RHODY LIFE

The story of Dorothy Hughes

Posted 11/3/21

By KELLY SULLIVAN On Oct. 20, 1916, 13-year-old Dorothy Hughes told her mother she didn't feel well enough to practice the piano that day. Her mother, Florence (Gardner) Connolly, asked her what was wrong. Dorothy hadn't been acting normally for weeks.

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RHODY LIFE

The story of Dorothy Hughes

Posted

On Oct. 20, 1916, 13-year-old Dorothy Hughes told her mother she didn’t feel well enough to practice the piano that day. Her mother, Florence (Gardner) Connolly, asked her what was wrong. Dorothy hadn’t been acting normally for weeks. She was pale, always tired and complaining of feeling sick. Dorothy burst into tears. She told her mother she was pregnant.

Florence and her second husband, house painter Michael Connolly, lived in Providence with Florence’s two children by her first marriage to toy shop sawyer Frederic Hughes. With Florence’s permission, Dorothy had been doing housekeeping chores for a local man, from 5 to 7 each night, since the age of 10. The man, 43-year-old Walter L. Johnson, owned a bowling alley on Weybosset Street and paid Dorothy $2.50 per week.

Dorothy told her mother it was Walter who was responsible for her condition. What really happened after that, we’ll never know. But less than three weeks later, Dorothy was dead.

During her eventual court testimony, Florence stated that she had taken her daughter to a female doctor who refused to alleviate the situation. She said she then brought Dorothy to 78-year-old surgeon Albert Orlando Robbins of Johnston, who told her that he would do what she asked for $25.

Robbins performed the operation on Dorothy two days later. It resulted in blood poisoning from which the child suffered for 16 days. She died at RI Hospital on Nov. 7.

Both Dr. Robbins and Walter Johnson were arrested. During the trial, a document was presented which was said to be a deathbed declaration dictated by Dorothy. It read, “My name is Dorothy Vivian Imelda Hughes. My home is 297 Fountain Street, Providence, Rhode Island. I realize that I am very sick and that I can not get better and that I am about to die. I wish to tell how everything happened. I found that I was in a family way was when Walter Johnson took me to the doctor. Walter Johnson took me to Dr. Robbin’s office at Thornton a week ago today. That was on Monday. We met Dr. Robbins at his office that morning at about noontime. The doctor made an examination and told me that I was in a family way and had been that way for two months and three weeks. He told me that he could not do anything that day but he told me to come back on Tuesday. Tuesday morning, Walter Johnson went with me to Dr. Robbins’ office.”

The alleged declaration went on to explain the operation in gruesome detail. It stated that Walter had paid the $25, that she later went home and that, for the next three days, Dr. Robbins went to her home two or three times per day to check on her. That Friday, according to the declaration, she called for a different doctor as she didn’t feel well. This doctor did not know about the operation so simply treated her for inflammation of the bowels and sent her to RI Hospital.

Everything in the declaration was in direct opposition to Florence’s testimony. Robbins pleaded not guilty, stating that when Dorothy came to him, she was suffering from septic poisoning and he simply tried to save her life. Walter pleaded not guilty as well.

Walter testified that he had a fatherly interest in Dorothy and had never violated her. He stated that he had never even heard of Dr. Robbins until he read the later reports in the newspaper. He said he had bought Dorothy clothing and took her to the theater on Tuesday nights. He said he had talked to her mother about how he could teach Dorothy to become an expert pool player and then she could take her on the road and make a great deal of money. He told the court that Florence thought that was a great idea and allowed him to take her to his pool room on Sundays to teach her the art of the game. He admitted, however, that he intended to marry Dorothy when she turned 16.

At the close of the trial, in the winter of 1917, Robbins, a graduate of Harvard Medical School, was found guilty of performing an illegal operation. His medical license was revoked and he was sentenced to five years in prison. He died in 1924.

Walter was found guilty of violating someone underage and of aiding with the commission of the surgery that cost the girl her life. By 1935, he had returned to managing his bowling alley.

Kelly Sullivan is a Rhode Island columnist, lecturer and author.

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