Irene Hoyt:

Our Florence Nightingale on Wheels

Irene Smith Hoyt was a nurse – for most of her career, THE nurse – at the District Nursing Association, where she worked from 1927 until her death in 1972. But she was more than a nurse. “When Irene Hoyt came into a sick room,” Linette Burton wrote in a Ridgefield Press editorial, “the patient’s spirits rose as she crossed the threshold.”   

The Wilton native grew up in Ridgefield.  and graduated from the high school in 1925. After two years of nursing school, Hoyt joined the DNA, now the Ridgefield Visiting Nurse Association. 

During her 45-year career, she ministered to literally thousands of Ridgefielders. She was called Ridgefield’s “Florence Nightingale on Wheels,” and for decades her name was synonymous with the District Nursing Association — and a helping hand.

For most of her career, she was the only employee of the District Nursing Association, working out of a one-room office on Catoonah Street. As an example of what that meant, in 1956,

● She handled 933 cases. Those cases entailed 4,823 visits.
● At the same time, she provided health checks, including weighing and measuring, for 1,182 school children.
● She did 1,139 vision and hearing tests for students.
● She assisted the school physician with 596 physical exams of students.
● She performed 990 individual health inspections “for emergency care and dressings to prevent spread of contagious diseases”

During that time, the DNA was governed by seven volunteer officers including a first vice president and a second vice president, and 19 volunteer members of a board of directors. All, to see that Irene Hoyt and her patients got the support they needed.

Today there are more than 100 paid staff members of the Ridgefield Visiting Nurse Association, the modern version of the DNA. Instead of a one-room office on Catoonah Street, the RVNA has a multimillion dollar headquarters which just opened on Governor Street. 

In 1964, when Philanthropist Jack B. Ward gave Hoyt a brand-new Studebaker Commander,

he observed that she “was all by herself and she had a tiny little dilapidated car – it was almost like in the old-fashioned days when a nurse got on a horse and went up into the mountains.That little lady worked so hard that I decided to buy her a proper car.”

The building Hoyt worked in “looked so run down inside” that Ward  once paid to have the association headquarters completely renovated.

Her devotion to the welfare of Ridgefielders led to her being named Rotary Citizen of the Year in 1962.

(An accidental fall from her high chair as an infant resulted in a broken chin so damaged that doctors were unable to properly repair it. It left her with a chin that was very recessed and she appeared to have no chin at all.)  

It was in her office, doing the work she loved so much, that Miss Hoyt died suddenly one Sunday in 1972 at the age of 63.

“She devoted her talents to helping people who were in trouble – physical, mental or emotional – and her success can be gauged by the number of people who will miss her gentle ministrations,” Linette Burton wrote.

Dr. Francis Woodford: 

‘Country Doctor’

Every town had its “country doctor,” the kindly, beloved physician who had a gentle voice and would come to your home at any time of the day or night to cool fevers and soothe pain. 

That certainly describes Dr. Francis Woodford, about whom someone once said: “All I have to do is call him to feel better.” 

Born in New Haven in 1897,  Francis Bowditch Woodford graduated from Yale College and Medical School, was a lieutenant in the Army Air Corps in World War I, and came to Ridgefield in 1926. 

His first home-and-office was at New and Gilbert Streets, a rental. He moved in at the same time the state was converting Main Street from a dirt road to a paved road. That turned out to be an unusual benefit for the new doctor, who’d just hung out his first shingle. 

“People had to detour right past the house and it was so bumpy that they had to travel very slowly,” ‘Fritz’ Woodford said in a 1970 interview with Sally Sanders of The Ridgefield Press. “About the only thing they had to do was read signs.” People did, and soon nearly everyone knew there was a new doctor in town.

A year later, Woodford and his wife, Julia, moved to a house down Main Street across from the Community Center, where he was to remain for the rest of his career and life.

Back in the 1920s, there was no need for appointments. “We’d have office hours beginning at one, and people would walk in and wait their turn,” he said. Office hours ended when the last patient was treated.

Obstetrics was a part of a general practitioner’s job then, and Dr. Woodford delivered as many as 35 babies a year – often in homes. During the Blizzard of 1934, he skied to at least one home for a delivery. Another time, during a 36-hour period, he delivered four babies. 

The deliveries could be hectic. “I was with one mother, who was having her fourth or fifth,” he recalled, “when Irene [Hoyt of the District Nursing Association] called to say that I’d better hurry over to help the mother she was with.” He rushed there, delivered that baby and returned to the first mother who had promised to wait for his return. She did, and Dr. Woodford delivered that child, too. 

Homes where deliveries took place were sometimes pretty primitive. He recalled one house that had no running water or electricity — just a spring outside and a lantern held by the husband. “Doc, we’re 50 years behind the times,” the husband said. But the baby still got the most modern treatment, among the first to get the new triple vaccine, protecting her against tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough.

From 1940 until 1970, he was the town health officer, but also served many years as the school doctor and as the medical consultant to the Selective Service Board in Danbury. 

He loved nature, fishing, and hunting, During hunting season, Dr. Woodford often carried a shotgun in the trunk of his car in case he spotted some game while on his rounds. One day, he saw a pheasant and pulled the car over to the side of the road to get his gun. Just then, one of the District Nurses came over the hill and, caught in the act, Dr. Woodford was about the give up on the bird, but the nurse motioned him to go ahead. “I treed that bird,” he said. “But I completely missed my shot.”

He also loved reading – even out loud. noting that his father had always real aloud, especially Alexandre Dumas’ “Musketeers” series. “He skipped pages, going from duel to duel, leaving out all the padding between.” 

“I read aloud and my wife likes to listen,” he said.  Julia, who was his secretary throughout his career, was active in the community, especially conservation.

Woodford died in 1977 on the day before his 80th birthday. “He was kind and gentle and good,” said former first selectman Leo F. Carroll, who knew him for 50 years.