Official Publication of the St. Lawrence County Historical Association October 1990 THE QUARTERLY Official Publication of the St. Lawrence County Historical Association VOLUME XXXV OCTOBER 1990 NO. 4 CONTENTS Richard J. O'Hanlon 3 Linda Richards, Nursing's Forgotten Lady Staff 10 Press Coverage of the 1940 War Games Captain Charles ll Creekman Jr. 13 The 106th New York Volunteers in the Last Year of the Civil War: A Family's Loss and the Nation's Loss of its President Cover: Portrait of Linda Richards in Main Lobby of the Canton-Potsdam Hospital, Potsdam, NY. This publication is made possible in part with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts. Co-editors: Marvin L. Edwards ISSN 0558-1931 George F. McFarland Copyright St. Lawrence County Historical Association 1990 Advertising: Betsey Deuval Ernest Deuval Contributions: The Quarterly welcomes contributions in the form of manuscripts, drawings, and photo- The Quarterly is published in January, April, July graphs. If documentation is necessary, we request and October each year by the St. Lawrence County that it conform to The MLA Style Manual. A summary Historical Association. of the MLA format is available from the editor; Extra copies may be obtained from the St. Law- manuscripts which do not conform to the MLA format rence County Historical Association, P.O. Box 8, may be revised. Address all editorial communications Canton, N.Y. 13617, at $3.00 each plus 75& postage to Editor, The Qlcarterly, St. Lawrence County and handling. Historical Association, P.O. Box 8, Canton, NY 13617. October 1990 3 Linda Richards, Nursing's Forgotten Lady by Richard J. O'Hanlon Sitting at the head table, in a long black gown, her white hair neatly combed and brushed, she projected a certain dignity and an air of Victorian elegance. Then she was introduced as Miss Linda Richards, America's first trained nurse, but most people in the room had long forgotten her. Indeed, many attending the meeting of the Massachusetts Nursing Association that day in 1923 had never heard of her, for she had retired a full dozen years earlier, and had quickly faded into anonymity. It was a pleasant summer day and the meeting was being held in a hotel on the Atlantic shore in Swampscott, a few miles north of Boston. Offered the oppor- tunity to say a few words, she hesitated, seemed about to demur, then decided she did have something to say, rose slowly to her feet and in a high pitched, quivering voice began to speak. It was long before air conditioning, and be- cause of open windows she had to talk over the sound of the surf pounding the beach outside, and the audience strained to hear. This would be the last public appear- This photo of Miss Richards and her Japanese rickshau, driver was taken ance she would ever make, but her outside the nurse training school she established in Kyoto, Japan. (Photo words that day served as a perfect de- first appeared in her autobiography published in 1911) scription of the true nurse-a perfect description of Linda Richards' own life. "The nurse is a human being, and the ence Nightingale, and returned to in- for an instant lest she fall asleep and patient is a human being." she said. troduce the Nightingale System into miss giving the next crucial treatment. "All your skill will not make you a the curriculum of every hospital train- The baby's eyesight was saved, one of nurse if you do not have the right feeling ing school she would be associated with countless times when this dedicated in your heart for your patient." thereafter. In mid-career she traveled woman paid the price of service to an- "It is lonely to be sick. The nurse can to Japan where she established that other by taking it out on her own body. help the sick person in his loneliness country's first nursing school, where in She had at least two physical break- by being there to help not just with the order to succeed she first had to learn downs that required long convalescing head and the hands, but with the heart." a new and complicated language. A periods, and found it necessary during She sat down to complete silence, and doctor familiar with her work there her last 20 working years to limit assign- for a moment feared that she had not wrote after her death, "What Florence ments to two or three year periods to even been heard. But then came the Nightingale did for England, Linda avoid further breakdowns. applause, then the standing ovation- Richards did for Japan." Finally upon retirement in 1911, at and the old lady smiled appreciatively Later in her career she pioneered the urging of colleagues and friends she knowing she really had been heard home care for the poor and needy in wrote her Reminiscences of America's after all. the tenement and slum areas of Phila- First Trained Nurse, for years the only Linda Richards initially secured her delphia. This was the forerunner of biographical account of her life. She place in history by being the first today's visiting nurse associations. She wrote, not out of lust for fame, fortune trained American nurse, but after re- spent most of her last working years or acclaim, but as was revealed after ceiving her diploma, Sept. 1,1873, from establishing nursing schools in mental her death, just to satisfy the many re- the New England Hospital for Women hospitals. In this she was far ahead of peated requests of those who knew her and Children in Roxbury, Mass., she her time realizing that nursing for the accomplishments best and realized their went on to a varied and distinguished mentally ill required a special type of historical significance. Though well- nursing career covering 38 years. Over- training. documented and marked with her own coming many obstacles, especially oppo- Linda Richards was what is today elegant style, the book was much too sition from the doctors, she succeeded called a workaholic. Sixteen, 18 and modest to do her justice. Dr. Edward in establishing and supervising several even 20-hour work days were not un- Cowles, a physician who knew and nurse training schools at various hospi- known to her. Once in Japan when a worked with Miss Richards for many tals throughout the east and one in baby with a severe eye infection needed years, paid this tribute to her in the Kalamazoo, Michigan. constant attention, she stayed up around introduction: She went to England and Scotland the clock bathing the infant's eyes every Many American nurses likewise at the invitation of the renowned Flor- 20 minutes, never daring to doze even are entitled to high honor in es- October 1990 tablishing the new profession of nursing and in extending the field of its beneficence; but Linda Richards, as her sisters all acclaim, outranks them all, not only in priority of her diploma's date, but also in the wide extent and variety of her services . But for those who have not known Miss Rich- ards, and perhaps have never heard of her, and especially for those who know little or nothing about the wonderful development of modern nursing, something more is needed than her own modest story. Linda Richards upon retirement seemed assured of a special place in history-not only for being the first trained American nurse, but for many years one of the best. Yet today she is remarkably unknown. In the main lobby of the Canton-Potsdam Hospital in Potsdam, N.Y. hangs a large colored Members of nursing staff shoz4-~~here assisting in sztrger~jin this sccne of portrait of her in an ornate, gold leaf a Bellevue Hospital ward in the 187C )$. (Courtesy of Garrand Publishing frame. Beneath it a bronze plaque pro- Co.) claims her "The First Trained Amer- ican Nurse", stating that she was born in Potsdam in 1841. Yet in this publicity tion. In selecting her for the job, he great lady's privacy or to secure such conscious village of 7,000, home to both stated he was confident he had picked unqualified endorsement. Potsdam State College and Clarkson the most qualified nurse in America. Still, a definitive, third person bio- University where everyone takes pride Dr. Alfred Worcester in an article graphy was never devoted to Linda in their championship basketball and written for The New England Journal Richards. The most comprehensive ac- hockey teams, where a building on the of Medicine in May, 1930, a few weeks count is her own. However, she was Potsdam College campus is named for a after her death, agreed, calling her a too modest. Unlike Miss Nightingale, former resident, the late Dr. Hervey pivotal figure in establishing nurse whose biographers are legion and have Dexter Thatcher, inventor of the glass training in America. He went on to been writing her life's story for nearly milk bottle, few people seem to have compare her with Florence Nightingale. a century and a half, it has been only read that plaque. For hardly anyone If any complete story of her life recently that Linda Richards has re- in Potsdam recognizes the name Linda shall ever be written, the com- ceived any noteworthy literary atten- Richards-or knows who she was. parison will at once suggest itself tion, and that from two writers of And this lack of recognition is not between the first American and juvenile literature-Rachel Baker and limited just to her birthplace. Exam- first English trained nurse . David Collins.