Dr. Lee Losee Davenport and the Development of Radar in World War II

CELEBRATING FIFTY YEARS OF THE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

In November 1940 Lee Losee Davenport, a twenty-five-year-old PhD student in physics at the University of Pittsburgh, received a call from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology “about a secret project…he couldn’t tell me what it was, but he wanted me up there immediately.”

Dr. Lee Losee Davenport with
World War II identification and memorabilia.
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project.

The group at MIT consisted of thirty college professors, “heads of physics departments of important colleges here, as far west as Chicago.” They called themselves the “Radiation Lab,” a cover name to hide the real purpose of their study, to develop anti-aircraft radar. Davenport came to the conclusion that he was included in this elite group because he had worked with one of the professors from the University of Pittsburgh who knew that “I was responsible at Pitt for making some of the most complex equipment for my thesis.” Davenport continued, “My role in this project was to get this thing built…the think tank was the idea men, the Einstein-type people… How to reduce that thought into a piece of machinery, or a piece of radio equipment, was up to other people, and I think that is one of the reasons I was chosen…I built x-ray tubes and so on. And I think he viewed me as a scientist who knows how to build things.”

 

Dr. Davenport was interviewed by Oral History Project volunteer Janet T. Klion in 2008 at the age of 93. He described his experiences as a member of the Radiation Lab, and their invaluable contributions to the development of anti-aircraft radar, instrumental in the Allied victory in World War II.

 

As Davenport described it, the secret tasks of the Radiation Lab were twofold. Firstly, “to take a magnetron…and see if you could make a radar device small enough to fit in the nose of an airplane. In that way they hoped to be able to find the German fighter planes or bombers at night, that had been bombing London with serious damage.”

 

Davenport was assigned to Project Two, “to see if you could make a radar system that could operate in all weather, pick out airplanes – a single airplane – and follow it automatically so that it would be accurately possible to aim an anti-aircraft gun at the plane and shoot it down.”

 

RADAR, the acronym which stands for Radio Direction-finding and Range, “travels at the speed of light…and you have to measure time to that accuracy to be able to find out how far it is. You have about a hundred-millionths of a second to measure the time.” After three months of work on the project with radar, it was possible to find an airplane. “In May of 1941, seven months before Pearl Harbor, “we had a system that worked on the roof of MIT, which we could follow an airplane with, track it automatically, follow that plane without human help.”

 

The Signal Corps was impressed with this equipment and gave instructions for it to be transported to the Fort Hancock Proving Grounds in New Jersey. To do so, it was necessary to fit the apparatus into the body of a truck. “I drove it down myself, on the Merritt Parkway” with “an armed guard sitting alongside me.” It was tested on December 7, 1941 and “we had a working machine.” After a few changes, it was sent to the headquarters for the anti-aircraft command in Virginia. After additional tests, the military decided to buy it “right then and there.” The project was now named SCR 584 (Signal Corps Radio 584) and General Electric and Westinghouse were instructed to each build 1700 of them. The instructions to these companies were, “Don’t change a thing. You’re to reproduce exactly what the Radiation Lab people are showing to you, and we want them right away.”

 

Exterior view of SCR 584
(Signal Corps Radio 584).
Contributed photo.

The first practical use of this anti-aircraft device “occurred in England. One of them was shipped over. I was over there with it, and a German aircraft came over Scotland, and we knocked him out of the sky, right away.” Its first use in combat occurred “at the Anzio beachhead (in Italy in early 1944) when “the two 584-directed gun batteries shot down nine out of the twelve planes that the Germans had tried to use.”

 

The most significant use of SCR 584 occurred on D-Day, June 6, 1944 “when we invaded the Normandy coast.” The challenge was to get the equipment there to protect our troops. “Now that was a major effort. This is a semi-trailer loaded with equipment and they had to get them ashore at, or a day after, D-day.” Nineteen of them were waterproofed in Wales to be floated ashore. “I was there to design and work that out and they did get ashore very promptly, and helped to defend our troops. We knocked down a lot of planes.” By the time the war ended, “we were tracking our own airplanes...and I was working on beacons and other systems which we used to steer them, with maps inside the 584s.” Overall, Davenport concluded “that about a thousand German aircraft were knocked down by anti-aircraft fire, all of which was directed by SCR 584 radars…After that, they became used widely everywhere in the Pacific.”

 

Interior view of the SCR 584 radar tracker
that guided pilots to their targets.
Contributed photo.

Before joining the Radiation Lab at MIT in 1940, Lee Losee Davenport had completed his course requirements for his doctorate at the University of Pittsburgh but had not written his thesis. In 1946, The University of Pittsburgh granted Davenport a PhD based on his classified work at MIT. “So, I got a PhD on a secret project, and it was a secret for twenty-five years after World War II ended.” Davenport mused: “I have been the luckiest guy in the world. It was luck that I got singled out to go to the Radiation Lab.”

 The interview “Radar Development in World War II” may be read in its entirety at the main library. It is also available for purchase by contacting the OHP office. The OHP is sponsored by the Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Our narrator’s recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.

