Lest We Forget: Silent Voices
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
Lest We Forget is a powerful and empowering journey through the first-person stories of people with developmental disabilities once labeled 'mentally defective' who were sent away to state institutions. The life-long impact of institutionalization was experienced not only by those who spent decades in these human warehouses. The story is also told through the voices of the mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters who were left behind, as well as the pioneering professionals and advocates who put their own lives and careers in jeopardy to bring about change.
The film notes that when change came about, it was the work, at least partially, of staff with roots in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 60's and 70's and some of the opponents were the same as well. One speaker recalls that when his institution attempted to prosecute an employee for severe abuse of a resident, the head of the local Ku Klux Klan came out to demonstrate. Early attempts to create community group homes as an alternative were vigorously and sometimes violently opposed by neighbors. Some homes were vandalized and threatened with arson.
These are stories that happened throughout America and only a few decades ago. The film is an important and unusual effort to record and preserve these recollections of a little-known part of the civil rights movement before they are lost to history.
For more information about the audio documentary Lest We Forget: Spoken Histories, contact Partners For Community Living or Jeff Moyer at Jeff Moyer: Music From The Heart .
'Moving first-person accounts of those who lived forgotten and cloistered away in state institutions, and their struggle to come out of the darkness and into the light as contributing members of society. Lest We Forget is a compelling testament to the human spirit, and to the movement to gain civil rights for people with disabilities. Both haunting and inspiring, it gives voice to those who have been silenced for far too long.' -David R. Hopkins, President, Wright State University
Citation
Main credits
Lyons, Mark R. (film director)
Lyons, Mark R. (film editor)
Lyons, Mark R. (cinematographer)
Lyons, Mark R. (screenwriter)
Leasure, Judy (screenwriter)
Reichert, Julia (narrator)
Distributor subjects
Access, Rights and Realities; Aging and Long-Term Care; Community and Public Health; Disabilities; Fanlight Collection; Healthcare; Healthcare History and Policy; Issues and EthicsKeywords
WEBVTT
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[music]
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At her funeral,
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one of my husband’s friends
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came to me and said he was
sorry that I’d lost my baby.
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And then he nodded over
at Chuck and he said,
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\"It’s a shame that she
died and he’s still here.\"
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I didn’t understand what that meant
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and so I said, \"What’s
him being here got to do
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with her dying?\"
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And he said, \"Well, it’s just
a shame that your baby died
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and the retarded kid is still here.\"
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[music]
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Fairview Training Center in Oregon,
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Pen Hurst in Pennsylvania.
Willowbrook in New York
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and then Ohio, Orient, Apple
Creek, and Columbus state
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among others.
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The stories shared here are from Ohio,
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but they mirror the experiences of facilities
across America. Founded in the mid 1800s,
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these institutions evolved
into human warehouses.
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By 1943, there were nearly
100,000 people living in them,
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all labeled mentally defective.
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The family members who sent their loved ones
here were led to feel they had no other options.
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[music]
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It was like a jail cell. He was in a locked unit
and I can remember going up to the main building
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and the clanging doors and
the… the… the ring of keys
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and them letting him out. Then
we would drop him back off again
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and they would clang those doors shut.
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[music]
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[music]
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Ray hosted us and I’ll never forget at
the beginning of the tour round he said,
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\"As you walk around here,
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you’re going to see some
very bad conditions.
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And I’m encouraging you not to overreact
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and show it on your face, the
shock you may feel because
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it’s still somebody’s home.\"
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[music]
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When my brother was born, my parents were told
that the hospital would keep him comfortable,
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but deny him nourishment and that
they basically would euthanize him.
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My baby became ill at three weeks.
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He took her to the hospital and,
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uh… when the doctor came out,
he said that if she lived,
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she would be severely retarded. He starts
asking me questions about do I have help,
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how old the other children were?
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And I’m telling, \"Oh, no, I don’t need
any help anymore because I’m doing well.
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I… I can take care of the children.
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He said, \"Raising one
severely retarded child
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would be difficult, raising
two would be impossible,\"
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and he went back into the room.
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I don’t know how much time passed
before another doctor came out
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and told us that she had passed.
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[sil.]
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Registered nurses who had come to
the home when Chucky was small
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tried to tell me that
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keeping chuck would ruin my family’s life.
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All I had to do to spare everybody
was just leave the house
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and leave them there and when I got back
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he’d be gone and everything that
reminded me of him would be gone.
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I chose to keep him.
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No one let me forget that it was my fault
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when the family started unraveling.
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It was the biggest shock of my life when
they called my husband and I in they said,
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”Our recommendation to you is to put Tom
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into a structured setting and a structured
setting would be to institutionalize him.”
