had previously manufactured street railway and trolley cars.

Curtiss JN-4D aircraft were originally built in Buffalo, NY, but wartime demand for the training planes rapidly overcame production capacity in Buffalo. Contracts to build the airplanes were awarded to six other American manufacturers: Fowler Airplane Corporation, Liberty Iron Works, St. Louis Aircraft Corporation, U.S. Aircraft Corporation, Howell & Lesser, and the aforementioned Springfield Aircraft Corporation. Why would Springfield be considered a prime city to build airplanes? According to the Springfield Republican, “…one of the chief reasons for locating the aircraft factory in this city is the large number of highly-trained mechanics to be found here.”

The JN-4D airplane in the National Air and Space Museum (pictured below) was one of the aircraft built by Springfield Aircraft Corporation. According to the Smithsonian Institution’s website, the plane was one of 585 JN-4D Jennys built at the Springfield plant; it cost the government $4,954.34 to build.

Government funding for new training aircraft ended abruptly with the November 1918 armistice. Used Jenny airplanes were widely available for purchase and demand for new aircraft vanished. Springfield Aircraft Corporation was unable to survive and it closed its doors in 1921.

For more information on the airshow at Dunn Field or on the very interesting life of Berkeley Taylor, please see our History Notes articles on the Longmeadow Historical Society website at www.longmeadowhistorical society.org.

Sources:

Longmeadow Historical Society archives

Smithsonian Air & Space Museum

Springfield Republican: September 22, 1917; April 11, 1918; June 18, 1918

Parsons & Atwater, Charles Parsons, and Endicott & Co. Wason Manufacturing Company of Springfield, Mass. - railway car builders, car wheels and general railway, work / sketched & on stone by Parsons & Atwater. Massachusetts Springfield, 1872. [New York: Endicott & Co. Lith. 57 Beekman St., ?] Photograph.