Passport photo of Florence Hathorn. Her grandfather, Henry H. Hathorn had served with the 77th Regiment during the Civil War.

A youthful Florence in front of the Hathorn Family home at 740 North Broadway. Supplement to the Daily Saratogian 1898.

Postcard view of Congress Hall. "Congress Hall looms up on high. Majestic, spacious, grand; 'Tis Hathorn's and our village pride, unequalled in the land; To go up stairs you take the car, and seated there at ease. By steam you're quickly borne aloft, to any floor you please.”

The ambulances were painted a nondescript gray, emblazoned with a large Red Cross, and the Hackett- Lowther name as well. Because the vehicles were donated, no standardization of types were planned, which must have made operations more difficult, with the women needing to understand many designs from Chalmers, Daimler, GMC, Mercedes, Vauxhall, Wolseley and the ubiquitous Ford Model T.

Red Cross responsibilities increased for Florence Hathorn for the rest of 1917, and near the end of the year she purchased a Ford Model T, fitted with an ambulance body, and had it shipped to France. Along with her lifelong friend Elizabeth Houghton Don, they trained with mechanics at the Saratoga dealership to understand everything required by the vehicle, which had revolutionized the American road and was fondly known as the “Flivver.” Early in 1918 they sailed together for Europe, where they would drive the ambulance.

They joined the Hackett-Lowther Unit, and thereby the French Army, where Miss Hackett and Lowther were commissioned as Sous (Second) Lieutenants, and the drivers as soldiers with the rank of private, or poilus.

The primitive nature of their automobiles led to much effort for the Hackett-Lowther drivers. The chassis required daily lubrication; when operating in freezing conditions the radiators needed to be drained after each shift
and replenished before starting the next; since, along
with antifreeze, the electric starter was in the future,
the ambulance cars needed to be hand-cranked. All maintenance needed to be performed outdoors, despite the vagaries of the weather.

Rest was nearly impossible due to constant shelling and air raids, with the skies raining shrapnel. Sanitation was non-existent. Florence and the drivers learned to live with quick naps, being always “on-call,” meager rations and near constant dysentery, viewing the most horrific injuries and maimed corpses resulting from trench warfare, and the perpetual presence of rats.

They wore uniforms; tunics with square pockets and leather belts, matching skirts coming below the knee, breeches underneath, a flannel shirt with silk tie all khaki color, high trench boots, a gas mask bag supported by a strap around their neck, and an Adrian “tin-hat” helmet.

Besides being capable mechanics, the Hackett-Lowther drivers also did some heavy lifting in transporting the wounded on stretchers. Les mesdames routinely drove without lights through the night on combat damaged and fog shrouded winding roads which were also being used by troops with equipment and horses, littered with trees and every manner of debris, and across damaged bridges. C'est la guerre.

An armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, ending hostilities, and the combative forces began to disband. Florence and every member of the Hackett-Lowther unit were awarded the French Croix de Guerre.

The French city of Tours was the headquarters for supplying American forces during the war, and the site of the wedding of Florence Hathorn to Reginald Durant in late February of 1919. The couple returned to Saratoga Springs in April.

The nineteenth amendment, giving women the right to vote, was newly enacted, and party leaders saw Florence, due to her publishing background and patriotic service, as a wonderful candidate for state office, which she declined.

Times change; places change; and people change, and in 1923 the Durants divorced. Florence would remarry to Sidney J. Smith in 1926 and continued to be a presence in the Spa community. She sold the Grand Union to a NYC syndicate in 1943. Florence owned 740 North Broadway until her passing in 1971.

That August, racing returned to Saratoga Springs, and Florence embraced it, mixing easily with luminaries of the sport, after witnessing what the imposed absence had wrought on the Spa. She also was fully engaged in the social activities through the entire year. A young man, originally from Montreal, was employed at the Saratoga Sun, and Florence was impressed with his wit and charm. His name was Reginald W. Durant.

In addition to his duties at the local daily, Mr. Durant became part of Florence’s management team at the Grand Union in 1914, and as track season was starting that year, a crisis erupted in Europe, where military alliances cascaded into a war on the continent.

Florence was fully enmeshed in the society of Thoroughbred racing, Palm Beach and Saratoga societies, where the geographies changed, but the personalities remained constant. She embraced the craze that winter of 1915 at Palm Beach, where women were wearing 'zebra' stockings on the beach, and walking the palm dales wearing the imperative striped dress.

Returning to Saratoga Springs, Florence Hathorn volunteered with other young women like Blanche Nolan as well as her lifelong friend and neighbor Elizabeth Houghton, in Red Cross booths seeking donations set up in Army tents in front of the local Post Office. Florence staged many other fundraisers in the Grand Union’s Crystal Room.

All efforts redoubled when the United States entered
the war in April 1917. In August, Florence entered thoroughbreds at the Saratoga track under the name of Reginald Durant, who had been dispatched to France with the Aviation Corps of the American Expeditionary Forces.

In the United Kingdom two women, Norah Hackett
and May Lowther, wanted to aid the Allied war effort in some way other than nursing, but were refused by the British Army. Norah Hackett had been a journalist before hostilities and May Lowther was a competitive fencer and champion tennis player who used the nickname “Toupie,” a French term describing a whirling top. These partners envisioned a privately funded, all-women corps operating an ambulance and canteen unit at the battleline.

Toupie Lowther’s involvement in fencing and tennis had introduced her to people of a more privileged class, and when war broke out, she was able to appeal to these connections to purchase some trucks, but mostly touring cars, which would be modified with an ambulance body. These ambulances, serving the front lines, would be driven and maintained by women.

With the military engagements in heated combat in France and Belgium, the British and Americans would not consider woman near the battles, yet the French Army defending their homeland welcomed the courageous volunteers, especially after the Russian Revolution eviscerated the Eastern Front.

Initially Hackett-Lowther’s patrons were able to provide 22 vehicles and 30 female drivers, recruited from across the United Kingdom, France and the United States. Some of these women drivers were married, but for the most part were daring single young women, with some background in operating automobiles. These women were mostly from the privileged class of their various societies, and had the wherewithal to decide for themselves to join an adventurous, albeit risky, motor ambulance operation under female direction.