Theodore William Hatcher was born in 1895 in Waterbury, Connecticut, to Henry Alfred Hatcher and Nettie A. Dubois Hatcher. He attended Yale College from 1915 to 1917, and was on the class of 1919’s track squad his first year. In 1917, he married Romietta Leonora Jackson, and they had two children, Natalie Roberta Hatcher and Theodore William Hatcher, Jr. Romietta may have been one of the first Black secretaries employed at Yale. They later divorced, and Romietta remarried to Earley Emmett Caple (Yale Law School, 1924).
In 1917, Hatcher worked at the Greist Manufacturing Company of New Haven as a clerk. He later worked for the U.S. Postal Service. As of a 1926 directory, he was living in Waterbury and working in banking. In 1930, Hatcher relocated to Delaware County, Pennsylvania, where he worked as a butler, chauffeur, and possibly in business for Thorpe Nesbit, Esq. According to Souls: A Genealogical Collection, a family history written by Hatcher’s granddaughter Gwendolyn J. Hatcher, a friend may have financed Hatcher’s education at Lincoln University, suggesting he returned to college while living and working in Pennsylvania. Hatcher died in 1976.
Image citation: Yale College Class of 1919 class book, Yale University Library