Riding in Greenwich

CELEBRATING FIFTY YEARS OF THE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

These days, often-heard complaints among Greenwich residents center on the town’s ever-increasing traffic congestion. Whether attempting to traverse the Boston Post Road or North Street or the Merritt Parkway, drivers are frequently beset with frustration over the amount of time it can take to get from one end of town to the other. 

Theodore F. Wahl
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

Theodore F. Wahl, born in 1898, was interviewed by Oral History Project volunteer Marcia Coyle in 1974. His memories are of Greenwich one hundred years ago and will allow the reader to pivot from thoughts of cars and traffic to horses, hounds, and the hunt in Greenwich.

Ted Wahl was at the center of horses and riding in Greenwich throughout his life. His family moved here from Florida in 1902, when Ted was four years old. His uncle, John Wahl, had opened a stable in Greenwich “down on Bridge Street. He finished that in 1902 and that’s when my father brought us up from Florida…he taught riding there, and Dad was with him.” Ted dropped out of school at age fourteen and worked for his uncle. 

John Wahl's horse stable
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

In time, people desired “a little bit more riding. They had the Field Club down there, and they wanted riding connected with the Field Club.” According to Wahl, the Field Club stable, “built by the Greenwich Riding Association, had held twenty-two horses.” The stable was enlarged to accommodate up to forty horses. “Then they got a few hounds and started a little drag hunting,” a form of equestrian sport in which mounted riders hunted the trail of an artificially laid scent with hounds. This pre-determined route would be laid to take advantage of the best jumping opportunities. The hounds purchased “were English hounds bought from different places. They even got some from Detroit to drag with.”

Ted Wahl moved from the Field Club to the management of Round Hill Stables in 1924, at that time part of the Round Hill Club, with fifty-five horses. Eventually, Wahl bought the stables, land, and buildings from the Round Hill Club in 1965. Wahl was proud to say that he was involved in teaching the third generation of riders. “I was talking to a lady the other day downtown and she said, ‘You know what year you taught me to ride?’ I said, ‘I haven’t the slightest idea.’ She said, ‘1912.’”

The “country” was wide open in the early days of the sport. “There was a lot of field and there was plenty of room to hunt. We weren’t tied in ’cause where the Round Hill Club is now, that was all Wilson’s meadow. That was all open and we could go out and jump straight on up to Round Hill.” Riders could hunt in both Fairfield and Westchester counties and were known as the Fairfield and Westchester Hounds. Their hunting grounds stretched “as far as the other side of Rye…north up almost to the other side of Bedford… Then we’d cut the other way, over to Stamford… We had a big country to hunt.” 

Fairfield-Westchester Hunt
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

According to Wahl, the hunt was recognized by the National Steeplechase and Hunt Association in 1915. Wahl recounts the day “we were dragging up near the North Village Church and a deer jumped up…of course, the hounds followed him and the field went with them. And then they kind of thought, ‘Well, if we can hunt a deer around here, why can’t we hunt fox…? And that’s how they come to start the fox hunting in Greenwich, after the drag [in 1921]”

Wahl recounted the story of John McEntee Bowman, president of the Biltmore [now the Westchester Country Club], elected Joint Master in 1921. “He built a beautiful kennel [at the bottom of Pecksland Road]. The old kennel building is still standing there [at the time of the interview in 1974]… We hunted one day from there all the way down to the Westchester Biltmore. We laid a drag and hunted all the way down there… They put peat moss on the hard roads then, so the horses wouldn’t slip and could jump the fences.”

Theodore F. Wahl with his horses and buggy
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

 

At other times a hunt might start at the Bedford Village green with as many as fifty to seventy-five people. A favorite meeting place, particularly on Thanksgiving Day, was the Round Hill Store. Another meeting spot was located on Clapboard Ridge Road, “There’s a red gate there. Goes in back of the Boys’ Club property.” The red gate was eventually replaced by an iron sign simply stating “The Red Gate.”  Beyond Riversville Road, “we used to meet at Riversville ford. That’s where we crossed the river…the ford’s right where Mayfair Lane comes down.” Other meeting places included Middle Patent Church, East Middle Patent Church, the reservoir on North Street, and a kennel above the Merritt Parkway on Stanwich Road.

Construction of the Merritt Parkway “made a tremendous difference. We lost several hounds on the Merritt Parkway when that got there. It made us hunt further north… It cut the country right in half.” As Wahl described it, “For a long time it was dirt and that was good because we could gallop right up alongside the road when the hounds were there.”

Greenwich map drawn
by Betty Fletcher
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

In 1948, fox hunting stopped. “Our last Master of the Hunt was Mr. John Howland… The country began to get built up by that time. But he went and got these drag hounds, and he hunted the drag hounds for four years…until 1952. And that’s when the hunt stopped altogether.”

According to Wahl, in its day, “The hunt here was a big addition to Greenwich. It was a big drawing card with the people coming in here to live. But they got in here and they built us up, so we couldn’t hunt anymore.” The end of an era.

The interview “Riding in Greenwich” may be read in its entirety in the main library location. It is also available to purchase by contacting the OHP office. The OHP is sponsored by the Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Our narrator’s recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.

By Mary Jacobson, OHP Blog Editor

 

A History of Emergency Medical Services in Greenwich (GEMS)

by Mary A. Jacobson

Cos Cob Fire Department ambulance, circa 1960. Photo by John Gotch. Courtesy of Greenwich Library.

