Dorothea Hughes Simmons

Biography of Dorothea Hughes Simmons

Most of the following comes from the biography of Mrs. Simmons published by the Baltimore Monthly Meeting except where noted.

Dorothea Hughes was born in Milton, Massachusetts on September 13, 1891, the daughter of Sarah Forbes and William Hastings Hughes. Her parents had first met in England in 1874, when Sarah Forbes accompanied her father on a visit. They were married in 1887. (Massachusetts History ) According to Ancestry.com this was her father’s second marriage, he had been widowed in 1864 and had 5 children from his first marriage. Dorothea’s brother Walter Scott was born in 1888. She attended Milton Academy, took courses at Radcliffe and later studied nursing in New York. (DHSB p3 )

William Hughes died in 1907 (Ancestry.com) and Sarah Hughes in 1917. Her cousin (Massachusetts History ), Amelia Forbes Emerson said her mother’s death caused “a complete and drastic change … in Dorothea’s life”. ((DHSB p3-4 )

During WWI, Dorothea worked as a nurse in Washington. She also made frequent trips to her Hughes relatives in England, and on one of these trips she joined the London Meeting of Friends. (DHSB p3 )

Red Cross Nursing School, Warsaw Poland

Ms Hughes received an appeal from a Polish couple she had met in Boston, Ignacy and Helena Paderewski (Witkiewicz ), for help in setting up nursing services in Poland. In 1920 she offered the American Red Cross $10,000/year for 3 years to set up a school of nursing in Poland. (DHSB p5 ) Other sponsors of the program were the American Red Cross, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Polish Red Cross, the Ministry of Health, and the University of Warsaw Faculty of Medicine (Witkiewicz ). This became known as “The Warsaw School”. An American nurse who visited in 1931 said it was the “best example of American ideals in nursing education”.(DHSB p4 )

Dorothea was not directly involved with the operation of the school but maintained a correspondence with the director. She continued her financial support until 1928 when the American Red Cross turned over administration of the school to the Polish Red Cross. (DHSB p4 ) The Rockefeller Foundation, in 1922, pledged $100,000 for a dedicated building for the school and this was opened in 1929. (Witkiewicz )

This building was used for Polish Soldiers in 1939 and remained Polish until it was closed by the Germans in October 1944. The Soviet installed government did not re-open the school but allowed a new school to open in Gdansk in September 1945. The Warsaw School has never retured to Warsaw but graduates of the school in Gdansk still receive certificates from the Warsaw School. (Witkiewicz )

While in Greece in the mid 1920s, Hughes traveled to Poland to ” receive the highest decoration which that country could give to a foreigner and civilian.” (DHSB p5 ) “

American Farm School, Salonica, Greece

The Thessalonica Agricultural and Industrial Institute, or American Farm School, was founded in 1904 by Dr John Henry House and his wife Susan Adeline House. (American Farm School ). Dorothea Hughes joined a team of English Quakers (Friends) in 1923/4 to help in the villages around Thessalonica following the Greco-Turkish War (1919-22). She “used her nurse’s training and skill to relieve the suffering. She travelled through the villages, walking, on horse back, or mule back, scrubbing, cleaning, nursing the sick, bathing them, and feeding them” (DHSB p6 )

Arthur Bertholf, who would later move to Horsham, was in charge of the village work being done by the Friends and was being overwhelmed so Ms Hughes took over his teaching responsibilities “..and for a number of years she was one of the most faithful and inspiring teachers the school has ever had. ” One of her innovations was a program to teach math based on farm economics. (DHSB p7 ).

Teachers at the school were given one group of students to work with through graduation, Ms Hughes’group was the class of 1927. She asked the boys what they aspired to, and upon graduation she told them the “means had been found” to help them fulfill their dreams. Several went to colleges in the US and hrought their new knowledge back to Greece. (DHSB p7-8 )

Dorothea also, through the Friends, funded a scholarship program to allow boys to attend the American Farm School.

Charles House, son of the founder of the American Farm School said this of Dorothea Hughes:

The seeds which Dorothea Hughes Simmons planted so quietly and unobtrusively are bearing rich fruit and will continue to be a blessing to many people. She planted so quietly that many have never known who was responsible for the help they received. She believed in giving as Christ taught us, “When thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.” And she has received her reward in the love of her friends, the relief of the suffering, the spread of knowledge, but, greater than all these, must have been the welcome of her Master.

Jamaica

Dorothea Hughes married David Simmons, a planter from Jamaica, in August, 1929. They moved to “Castle Daly” in Walker’s Wood, Jamaica.

The Jamaican economy, in 1929, was agricultural but most people either worked small, often rented, plots or worked in unskilled positions for others. Making a living was very difficult.

Mrs. Simmons started a number of projects to help the local people become more self-sufficient. These included the wool co-op where she encouraged families to raise sheep and send the wool to Friends’ Craft Industries in Highgate. She also started a workshop to teach boys to become furniture makers.

A much more ambitous project was the establishment of a cooperative farm in St Mary. Dorothea purchased land for a settlement that later became Friends’ Town and all the farmers have paid for their land

Deeds Not Words

Dorothea’s cousin Her cousin (Massachusetts History), Amelia Forbes Emerson, in the biography, described her:

Dorothea was a consistent person. In her personal life she was plain to the point of austerity. Although she inherited a fortune she spent practically none of it upon herself. She lived completely simply, usually travelled second class, dressed inconspicuously, and made no concessions to the current fashions. It was deeds, not words, which counted with her; she abominated sham and hypocrisy and never indulged in uplift talk. She may never have talked about her religion, but she lived a life of devotion to others, a life of self sacrifice and cheerfulness.

Mrs Simmons died at her home, Castle Daly, Walker’s Wood, Jamaica on November 26, 1962 and is buried in the Friend’s Cemetery, Highgate, Jamaica.

Horsham’s Memorial School (Ambler Gazette 4/20/1933 pg 8 col 1)

The Ambler Gazette of April 20, 1933 reports on the opening of the new Simmon’s Elementary:

The new public school of Horsham township at Prospectville will be known as the “Dorothea Simmons Public School,” and bronze tablets are being cast to mark the building. The unveiling of these and dedication of the structure will mark the formal opening of the new building at a date to be designated later in the spring -probably in May.

Mrs. Simmons donated the 10 acres of land upon which the building stands. It was a part of the former Thomas B. Anderson farm, and was purchased by her after the World War. Later on she married an English citizen, and now makes her home in Jamaica, although she at times passes through this section, as her summers are spent in Massachusetts.

She is a granddaughter of Thomas Hughes, of England, author of “Tom Brown’s School Days” and “Tom Brown at Rugby,” both well-known publications, classics for young men. When Mrs. Simmons donated the ground she let it be known that while primarily it is for educational purposes, yet it is for community uses in the broadest sense and for athletic purposes, evidently leaving it to the school board to work out the details of widest community uses within the broadest interpretation of the provislons of the gift.

Simmons Elementary School

Dorothea Simmons Public School opened as a 4 room schoolhouse in 1933 as per the Gazette. According to the Patch it was expanded in the 1950s and renamed Simmons Elementary School. The current Simmons Elementary School on Babylon Road was opened in 1992. The old building was used as a Montessori and then for several years as a Kindergarten (My daughter attended Montessori there in 2000, the Kindergarten was opened in 2001 and she returned for that in 2002. The Kindergarten center lasted only a couple of years due to a population bubble of children that ebbed. The building was closed in 2011. The HHSD has been trying to sell the property but is involved in a law suit over the status of the property as a gift by Mrs Simmons to be used for educational purposes.