Norwood, Mass., Upsets New England Traditions by Adopting A Plan for Developing the Town and Organizing an Alert and Enterprising Association to See That it is Followed
TO MY FELLOW CITIZENS:
At the time this story of the Norwood Community and Health Center was published in the Providence Journal which in itself, by the way, shows that its standing: was becoming generally recognized in other places, I was on special duty at the war department in Washington as an executive secretary to General Goethals who had just previous to January 1, 1918 been appointed acting quartermaster general of war and director of storage and traffic.
Following our entrance into the war in April 1917, members of the research staff of my firm Willett Sears & Company, had been doing work for the engineers corps which had come to the attention of General Goethals. The submarine warfare was causing enormous losses, shipping space was at a premium and shortly after General Goethals’ appointment he began to consider the standardization in packing of all shipments for overseas to save space and asked me to come to his office in Washington to consult about it.
Our interview was practically closed when the general asked me about the activities of my firm. When I told him of our connection with textiles and other products in which, as quartermaster general he was now interested, he abruptly suggested that I join his personal staff and help him in the organization of his new job.
I told him that my own business greatly needed me but I was soon convinced that my obligations lay with him and I agreed to come. I soon had requisitioned several members of our staff including Dr. F. A. Cleveland, whose assistance was invaluable because of his previous experience as a member of a commission appointed by President Taft to reorganize the several departments of the government.
After several weeks of the most intensive service imaginable with him, on February 6, General Goethals placed on my desk a note from Mr. Ralph Hayes, secretary to Mr. Newton Baker, secretary of war, asking that I formulate a plan for the reorganization of his personal office. Later that day I spent an interesting hour with the secretary and immediately started the study that he had asked for. Ten days later he left for France but, it was decided that I complete my work and leave a memorandum for him awaiting his return, which I did. I looked over these proposals recently and even today they seem to have considerable merit.
When Secretary Baker returned from France, he brought with him General Peyton March as his chief of staff, who gave to the secretary the most effective assistance in the administration of his office.
I left my recommendations in the office of the secretary of war on March 28, 1918 and returned to Boston where I found my own business affairs badly disorganized. As already noted, I had taken to Washington several important members of our staff and in addition to their loss to the business at this critical war period, we had permanently lost many of our operating key men who had taken commissions in the army with the result that my partner Mr. Sears, had become completely “swamped”. It further appeared that our financial position had become dangerously extended because of the need of additional capital, due to the fact that the price of raw materials had gone “kiting”.
My partner and I were both completely “played out” but it should have been quite possible for us to have met the difficult situation which we faced because, as was proven later in court, our concerns were sound both in assets and in earning power but, there was a “Fifth Column” at work. At home in Norwood, rumors were in circulation about my relations with the Norwood Trust Company—the values of the properties of the Norwood Housing Corporation, well over a million dollars, were being questioned and their relation to our comprehensive civic program misrepresented. In financial circles generally, the credit of my firm and our companies were being covetly attacked.
In less than a year’s time my firm had been wrecked and its properties worth millions of dollars had gone into the hands of others at little or no cost to themselves.
It took a year and three months, the longest jury trial in the history of this country, to tell that story, so there is no place for it here but, there are certain outstanding and significant facts which the article below vividly recalls to my mind. First, the direct means used in the consummation of this disaster to my firm and indirectly to a civic program for the town of Norwood was my large investment in these housing properties for the sole benefit of that civic program. Second, incredible as it may seem, the so-called “settlement” of my affairs and the transfer of the Willett- Sears properties was made by a man who was bound by every reason of good conscience to protect me and this civic program to which I was devoting so much of my time and money.
The jury which sat in the Willett-Sears case and awarded a verdict of about ten and a half million dollars, later expressed it in a written statement signed by all of them as follows: “When Mr. Willett was in a state of nervous exhaustion and quite ill from his efforts day and night to save his properties, he was ordered by his physician to go away for the saving of his health. This necessitated turning over his affairs to some trusted agent to continue the struggle to protect his interest. In comparatively short order Mr. Willett’s great properties had passed into the hands of others for almost nothing’’. But as a practical matter, the most important fact which I would like to bring out is that after all these years, there now is an opportunity through the Norwood Housing Trust, which holds these properties, including Westover and Holmwood, of which I am trustee, to develop them for the full benefit of the community and to restore in large measure the civic program for Norwood to which they were originally dedicated. All that is required to accomplish this is the willingness of our citizens to face the facts and give our plans their full cooperation.