Over the years, a trip in an ambulance to the emergency room of the local hospital in Greenwich has changed dramatically. In the earliest days of automotive transport in the 1920s, transportation to the then-Municipal Hospital may have been by a van that was no doubt considered a state-of-the-art vehicle at the time. For many years, ambulances were housed in local fire departments which, in partnership with the police and volunteers, provided needed and fast transportation to Greenwich Hospital.

In 2006, Oral History Project volunteer Marian Phillips interviewed Charlee Tufts, executive director of Greenwich Emergency Medical Services (GEMS), which began service in Greenwich in 1986. Tufts explained that the purpose of GEMS is “to provide Advanced Life Support, paramedic-level ambulance service for the Town of Greenwich.”

Tufts described the early history of ambulance transport in Greenwich: “Ambulance services before firehouses were actually provided by funeral homes, and so you had hearses, and, when it then transferred into the fire departments, there was still the old Cadillac.” By 1976, federal regulations started to identify what an ambulance should look like, and what requirements, equipment, and training were necessary to be as effective as possible.

In 1984, Roger Pearson, First Selectman of Greenwich, supported funding for hiring “an administrative director of EMS for the Town of Greenwich to coordinate and standardize protocols, services, and training… for the type of organization we’d like to see in town.” Charlee Tufts was selected by the town’s Board of Health for this challenge. “I don’t think in your professional life a lot of people have the opportunity to actually develop an entire system.”

As Tufts explained, “Previous to GEMS being founded (in 1986), the ambulance service was at a Basic Life Support level… it was mainly splinting, giving oxygen, bandaging, and controlling bleeding.” What it evolved into (with GEMS) was “the ability to provide just about complete emergency care that you would receive in the Emergency Department. Very sophisticated care…. So, GEMS was the product of two years of study and research.”

This study included an evaluation of six months of emergency calls to determine the breakdown of those cases that would have benefitted from Advanced Life Support (45 percent) including an IV, medication, intubation, defibrillation. “It became abundantly clear that this town was too big to cover with only one station… And so, we started looking not only at response times but at the clusters of where the calls were most predominant. We chose three stations; and, amazingly, those three stations are still in effect today (in 2006).” A fourth, on King Street, is now fully operational as well.

“So we went to the BET (Board of Estimate and Taxation) with a budget, and by that time it had been determined that we really felt that the most cost-effective way to do this was to become a non-profit…I think we were probably the first to be designed like this in the State; and I know we’ve been used as a model outside the State.” This would eliminate another employee base in town; lead to less expensive malpractice insurance; and allow for fundraising.

Tufts recalled that, in the process of seeking RTM (Representative Town Meeting) approval, “Many physicians, particularly the cardiac physicians, would come with us to all the RTM meetings… to explain the system that we were proposing and to support it from their medical standpoint, that this was something very important for the town.” On May 12, 1986, “I thought I’d never forget that date … our budget was voted in by a solid majority of members of the RTM.” Proudly, Tufts recounted, “So GEMS was the product of two years of study, research, presenting budget after budget after budget and with the culmination of going into service July of ’86.”

Recruitment of personnel was not difficult. “We offered a very fair wage and benefits. . . There was also a lot of interest and excitement about a service starting up that was dedicated to just emergency service and to patient care.” Paramedic certification and licensing required “at least a sixteen-hundred-hour course between classroom didactic and practical experience and internships.” Today, all ambulances are staffed with at least one paramedic and an EMT.

Volunteers also continue to play a part in delivering services, “a much smaller number who are actively certified and riding shifts,” many choosing to ride as “thirds” to assist, rather than replace a two-person crew. In addition, there is an active volunteer group of Explorer Post, teenagers who provide help on the non-emergency side and, once qualifications are met, may ride in the ambulance.

Tufts was proud of the fact “that each year we are improving on our technology.” About ten years into the program (in 1996), “Twelve Lead EKGs” were made available which allowed electrocardiograms to be performed on the ambulance and transmitted directly to the Emergency Department enroute to the hospital. Automatic External Defibrillators became available as well and doubled the cardiac arrest save rate. “Our biggest challenge is finding enough room on the ambulance for all the equipment we are carrying.”

According to Charlee Tufts, “We are the third arm of public safety . . . not as an adjunct to other services. And I think as time goes on people are recognizing even more that every call we answer deals with human life and not property, but human life.”

Charlee Tufts retired from her position as GEMS Executive Director in 2017 after thirty-nine years of service with the town’s ambulance corps. That year she was honored by induction into the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame. Under her years of leadership GEMS received numerous awards, including being cited as an exemplary system for a “save rate,” ranking GEMS among the best in the nation.

In 2023 GEMS answered 6,517 calls with a 96 percent response time of under eight minutes, including 74 percent of them under five minutes, resulting in 4,323 trips to the emergency room.

The interview “History of the Greenwich Emergency Medical Services (GEMS)” may be read in its entirety at the Main library location. It is also available for purchase by contacting the OHP office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Our narrator’s recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.

Two GEMS ambulances. Courtesy of GEMS.

