One of the teachers who transferred from a private school to the new Central School was Mary Sophia Waddill Boyd or Miss Sophia. For half-a-century, every Springfield boy and girl started to school in "number one" to Miss Sophia. Springfieldians remembered her with affection for as long as they lived.

Miss Sophia was "slim, medium height, brown hair, fair complexion, gently, sweet and kind." Each morning, to start the day, she would say, "now children, we'll all stand up and talk to God."

In 1908 "Miss Sophia" was honored by having a new school north of the high school campus named for her. (After it burned, the school was relocated at Washington Avenue and Lynn Street.) She taught in Boyd school for almost as long as she lived.