Uncovering the past on Mare Island – Times Herald Online

Thomas L. Snyder, a local Navy Veteran and retired M.D., has dedicated his retirement to researching the history of Mare Island’s Naval Hospital. Now, everything he’s learned is available to read in his recently released book.

On back and forth trips to Washington, D.C., the recently retired Snyder used to spend hours pouring over old documents and records at the National Archives.

“You walk into the space, you list the materials you want, and two hours later on carts come out these dusty old books and it’s magical,” says Snyder. “It’s just magical.”

He used to return home after a day at the archives covered in dust from brown leather book bindings. In those documents, Snyder found information that helped piece together the history of Mare Island’s Naval Hospital.

That was back in 2003, and in the years since, Snyder has continued to return to the history of Mare Island.

In 2024, he finished his work with the publication of his book, “Mare Island Naval Hospital: A History, 1864-1957,” and on Aug. 23, he will give a free talk at the Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum. The book examines medical advancements made over time, the people who influenced those advancements, the hospital during wartime and much more.

Although technically his research for his book began in retirement, Snyder has had a lifetime of experience with naval medicine as a retired Captain with the U.S. Navy Medical Corps and former doctor at Kaiser Permanente.

In 1969, Snyder was in his fourth year of medical school. The United States was at its peak involvement in the Vietnam war and there was a 100 percent doctors draft, says Snyder. “You knew that when you graduated medical school, at some point you were going to go into the service,” remembers Snyder.

Dr. Thomas L. Snyder, a long-time Vallejo resident, recently wrote a history of Mare Island’s maritime medicine. he will give a talk on the book at the Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum on Aug. 23. (Courtesy of Thomas L. Snyder)

The Navy had a program that helped pay your way through medical school, so Snyder signed up. After finishing school and a short internship, Snyder served as a medical officer aboard the USS Buchanan in the South China Sea.

“What was in that for a medical officer?” laughs Snyder. “Not one darn thing.”

Eventually he ended up at Naval Auxiliary Landing Field in Monterey.

“It was paradise for a young fellow and a young wife with a kid on the way,” says Snyder. “That’s literally where we caught the California disease.”

After his time serving in the Navy, Snyder joined the reserves, where he stayed for 24 years while working as doctor at Kaiser Permanente-Vallejo.

Despite his published book, Snyder never considered himself a writer.

“I think what compelled the writing was just the story that I was uncovering,” he says. He learned about other scholars and doctors that had written their own tellings of the history of Mare Island. He learned about Mare Island as the Navy’s premiere amputee center, as a place to care for Spanish Flu victims, and as so much more.

However, Snyder wasn’t singularly focused on his book over the course of his retirement.

“The work went on for 10 years and then stopped, and for almost 10 years the book lay fallow until my wife basically said to me, and this is a direct quote, ‘If you don’t finish this book before you die, I’m going to kill you,”’ says Snyder. So, as a final push, he rented a workspace in downtown Vallejo to go to every day and work on the book, he says. He finished in 2024.

With so much time and effort spent researching and writing the history, it would make sense for Snyder to want to shout it from the roof tops. In actuality, Snyder says he understands that the book probably isn’t for everyone.

“This is very much a niche area,” he says. Aside from human interest stories, books on medical history are “beyond the interest of the average citizen,” he says.

The book does include human interest aspects however, some of which he will discuss at his upcoming talk at the Naval and Historical Museum. “There were some sweet stories that came up, which I think make the book live,” said Snyder.

For over 20 years, Snyder has off and on been compiling and collecting information, from the stories of everyday people to medical advancements, years of dedication compiled in the pursuit of good stories and remembering history.

Learn more about “Mare Island Naval Hospital: A History, 1864-1957” and his free upcoming talk at vallejomuseum.net