Firehouse Recollections

CELEBRATING FIFTY YEARS OF THE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Chester West (or “Westchester” backwards as he liked to say) served in the Greenwich Fire Department from 1970 to 1986. On six occasions in the years 1987 and 1988, he described many situations he encountered over those years to Oral History Project volunteer Penny Bott-Haughwout. Chet loved his job and had already compiled his experiences over the years into books totaling 2400 pages (“unedited”). “I enjoyed doing it. It was something I could look back at with pleasure.”

 

Chet West
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

Until 1978, Chet was assigned firefighting duty in Byram. “At the time there was a residency requirement that the town police and fire departments live in Greenwich.”  Although Byram had “high potential” for fires because “we had lumberyards and gasoline and oil storage…they had the smallest area to cover.” In addition, “Byram is the only place that is very well hydrated. If you notice, you’ll see hydrants just about every place. You don’t have to lay too much hose in Byram.”  Of course, with its proximity to I-95, the fire house handled many situations from car fires to motorists asking directions. “One guy had his car burning up, the back seat on fire. He pulls it right into the ambulance bay. He thought that this was a drive-in fire department… Well, the ambulance bay is right next to the gasoline pump!”

 

Chet remembered well the horrific fire at Gulliver’s discotheque in 1974, and the shocking Mianus River Bridge collapse in 1983. He was on duty at the dispatch desk the night the bridge fell into the Mianus River. However, most of his recollections for the OHP interview were of the everyday experiences he encountered in the department. Chet described Byram as “the friendly neighborhood fire department. We knew everybody… We did have the relationship, the compassion, and the respect from the public. It was a very good, secure feeling… I lived right next door, so it was easy… You’d have a lot of the neighborhood people stop in and say hello… Some referred to Byram as “going to the country club.”

 

Chet did quite a bit of cooking at the fire house and it was not unusual for the cop on the beat or people in the neighborhood to stop by and say, “’What’s that smell?’ … Well, you knew their motive. They wanted to stay for lunch… We always gave them something.’’ Chet and his cooking partner Hank were not above experimenting with rabbit, venison, or other game Hank had hunted. One dish he described was raccoon, “And it was very good. It had a white sauce on it… We all ate it.” Chet did have to admit to someone who asked for the recipe, that it really wasn’t turkey a la king.

 

Preparing firehouse food
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

An event that was popular in the community was the annual turkey roll with chances for prizes along with the ever-popular free chowder. “I think it was a seventy-quart pot… Everybody was willing to help… It was very nice.” After seven years on the job, Chet noticed himself getting weaker.  “…then my fingers were getting an atrophy situation, and I was just getting tired quicker… That was May, 1978.” Chet described his diagnosis as a “spinal muscular atrophy type.” However, as he wanted to continue to serve the fire department in a useful capacity, he was transferred to “Central” in Greenwich as a dispatcher, a position he held until his retirement in 1986.

 

Studying a Greenwich map in the Watch Room
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

Going to “Central” (the main headquarters on Havemeyer Place) was like “a rural country boy going to the big city for the first time… Being in the main business section of town, there was very little of the neighborhood atmosphere that I was so used to in Byram. I was assigned mainly to the watch room.”  The term “watchman” has a long history. “In the old days, firemen used to patrol the streets, watching out for fires, and the name just carried over.” While that role was normally rotated within the department, for Chet, “my assignment was permanent watch. It’s called the ‘hot seat.’ You have to make decisions. If you’re right, you’re praised. If you’re wrong, well, you’re really condemned.” Some of these crucial decisions included determining how to respond to a call -- two pumpers and a ladder truck? two ladder trucks? assistance from neighboring district stations? Chet became acutely aware of the size and complexity of Greenwich and its 265 miles of roads with approximately 1,034 names. 

 

From his viewpoint as a watchman, Chet developed a unique perspective on people from the many calls he had to field. “Sometimes people call us for the most menial things… We’ve become the main information service for the town when the Town Hall closes.” Some of these requests fell into the category of “full moon callers.”  As Chet described the phenomenon, “The full moon brings out a lot of callers… Whether it’s coincidence or fact, I really couldn’t tell you. But from my point of view, on a full moon, I’m usually ready for it… You get them (calls) both day and night, but the night is more frequent because people can’t sleep, or something’s been bothering them. They want to talk to somebody. Well, who can you talk to at midnight? … I don’t expect to get any sleep that night.”

 

Answering calls at "Central"
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

Chet recounted calls ranging from complaints about landlords, to requests for child care on snow days, to inquiries about zip code numbers. Perhaps that is why Chet stated that “a lot of times, GFD is not only Greenwich Fire Department, it’s ‘Gifted For Diplomacy’… Unfortunately, our productivity is only measured in the number of fire calls. It’s not measured in the number of calls we answer.”

 

In this blog we must limit our reciting of the myriad memories that Chet West described in his one-hundred-and-twenty-seven-page interview with the Oral History Project. His reminisces are vivid and colorful, and full of fondness for his days in the Greenwich Fire Department. “I liked that job. As I say, I was a hometown boy… I looked forward to going to work.”

 

The interview “Firehouse Recollections” may be read in its entirety or checked out at Greenwich Library and is available for purchase at the OHP office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Our narrator’s recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor. 

