Dr. Alvin J. Hurt’s wife, Maud, saw a need and did her best to fill it
From the Village News archives: Oct. 15, 1998
When Dr. Alvin Judson Hurt and his wife, Maud McLaurine Hurt, came to Chester in 1904, it was the country. Dr. Hurt liked the woods, he liked to fox hunt, and he liked the people. That is why he wanted to be a country doctor.
The Hurts took up residence in the Chester Hotel. Dr. Hurt had his office on the first floor, and he and Mrs. Hurt lived on the second. “They saw Chester as a poor community, no culture advantages,” said their daughter, Laura Sloan, who still resides in Chester. They were not trying to be movers and shakers in the community, they just wanted to help. That was their instinct.”
Help they did, and Mrs. Hurt could earned the title of “The Mother of Chester.”
Dr. Hurt would have his office hours in the morning, and then he would visit his patients in the afternoon. He would travel to Beach, Shirley Plantation (taking a boat across the river), Bellwood Plantation and down as far as the Appomattox River. “Those were long trips,” said Laura Sloan, a contented woman in her senior years. “My mother would travel with my dad, and when I was older I was able to travel with him. He taught me a lot about history of the area during those trips.”
“When my parents traveled, they saw the need for schools and churches for the children who lived further out from Chester,” she said.
The Hurts were instrumental in the establishment of Chester High School. According to Sloan, they found education very important.
She started the first Chester Public Library, which was located in the Worrell’s Barber Shop building on Old Hundred Road. She served as its board chairman for several years. Maud Hurt was a charter member of Chester Baptist Church and superintendent of the Junior Department for 42 years.
According to Sloan, one day when her mother was traveling with her father on patient calls, she was troubled when she saw so many children with no place to attend church or school. So she returned home and wrote missionary churches all over the country asking them to donate $1 for the purpose of building a Baptist Church in Chester. The donations came in, and her missionary work began.
Mrs. Hurt went on to organize the Bermuda chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She played a major arole in the establishment of the Woman’s Club of Chester and the Chester Garden Club.
Hurt was also quite active in the American Red Cross, and she helped to organize the Chesterfield County chapter, serving as its chairman for 21 years. She also served as chairman of the Chesterfield chapter of the American Cancer Society and was vice-chairman of the Richmond Chapter.
Dr. and Mrs. Hurt were married in 1894. Dr. Hurt died in 1936, and Mrs. Hurt died in 1956 at the age of 86. They are survived by their daughter, Laura Sloan, their granddaughter, Mrs. Stephen Harvey, who also resides in Chester with her husband and their children, Angela and Joe, and their grandson Carl Judson Sloan, who lives in Washington state.
