Apr 1, 2017
It is hard for me to get my head around this idea, but lifelong resident Richard DeSorgher — Mr. Medfield, Mr. Medfield History — and his wife Julie just announced they are selling their Lawrence Circle house and moving to Mashpee. The 25th Medfield History Day Trolley Tour coming up on June 17 will be the last.
“You’re famous and beloved here. Why move away now?” I asked him.
“When I was a kid, my father had a fishing boat for many years on West Island, and we loved going out on the water. Now, as empty nesters with more house than we need, Julie and I had been thinking about retiring and moving to the Cape. We had looked in Eastham and other places before we bought this one in Mashpee. We’re just going to retire, take it easy, and enjoy life.
“There is no Mashpee Historical Society, but there’s a lot of activity around Mashpee, and we’re looking forward to our new life there.
“After we move, I plan to drive to Medfield – it’s only an hour and 10 minutes from Mashpee — once a week to spend the day with my mother. I’m not moving to the other ends of the earth, and I’ll keep plenty of contact with Medfield as Julie and I carve out a new life in Mashpee.”
The Early Years
Richard is the third of child of Lee and Ruth DeSorgher and the first born after they moved to 23 Summer Street, Medfield, the family homestead now owned by younger sister Eileen and husband Brian Flynn. Richard has two older siblings, Lee of Holliston, and Nancy of Brewer, Maine. His father, Lee Sr., Mr. Medfield Hockey, died in 1996; his mother now lives in Tilden Village on Pound Street.
Richard graduated from Medfield High in 1970 and went to UMass-Amherst, where he majored in history and minored in English and education.
An Uneasy Start
When he graduated from college, the United States economy was in the post-Watergate period known then as stagflation: high unemployment combined with inflation. Gas lines and a slump in the U.S. manufacturing industry. American automakers struggled mightily – they had to meet new safety and emission standards, so cars of the early 1970s became costlier, bigger, heavier, thirstier, clumsier, slower, and crankier…and less competitive with the Japanese. And don’t forget bell bottoms, double knits, overdone hair, and other fashion atrocities.
In Medfield, the student population was down. It was a bad time to be a rookie looking for his first teaching job. Richard started as a substitute and was then hired as a social studies teacher at Medfield Junior High. At one time he was even shifted into the English department – and while he was an English teacher he was ironically voted Medfield’s History Teacher of the Year!
How did he become so interested in history? Family influence played a part, of course. But Richard mentioned a telling incident when he was still in elementary school. He and a friend were running through an overgrown area on North Street opposite Dale Street. His foot caught on a hidden rock, and he hit the ground hard. Out of curiosity, he went back to look, brushed away the tall grass, and found the forgotten memorial stone marking the birthplace of Lowell Mason.
He put it out of his mind until a few years later when the house on the lot was demolished and the ground was about to be dug up for a foundation for the new apartments. He thought of the stone and went to the historical society and told then-president Paul Hurd about it. The stone was saved before it could be plowed under and was later given prominent placement on the property.
A Break at the Bicentennial
A turning point occurred as a result of Richard’s participation in the celebrations of the bicentennial year, 1976. Richard researched and gave a memorable presentation on the Indian attack of 1676. Not long thereafter, he stopped to fill up at a gas station; at the next pump was Jim Morris, acting superintendent of schools. Morris had been impressed by the presentation and brought Richard in for a job interview in his office the next day. So started his 35-year history teaching career.
Richard brought his interest in local history to the classroom. He started with assigning students long-established Medfield families and sending them to the historical society to do the research on them. One Saturday morning 30 students descended on Paul Hurd at the historical society. Paul couldn’t handle it all alone; he told Richard he simply had to help. Thus began Richard’s long association with the society as a board member and eventually president.
One thing led to another – family research led to having student build models of Medfield’s historic houses, which led to the bike tours and canoe trips that began in the early 1980s and continue to this day.
“I’ve always been surprised that you were allowed to do the bike and canoe trips, given the potential for lawsuits,” I said.
“It wasn’t easy,” he replied. “For the canoe trips, in anticipation of objections, we had each kid pass a swim test in advance. When we went out, we had EMTs and police with radios with us, just in case – even though the water in the Charles is only about three feet deep!”
Sports and Other Diversions
Besides teaching, Richard – a big-time sports fan — did play-by-play announcing at the Medfield High football games for 20 years. He didn’t realize how far his voice carried until someone yelled out “Richard DeSorgher!” while he and Julie were standing in the parking lot at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. It came from a Medfield woman who recognized his voice because she’d had no trouble hearing his commentary at her house on Hatter’s Hill Road when he was in the broadcast booth at the high school!
Also a sports fan, I mentioned to Richard that I’d been at the thrilling pennant-clinching game for the long-shot, over-achieving Red Sox at Fenway Park October 1, 1967. (The unexpected success of 1967 team is why sellout crowds have been the Fenway norm for the last 50 years.) Richard replied that he’d been at Fenway when Carlton Fisk hit his game-winning homer in Game Six of the 1975 World Series. Touché!
In addition to being Mr. Medfield History, Richard both preceded and followed Ann Thompson’s 30-year tenure on the board of selectmen. He also served on the park and recreation commission, the historical commission, the first Dwight-Derby committee, the committee to study memorials, and the Norfolk County Advisory Board. And he is the official town historian.
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Richard’s lasting impact on Medfield historiography and history teaching is equaled only by William S. Tilden (1830-1912), co-founder of the historical society and author of the History of Medfield – 1650-1886. Richard wrote the History of Medfield – 1887-1925 and has published two books of short articles about Medfield history, This Old Town, Remembering Medfield, and This Old Town, FLeetwood 9. He knows far more about Medfield history – and brings it to life it more enthusiastically – than anyone else I ever expect to know.
I’m confident that when Tilden died, people thought the knowledge in his head would be lost forever. But a couple of generations later, along came DeSorgher. For the future, que sera, sera.
In the meantime, I’d like to back up Richard’s brain, and thank him.