 

Terry Betteridge: Renaissance Man

by Mary A: Jacobson

Scott Mitchell

Mention the name Albert “Terry” E. Betteridge III to most residents in Greenwich and they will associate it with the esteemed jewelry stores in Greenwich, Palm Beach, Aspen, or Vail.

However, the Terry Betteridge who was interviewed by Oral History Project volunteer Jan DeAngelo in 2013 is the home-grown boy whose endearing memories of growing up in Greenwich bring a smile and, at times, a tear.

The Betteridge family legacy in jewelry goes back to 1897. Photo by Regan Avery.

The first name “Albert” goes back to his great-grandfather, who emigrated to the States from England to Ellis Island in the 1890s. “So, we all had nicknames just to separate one from another. I became Terry because I was terrible.”

Until the age of six, he lived in a home in Riverside. He and his sister, just two years older, would go out fishing in a “fake Boston Whaler” with a “seven-and-a-half horsepower Evinrude. My father used to say that two of the horses had died and a couple had thrown shoes, because it just barely putted.”

The next home which the Betteridges inhabited was on Riversville Road, across from the Boy Scout reservation. On about eight acres, there was plenty to explore and plenty of mischief to get into. Terry’s job was cutting grass and taking care of the sheep. “My father thought all children should take care of animals, so we had sheep and goats.” Terry’s memories included “riding my sheep around the yard. We’d ride them like horses.”

What kind of activities filled the idle hours of a young boy in Greenwich before video games and computers? “It was just a fun place in those days… I would go down through the woods, follow the west branch of the Byram River, exploring the long-gone Wilcox Nut and Bolt Works factory dam and millpond.” Terry reminisced, “In the winter, we would ice skate on that pond, had great big hockey games there, and if you hit the puck across the dam, it would go off thirty feet. There was always that concern that one of us was going to take the fatal dive, but our parents kind of let us do anything in those days. We just had to be home by dark.”

When Terry managed to save up money as a child, he would happily go to Molly’s stationery store and buy a balsa-wood plane. “Then I’d ride my bike out to Westchester Airport, because I knew some of the pilots there and I was fascinated with flying. They’d let me fly my balsa-wood airplane on the runway… right alongside a Cessna. Then I had to be home by dark. No more concern than that. It was really a lovely time.”

Terry’s memories of Parkway School centered mostly on the long ride on the school bus. “It was quite a trek over, hour each way. First ones on, last ones off, so you got to be good friends.” A number of those who shared this “Room of Gloom” bus ride remain lifelong friends. Terry decided with one of them to find a way to make a little extra money by setting up a toll road on Riversville Road. “So, we got a long stick, and we closed off Riversville Road, and as the cars stopped, we’d say, ‘It’s a quarter to go any further.’ And, amazingly, about the first five people each gave us a quarter.” However, the sixth car was a police car “and he made us go find the people. We knew who they were because if you drove up Riversville in those days, you were going home.” However, further disgrace came after the policeman took them back home “and we had to tell our parents what we were doing, and how awful we were.”

Terry’s favorite, most memorable, teacher was Mrs. Kawolski in the fourth grade. “She taught me all sorts of silly things including how to fold a letter… and I still do it. It’s the superior way.” In Greenwich High School, Dan Barrett, an oceanography teacher, was “a complete inspiration to me… everything a teacher should be… one of the gems of public education.” He took the entire class to the Grand Bahamas to go diving. First, the students took diving classes at the YMCA to become certified. Then, they had to raise money to go on the trip through “bake sales, movies, snowplowing, and shoveling.” He and local boy Hans Isbrandtsen “would get up at two in the morning to go plow and shovel out people in snowstorms to make the money to go on the trip.”

Terry’s interest in natural history took him to Connecticut College, where he pursued interests in ornithology and ecology with some thought of becoming an environmental lawyer and following his maternal side of the family into law. However, Terry’s OHP interview encompasses a wide range of experiences from working in the Everglades to Zambia (where he met Steve Irwin) to guiding tourists in British Columbia. Eventually, “I began to miss New England a little bit, truthfully.”

His return to Connecticut was precipitated by his dad’s’ heart attack and the bankruptcy of the family jewelry business in Greenwich in 1973. Terry answered his father’s despondency by reminding him that “you still have the faith and credit of the guy who was in the business a long time and well-known. Let’s start it up again.” Also looming was the Betteridge family legacy dating back to his great-grandfather, who listed his occupation on his immigration papers in the 1890s as “goldsmith.” However, Terry found that his dad, “a big robust drill sergeant kind of a dad… didn’t want to come in anymore, so it was up to me.”

The Betteridges still owned the building on Greenwich Avenue, even if “the business was then defunct, and the building also empty.” Terry decided to learn the business from diamond dealer friends of his dad’s, from setters, and from polishers. “I knew a lot of the diamond dealers on a very friendly basis, because I’d sit and grade things for them.”

Suffice it to say that the store reopened and an expanded Betteridge’s three times its original size relocated in 2017 to the corner of Greenwich Avenue and East Elm Street. As of 2022, it was acquired by Watches of Switzerland. This home-grown Greenwich boy can now witness the Betteridge name achieve a global reach.

The interview “Terry Betteridge: Renaissance Man” may be read in its entirety or checked out at Greenwich Library and is available for purchase at the OHP office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Our narrator’s recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.