After twenty long years the “Fifth Column” is still at work but “truth” is on the march and it cannot be stopped.
GEORGE F. WILLETT
Getting Ahead of the Future
Suppose that 25 years ago one of a group of visionary men who had come together to dream their dreams and talk of the welfare of Providence had said to the others:
“We all know that if our city keeps on growing as it is now, in 25 years it will be a great, sprawling place, with no more orderliness of plan than emergency patches put on the seat of a pair of worn out pants.
“Why not. then, prepare for tomorrow? Why not begin now to make a city plan which in its main points shall be followed through the years to come? The present mistakes we cannot rectify to any extent, but we can avoid some of the future ones sure to be made if the city grows at random.”
“In other words, you would aim to get ahead of the future?” queried a listener.
“That is just it,” said the first speaker.
Suppose these men carried out their scheme. Suppose after a careful study of the city and its future needs, they drew up a plan which would meet those needs. Their main idea was to lay out suburban sections with an eye to beauty and wealth, as well as utility.
“We want wide, shaded streets, with plenty of breathing places in the form of parks and playgrounds,” they told each other.
They were also far-seeing enough to prepare zones for factories in order that there might be as little indiscriminate mixing of factories and houses as possible.
Suppose, in addition, that they took into account certain sections already sprinkled with ugly, unsubstantial houses. Suppose, after agreeing among themselves that they wanted the land, they formed an association to buy it, clear off the houses and hold it in reserve for future development as a playground. a park, or, it may be, a site for a school.
On top of all these things suppose there was one among the group of visionaries who went down into his own pocket to start a civic association. the object of which was to work for the upbuilding of Providence along the suggested lines and to pull together strongly through the coming years to make the city a New England byword for beauty, health and all-round livableness.
Think of the Providence that might have been. Parks and breathing spaces everywhere: wide streets, with plenty of healthy trees to shade them; public swimming pools to augment the public paths, and roomy school yards.
There would be no need to condemn high-priced land in order to open a playground or build a schoolhouse. There would be little haggling over wider streets, and no messing of the landscape with odds and ends of lots as was the case when Empire st. became a main cross-town artery. There would be no court fights over settlements, no paying of heavy legal and appraisers’ fees.
Twenty-five years of growth according to plan and system— wouldn’t Providence be now on its way to become that ideal city which the City Plan Commission hopes to bring about some day?
Some day! How far off it sounds.
While Providence is looking forward to such an indefinite time, Norwood, the Massachusetts town, is proceeding intelligently to carry out a plan whereby it will not only keep up with, but also get ahead of the future. The Norwood idea is a business man’s idea, founded on common sense and foresight. The most complete working out of any city plan scheme yet tried in New England, it commends itself to everyone who has even the faintest glimmer of civic spirit in him.
Norwood, as you may know, is 13 miles southwest of Boston. The motor route from this city leads straight through its heart; and there is many a motorist who keeps the name constantly in mind that he may slow down as he is passing- through the town. Norwood has an efficient police force and speeders are not at all welcome.
Three years ago Norwood upset tradition and turned many eyes toward it by doing away with its old form of government and introducing a town manager. This manager is now actively on the job.
The man behind the town manager idea was George F. Willett. He has also been the main spring of the work in creating the Civic Association, the purpose of which is “to promote the welfare of the town of Norwood and to improve the morality, industry, thrift, health, cleanliness. education and good citizenship of its inhabitants.” Mr. Willett is one of the big manufacturers of Massachusetts and so modest that no picture of him has yet been available for publication.
No account of the Norwood plan and the Norwood spirit is complete without mention of Mr. Willett. And yet it must be mentioned and no more. The man behind, like Col. Edward M. House of national fame, prefers to remain well in the background. He takes no credit for the things that he is trying to do in his home town, but they say that he likes to go to other places, when he has the time, to tell of the work in Norwood in the hope that some of his remarks may fall on fallow ground.
The clubhouse of the Civic Association is Norwood’s community centre. A big. rambling structure, with an air of dignity and hospitality, too. about it. the house stands not far from the railroad station at the south end of the town. The grounds all around have been well developed as a part of the town plan. They make up indeed, the chief playground of Norwood.
In its infancy the club house was a small farm building. But when the Civic Association decided that the town needed a square to conform to the architect’s drawing it bought the necessary property and moved the better buildings from it to the community lot. But of their confused units came a harmonious whole. Other additions have been made from time to time.
