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
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