Betteridge at its present location on Greenwich Avenue. Photo by Regan Avery.

 

Kokusai Gakuen – the Greenwich International Academy -- Celebrating Fifty Years of the Oral History Project

by Mary A. Jacobson

Summer Taiko Festival. Photo provided by Kaoru Kay Yamamoto.

Kaoru (Kay) Yamamoto was a woman ahead of her time. Interviewed in June 2023 by OHP volunteer Connie Gibb, her prescience in matters concerning the education of women and children had far-reaching effects.

Although well-educated in Japan, Kay’s career opportunities there were limited in the 1970s. At that time, “It was almost impossible for female college graduates like me to get a job at top Japanese corporations.” At most, companies they hired college-educated women “for tea services and clerical jobs.”

Kay’s quest for business opportunities for herself and other Japanese women took her down a long and winding road. Realizing that she first needed to be proficient in English, Kay “studied English at university and, after a couple of years’ experience as a secretary, I went to London, where I encountered the Speedwriting shorthand system which helped women get higher-paying jobs in London.” Experiencing a new familiarity with business English covering technical terms in banking, insurance, medicine, advertising, and law, “This became the foundation to allow Japanese women to be equipped to work for international corporations in Tokyo.”

Not one to rest on her laurels, Kay came to New York, where she took a teachers’ training course at (the now-defunct) ITT Technical Institute. Once back in Japan, she collaborated with the president of a recruiting firm in Tokyo to open the Women’s Institute for New Studies, enabling many Japanese women to avail themselves of a knowledge base that would allow them to more easily procure jobs in Japan in the international business sector. Over a ten-year period, more than one thousand women received training at the Institute.

In 1984 Kay’s husband obtained a job in New York. “In the 1980s, the Japanese economy was booming, and Japanese families were moving to Westchester and Greenwich… I leapt at the opportunity to live in America,” where she has resided since that time. In Westchester County, there was one Japanese school, sponsored by the Japanese government. In 1992, that school, for elementary and middle school-age students, relocated to the former Rosemary Hall campus on Lake Avenue in Greenwich. “You can tell how big the (Japanese) community was. They had four hundred and twenty students.”

Instead, Kay and her husband opted to send their children to the Greenwich public school system. “It was our goal to raise (them) bilingual, meaning Japanese and English speakers, not confining their frame of reference only to Japanese language and culture, but opening their minds to the world.” On the weekends, the children attended the Japanese Weekend School in Westchester.

As Kay met other Japanese parents, a missing piece in this educational process became apparent. “According to the Japanese compulsory education standard, the Japanese school, sponsored by the government, didn’t start until the first grade…. A group of Japanese mothers approached me, knowing my educational background in Japan, and looked (to me) to sponsor a Japanese preschool and kindergarten in Greenwich.”

To prepare to fulfill this new unmet educational challenge, Kay undertook a laborious five-year program. She enrolled in a master’s degree program in early childhood education at Sarah Lawrence College; consulted with directors and owners of reputable preschool programs in the area; recruited Japanese teachers; renovated the interiors of the Diamond Hill United Methodist Church building in Cos Cob to create educational and playground spaces; met the requirements of the Greenwich Building and Health Department; and procured a bank loan for operating funds. No small order.

Kaoru Kay Yamamoto, founder of the Greenwich Kokusai Gakuen, the Japanese preschool and kindergarten in Greenwich. Photo provided by Kaoru Kay Yamamoto.

In 1997, Greenwich Kokusai Gakuen (Greenwich International Academy), with 60 three, four, and five-year-olds, opened as a bilingual preschool and kindergarten. “ . . . . the big difference is I have two head teachers, one American head teacher and one Japanese head teacher… I introduced phonics from day one… When the Japanese children advanced to the Greenwich elementary public schools, most of them adapted smoothly without any language problems. That was my pride.”

One of Kay’s stated goals was “instilling multicultural appreciation and curiosity from a young age.” The children were given “passports,” each with twelve countries to explore. They would learn the various customs and cuisines – for example, how Greek gyros are like Japanese gyoza. “Different name, different spice, but concepts are the same… We thought it’s so different. No, no, no, it’s all same.” In addition, thanks to the efforts made through the Parents Association, there were “amicable and friendly relationships to build bridges, including through cultural events and exchanges, promoting Japanese culture among American friends at the Greenwich Public Schools and wider community.”

The events of 9/11/2001 and its aftermath marked a period of transition from the high point of the Japanese economy and corporate relocations. “Around the same time, the Japanese economy went bust, and the stagflation hit… The happy millennium boom was blown out.” This greatly affected the numbers at the school and “we started to recruit more international students from all different backgrounds,” including Italian and Ukrainian families who would then become bilingual (or trilingual) in English and Japanese. Tuition cost was around $900 monthly.

Once COVID hit the States in 2020, the school was closed “for a week, then a month, then for an indefinite period of time.” Forthcoming decisions would need to be made on how to deal with air circulation and sanitary conditions, teacher health concerns, health department guidelines, and children’s mask-wearing, to name a few. “Without looking at the children’s faces and teachers’ faces and expressions, how can three and four-year-old children develop language and normal cognitive skills?” With the difficulty of forecasting the timing of recovery and the increasing financial burden, “… we had no choice but to close (in 2021) after twenty-four years’ operation.”

