Standish, Hilda Crosby

Physician and lecturer on family planning, Standish was born in 1902 in Hartford, Conn. A graduate of Wellesley College (1924) and Cornell University Medical College (1928), she worked at Philadelphia General Hospital (1928-1930), Bellevue Hospital (1930-1931) and St. Louis Maternity Hospital (1931). The following year she accepted an appointment to teach obstetrics at the Woman's Christian Medical College in Shanghai. Returning home in 1934, she became medical director of the first birth control clinic in Connecticut, which opened in July 1935; birth control was then illegal in Connecticut and most other states. The clinic closed in 1940, following the arrest of staff at a similar clinic in Waterbury.

In 1936 she married E. Myles Standish, a dermatologist; they had five children. Hilda Standish gave up the practice of obstetrics and lectured widely on sex education and family planning. She served on many community boards and as trustee of Wellesley College and Hartford College for Women. She was inducted into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame in 1994, and received Wellesley's Alumnae Achievement Award in 1998.