There is at present in the clubhouse a floor space of approximately 30.000 square feet. And every foot, literally speaking, is doing its full duty. There are no dusty corners, no idle rooms from cellar to roof. The actual membership is between 700 and 800: but everybody in Norwood enters the building once or more during a year. If he has any civic spirit in him. he cannot stay away.
For here is the town’s life and entertainment. Under the club roof are an auditorium seating 700 persons. a thoroughly equipped gymnasium with lockers and dressing rooms, a swimming pool, the equal of any in a city 20 times the size of Norwood, bowling alleys, a billiard and pool room, children’s game rooms, a fine social hall with a complete kitchen outfit, and various rooms for the women’s clubs, the Board of Trade and the Planning Board.
Then, too, all town meetings are held in the clubhouse. The auditorium is open for concerts, lectures and public assemblies. The association gives an annual lecture and entertainment course consisting of at least six excellent numbers. The charge for a season ticket is either $2 or $1.50. There is no idea of making a large profit. Sometimes the balance is on the right side, and sometimes it isn’t.
The social hall, a light, cheerful place, is available for private parties at a small charge. The Board of Trade holds its dinners therein, and other bodies hire the hall for suppers. dances and the like. The gymnasium has classes for the young and old of both sexes under the direction of trained instructors. Exhibitions and contests keep enthusiasm warm and stir a healthy competition. Swimming is taught at the pool in winter and at: the town pond in summer.
One of the features of the physical work is a corrective department in which cases of malformation, including spinal and foot trouble, are studied and treated by instructors under the supervision of physicians. The association and the school department also work together in that the school children do their physical training at the clubhouse and the club’s directors coach the school athletic teams.
Just across the street from the clubhouse the new High School building is under construction. Was put there in accord with the town plan. Hound about are dwelling houses which in time will be taken over by the association and removed, thus giving the High School plenty of free air and play room, as well as an opportunity to beautify the grounds. The High School students will continue to use the club gymnasium, the tennis courts and athletic field.
The tennis courts are ample for the town’s needs and in summer are always in the best of condition. The athletic field has a baseball diamond and a running track. In the fall the diamond is covered and the rest of the field converted into a gridiron for football- All sizes and sorts of baseball teams use the field during the season.
The town pond is really a lake two miles long and half a mile wide, situated on the outskirts of the town. It is under the control of the Housing Association, of which more later. Bath and boathouses have been built and a portion of the shore set off for bungalow sites. Nominal charges are made for the use of towels and suits. There is a diving raft for the swimmers, while a patrol is always on duty looking out for the young and old who cannot swim.
Within a stone’s throw of the clubhouse are the Corner House and hospital. The two make the town’s health center. So thorough has the Civic Association been in its health work that Norwood today has the lowest death rate in Massachusetts and the reputation among physicians of possessing as excellent facilities for combating disease and sickness as can be found in the State. The hospital has an unusual equipment for an institution of its size; and its staff, to quote a State health official, “is performing some wonderful pioneer work in its treatment of obstetrics and of the care of babies.”
The Corner House conducts dental and eye clinics. The dental clinics which began five years ago. now take in every school child in the town. Elizabeth Ross, supervisor of the Health Center, says that the natural process of decay in children’s teeth has not only been arrested. but also overcome. There are likewise tuberculosis, skin and orthopedic clinics which, among them, handle many cases each week. Norwood has been the only town in Massachusetts voluntarily to establish a tuberculosis clinic.
“The Health Centre.” to sum up with Miss Ross, “begins with the mother in pre-natal work. Next, good nursing when the baby arrives. Then post-natal visiting as the baby grows to childhood. The child in school has the benefit of routine medical examination and supervision by the school nurse with the cooperation of any department of the Health Centre that may meet the need of the individual case.
“As the child grows to manhood or womanhood life can mean, two things—health, success and happiness or disappointment because the youth is not properly equipped to fill his or her place in the world. To make the first possible is the work of the Health Centre, but it is also the work of the citizen.”
The supervisor is a graduate nurse and a student in social service. Her assistants are all trained— both graduate nurses for service with physicians and attendant nurses for general nursing and home keeping work. They all live together at the Corner House, a place which any native of Norwood points out proudly to the stranger. Daily they visit many homes, carrying their gospel of service and doing their bit in teaching hygiene and so “minimizing the cost of sickness and the waste of human effort.”