The year 2021 was the end of an era for Kaoru Yamamoto, an era in which so much had changed. In Japan, now, “the government has encouraged mothers to go back to work due to the labor shortage and has begun supporting full daycare, preschool, and kindergarten tuitions.” With her steadfast belief in the importance of early childhood education, Kay hoped that, in time, the “American government will support working mothers by assisting financially the daycare and early childhood education fees to relieve burdens of young families.”

The interview “Greenwich International Preschool and Kindergarten” may be read in its entirety or checked out at Greenwich Library and is available for purchase at the OHP office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Our narrator’s recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.

Preschool children at International Day celebration. Photo provided by Kaoru Kay Yamamoto.

Summer STEM class. Photo provided by Kaoru Kay Yamamoto.

The 16th Winter Show in 2014. Photo provided by Kaoru Kay Yamamoto.

 

Greenwich in the Early 1900s -- Celebrating 50 Years of the Oral History Project

by Mary A. Jacobson

Maher Bros. Lumber Yard and Coal Tower on Steamboat Road, circa 1920. Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society.

“I don’t know how we lived through that. That’s the God’s truth. The people today couldn’t do it.” So spoke Frances Sprague who, with husband William Sprague, were Irish immigrants to Greenwich in the 1890s. They were interviewed in 1976 by Oral History Project volunteer Betsy Cullen. Well into their eighties by then, their memories of life in the early 1900s in Greenwich were vivid. Often finishing each other’s sentences, they were never at a loss for words describing their early years on Steamboat Road.

Harsh winters played a major role in many of their recollections. The year 1917 was a particularly severe one. “The Showboat Motel (now the Delamar) … that’s where the coal yard was. Barges of coal would come in there… but they were froze out by Captain’s Island. Three barges of coal… So, they had to get sleds and horses, and they went out there (on the ice) and brought some of the coal in.” The depth of the ice in the Sound at that time “was twenty-seven inches of saltwater ice.”

The Sprague marital home on Steamboat Road was situated on stilts. “Our house, it was moved (around 1890). That little house is an old yacht club. It was moved from Tweed Island…You know the porches they have on yacht clubs? Well, they was all the way around…The house was moved on a barge… Patsy the clam man, he seen it moved.”

Steamboat Road was no stranger to flooding. “At very high tide the water would come up…We were right on the water… You could sit on the porch and watch the fish jump there.” One of eight children, Frances had spent her early years in another house on Steamboat Road. She remembered its cold, blustery winters. “We had no heat. Built our own fires. My father used to saw wood and saw wood, and he had the whole place full of it. Wood burning all the time… We got all the heat from the kitchen. No heat up in the bedrooms…The water we would bring up at night would be frozen in the morning… You couldn’t see through the windows for three months of the year. Windows all froze up.”

Lights? Frances recounted: “We had no lights for a long time until we finally got them in.” Toilet facilities? “Outhouse…You’d go out in the yard, and the wind would whistle up.” According to her, “And we were brought up that way. We always had it that way.” William grew up in comparative comfort on Lewis Street. “We had heat and running water. We had a bathroom, and we had a lavatory downstairs. We had everything in the house.”

Frances and William met at Greenwich Hospital when it fronted on Milbank Avenue. He was an apprentice painter and she had been working in the kitchen from the time she was twelve. William explained, “Yes. I met her. She had a basket of eggs, and I was looking for a broom. I bumped into her. I almost broke the eggs.”

Travel was limited. “There was no cars then hardly. You had to be really wealthy to have a car… And at the station in the morning, it was all coaches and carriages.” One coach they admired was owned by Robert Bruce (later of Bruce Park and the Bruce Museum). “Poppy Bruce they called him.” It was a “tally ho” (a four-in-hand coach) with a horn “like Tarzan used to have.” The driver “wore a big high hat and a buttoned uniform all the way down… I think their coat was purple with silver buttons and the hat would be the same with the silver band and the little bells on the hat…That coach was cleaned from stem to stern. . . like patent leather.”

The shops on Greenwich Avenue in the early days were far from the high-end ones that are located there now. “The wealthy people didn’t buy their stuff in Greenwich then. They had it sent from New York…The stores here had to depend on the middle class of people and the poor people.” At the lower end of the Avenue, their memories included Klumpp’s Bakery, Knapp & Studwell’s grocery, a tavern, a lunch wagon, the shoemaker, and Quinn’s grocery, among others. Near Grigg Street, “There was a boarding house that Mrs. Carmichael ran. Must have been twenty rooms…The town was starting to get built up” and workers needed a place to stay. The A & P and Breslow’s Liquor Store led to the Post Office (now Restoration Hardware). “That was a hole in the ground… That was a regular swamp there where that Post Office is.” The land where Betteridge’s now stands was a baseball field.

William was not nostalgic for days gone by. “You can have them good old times. I didn’t have a nickel in my pocket. A loaf of bread could be bought for a nickel then. Couldn’t buy the loaf of bread…This is heaven compared to what we had when we were married… When we look back, we often wonder how we done it.”

The interview “Greenwich in the Early 1900s” may be read in its entirety or checked out at Greenwich Library and is available for purchase at the OHP office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Our narrators’ recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.