Their influence is manifest. Norwood has not only the lowest death rate of any town in Massachusetts, but also the lowest infant mortality in proportion to its birth rate.
Behind the clubhouse is a small old-style dwelling which is known as the Model House. The furnishings are modest—an example and an illustration of an attractive, inexpensive home. Here the Civic Association conducts classes in hometraining. cooking, sewing, millinery and kindred sciences. The cost is nominal, within the reach of every girl with ambition to gain domestic knowledge.
As Mr. Willett has said, many a girl who has had instruction in the Model House has received something of a greater value than mere rooking or sewing—she has cultivated a desire for a clean, pretty, orderly house, and. convinced that such a home is not beyond expectation. she has learned its care and management
Not content with doing all these things the Civic Association recently opened its clubhouse to Norwood’s company of the Massachusetts Home Guard. On stormy nights the men drill at the club, and their commander has his office in a corner of the Board of Trade room. The Boy Scouts are also actively identified with the association, making the clubhouse their headquarters.
“You will understand by all this.” said Mr. Willett recently, “that the Civic Association is a body for the purpose of centralizing in some one place the various community activities. rather than a social organization for the purposes of bringing all the townspeople together on a common social basis. That, of course, would be clearly impossible. Each social group is bound to have its own activities, and the natural social life of the churches, lodges and other organizations is not rivalled in the slightest degree.
“It is obvious that we can never return to the conditions of the old colonial days when there was one social group centering about the church and its minister. V/e must learn to get effective cooperation out of our present situation. In our community centre we are striving to create and arouse the cooperative spirit.”
And where does the money come from to support the Civic Association? Dues of course help a little. But they are ridiculously low—$10 for all the members of a family, $6 for a man’s full membership. $3 for a woman’s, and so on down the scale. It is possible to have 100 swims in the tank for $2.50. There is other revenue from rentals. The combination of dues and rents, however, falls short of the actual running expense of the community centre.
Enter, therefore, the Housing Association. not alone for carrying out the Town Plan, but also for creating revenue which, in time, will make the Civic Association self- supporting. This accomplishment is said to be Mr. Willett’s most desired aim. He wants to show the critics and the cynics that it can be done. And he is keen to see it realized before he gets too old to lose both his inspiration and interest.
The Housing Association holds various parcels of property, both unimproved land in the outlying districts and improved pieces in the residential and business sections of Norwood. Land is held for factory sites, in accord with the Town Plan, and efficient effort is being directed toward bringing desired industries to the town. Also, as the demand arises, the plan is to build houses “in such number and under such modern standardized methods as to secure the best results at the minimum of cost.
Even now the association is erecting houses for responsible persons, who are buying them at about the monthly rent rate. The development of the bungalow property on the shore of the bathing pond is making headway, and this is a further source of revenue. All of this money becomes an endowment fund for the Civic Association. Mr. Willett explains his scheme in this way:
“For the land deeded to it. the Housing Association issues its securities to the full extent of its cost or assessed value; mortgage bonds paying 5 percent are issued for 60 percent; preferred stock paying percent is issued for the next 20 percent and the common holds the remaining 20 percent, which carries the entire equity on both the property and its earnings. Arrangements have been made by which the whole of this common stock may become the property of the Civic Association.
“As the town grows and its real estate develops, the Civic Association will thus find itself the beneficiary in a financial way of the developments which it helped make possible. Within a few years it should have sufficient income from this source to meet its entire running expenses. It is expected, too. that this endowment fund will be increased from time to time by legacies from public-spirited men and women in the community who have come to recognize the value of this work of the Civic Association.
“The bonds and preferred stock of the Housing Association offer a safe and attractive investment for the townspeople and at the same time serve to stimulate their interest in the whole undertaking.”
All property that the Civic Association may acquire under this plan is “to be held for all time by nine trustees for the benefit of the community as a whole.”
The management of the association is in the hands of a board of 27 governors, chosen by an election committee consisting of the trustees, selectmen and school committee. The control, therefore, rests “with the elected representatives of the people.” There is also a woman’s standing committee of 21. which deals with all matters pertaining to women and the home.
The Norwood idea is undoubtedly the most progressive of its kind in New England. Behind it are efficient business brains, and making it go are forward-looking men and women. The Norwood spirit, which inculcates interest in Norwood and pride in being a part of the community is strong and loyal. You do not need to talk with many persons in the town before finding it out.
Not just a date—this was a defining chapter in Norwood’s civic legacy.