Horse-drawn sleigh headed up Greenwich Avenue in the snow, 1904. Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society.

Eugene J. Moye, Sr.: Soldier, Policeman, Teacher

“Undaunted. Relentless. Determined” — words to describe Eugene Moye’s life from 1933 to 1994

Eugene James Moye, Sr. arrived in Greenwich in 1933, at the age of eleven, to join his mother, who was a domestic in the household of Augustus Richards. Moye’s mother had discovered that he was not attending school while living with his cousin in New York City and proceeded to enroll him in Hamilton Avenue School.

Eugene Moye and his wife Jeanette standing between their four children
Photo courtesy of Greenwich Library Oral History Project

There, Moye met Esther Lauridsen, “a very wonderful teacher, everything a good teacher should be… If I’m anything at all, I owe it at least partly to her. I guess I became a teacher because of her… I’ve never forgotten her. I did get back to thank her for what she did for me before she passed on.”

Thus began Eugene Moye’s life in Greenwich and led to his productive careers of soldier, educator, and as the first black policeman in the town. Annette B. Fox of the Oral History Project interviewed him in 1994 as he chronicled his life in Greenwich.

According to Moye, “Very few blacks attended Hamilton Avenue School” in those days. From his Italian friends he learned “the wrong kind of Italian” as one of them told Moye the meaning of the words some other boys were saying to him. Then, “…as soon as someone said something to me, I knew what they were talking about, and I would reply with my fists… After that, we shook hands and that was the end of it.”

A searing memory for Moye occurred at graduation from Hamilton Avenue in 1937, when parents of a white student objected to him being paired with their daughter during the graduation march. Instead, Moye was paired with another girl “who did not mind… I’ll never forget her. She was a perfect lady… Maybe she doesn’t remember that graduation, but I do.”

Moye graduated from Greenwich High School in January 1941. He was not encouraged to apply to college. “Nowadays, guidance is an entirely different thing and I know it quite intimately as to the efforts and lengths they go to encourage students and get them to develop their potential.” However, in his day, “…I do not remember ever having an appointment with the guidance person at all.”

In the fall of 1941, Moye enrolled in a National Youth Administration program in Maine, where he studied sheet metal. Moye went to Port Chester “and got a job tacking floats for anti-submarine nets.” Shortly after, with war being declared, Moye decided to join the army. It was “on a segregated basis… We found ourselves doing the less ‘heroic’ jobs like quartermaster, bread baking, laundry, fixing trucks. I mean, not that it didn’t help – don’t get me wrong – but it was a put-down as far as I was concerned.” Later, “They were allowing them (blacks) to go into combat, which they did, and I have some friends who survived to tell about it.”

Eugene Moye, U.S. Army
Photo courtesy of Greenwich Library Oral History Project

When Moye returned to Greenwich, his mother was still working “and she wanted me to go to college.” Moye enrolled in Teachers College of Connecticut in New Britain, now Central Connecticut State University, graduating in 1950. “…it was pretty rough-going because I had been away from the books. But I was determined to do it.” There, he met a fellow student, Jeanette, who became his wife in 1951. His marriage to a white woman occurred at a time when such unions were prohibited in many other states. Eugene and Jeanette were married for sixty years until Moye’s death in 2011.

Having graduated with honors from college with a degree in history and education, Moye returned to Greenwich in 1951 to apply for a teaching position. At the conclusion of his interview, it was politely suggested that he “go to an Indian reservation and teach.” So, Moye paused his professional teaching direction and took a job in construction where “all they wanted was muscle and a willingness to work” before deciding to apply for a position with the Greenwich Police Department. He was accepted there and “of course, the big question was, what was a man with a college education doing on the Greenwich Police Department? Economics, that’s what it was.” While Moye explained that “most police departments now recommend that you have a college degree…in the thirties they had people that hadn’t even finished grade school.” Most notably, however, was the fact that Moye was “the first black man there.”

Moye went on to obtain a graduate degree in police administration at City College in 1959. “After I got the degree, I said, ‘Oh, boy, I’m on my way now.’ No. In the very next examination, I still got knocked down in the service rating, the subjective evaluation.” Moye concluded that he would not receive a promotion in the department. “So, after that I began to think in terms of something else to do, and I started substitute teaching, and that was a lot of fun.” He continued to sub and do police work for about eight years. During that time, in 1967, he became a member of the first Youth Division of the Greenwich Police Department. “I liked that kind of work. . .. I was inspired with it, I really was.”

 

Eugene Moye, Greenwich Police ID
Photo courtesy of Greenwich Library Oral History Project

Eventually, Ed Holden, principal of Western Junior High, met Moye “on the field in June 1971 and said that he needed somebody to teach social studies. I said, ‘I am your man.’” Moye resigned from the Police Department and began his career in teaching. “When I walked in for the first teachers’ meeting, it was no great surprise. That’s okay. That’s the way I liked it… It was very professional, very friendly, and the only question was whether you were competent and could do the job… I loved every minute of it.”

 The interview “Soldier, Policeman, Teacher: Overcoming Discrimination” may be read in its entirety or checked out at Greenwich Library and is available for purchase at the OHP office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Our narrator’s recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.