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I always listen to the doctor. That’s why
you go and you get professional help.
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When they told us to go
to these other places,
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my first thought was, I went
to two of them, and I thought,
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”Have they ever been here? Have these
people who sent me here ever been here?”
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You know, they’re telling me to
send my 7-year-old son here?
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Maybe I’ll have to just stay home with
him forever because that was my choice.
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Here’s room after room with the doors. They
were either a bunch of them laying on the beds,
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sitting on the floor, soiled, you
know, not taken care of or anything.
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And I… I said, “No way, I
don’t care if it kills me,
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I’m not putting her in a place like that.”
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We finally placed her and every
month we went to Columbus.
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We went down on Friday
evening and picked Nancy up
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and went to a motel and we kept her
overnight, Friday night and Saturday night,
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and then we took her back Sunday afternoon
and mother cried all the way home.
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First year, he came home for Thanksgiving
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and they took him back and he cried all the way
back. When they went down to got him on Christmas
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and on the way back he…
he wailed and he screamed
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and he hit. My father said, \"He
would never again take him out,\"
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and he didn’t.
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You just feel like it you shouldn’t do it because
you know how he feels about being brought back
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and what he knows that he’s on
a place as soon as you leave.
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[sil.]
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I guess I just kind of feel kind
of guilty about putting her back
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because she was… Do you remember her a lot?
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You know how many mothers have said that?
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I know. Because she was, you
know, young when she came.
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[sil.]
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A hurt that couldn’t be helped.
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[sil.]
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I am a strong man, I can
stand up to anything,
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except my wife
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and daughter get hurt,
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and when my daughter Ola,
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they’re treated like outcasts, they’re
treated like third world citizens
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when we should be treating them like angels
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’cause that’s what they are.
I am sorry it’s over.
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[music]
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Orient was a place
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of more than 2000 individuals. No offense
to the people who were there whatsoever,
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but Orient was a place that we
smelled before we got there.
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Orient was a nightmare by any
stretch of the imagination.
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Staff and I would walk into a
living situation which would be,
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umm… almost like a huge dorm room,
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but I had never saw more than one
attendant and she would be running around
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with a mop and a bucket, and people having
bathroom situations, she would take care of that
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with a mop and a bucket, she didn’t
actually go to the bathroom.
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You walked into that building and you
smelled urine. The smell of the institution
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nearly bowled me over. The smell of urine
was pervasive. Smelled like urine,
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smelled like too many
people living together.
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The first time I was there when I asked questions about
it was pretty much told me that that’s how they are,
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that’s what the way they want to be.
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Twenty six years ago, I went to Columbia State institution
and upon entering that there was a huge concrete sign
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that said State institution
for the… umm… for Imbeciles,
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Idiots and Morons. That was an overwhelming statement
to me, uh… it was just a statement about people
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who had been reduced to words because they
happen to be born to learn a little bit slower.
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People with mental retardation then were only placed
in these places because we have limited perceptions
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of what they are capable of and
when you call a person an idiot,
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and… and you have washed over them all that that
emotionally means to you, you can put them anywhere.
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We put them out of sight and out of mind. If
you look at most institutions in most states,
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they were isolated, they
were self-contained,
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they evolved into something not happy with.
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Institutionalization with its ritualization and its regimentation
and its rigidity saps the person out of the person.
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It takes the individual
and makes them a thing.
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I remember in the summer of 1974,
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at Apple Creek,
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hearing an incredible din of noise.
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And I went to the window of
my office on the second floor
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and I looked out and there
was a line, elbow to elbow,
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of men pushing hand-push mowers,
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wheel-type push mowers across the lawn.
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They were a gang push mower.
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[sil.]
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You know they didn’t start out to be the horror places
that the ultimately became. They were seen as hospitals,
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they were treating people
medically for their condition.
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These quickly became places where
kids and adults were abused.
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There were crib wards where
children were confined, uh… with…
00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:14.999
they were like cages because they had covers over
the top of them completely surrounded with bars.
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It was a crib, but it looked like a prison.
00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:24.999
Now, we’re not talking necessarily
babies, we are talking about adults,
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if you couldn’t walk or couldn’t walk well,
00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:34.999
you were in the crib wards, people
didn’t get out of those cribs
00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:39.999
for days at a time if ever at all.
00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:44.999
Primarily a staff person in the course of their
shift would get through every one of those persons
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and change their diaper once
and feed them one meal.
00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:54.999
It was very much like factory work. You
get into work, first shift 7 o’clock.
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Got to third shift, what happened? Nobody
died, everything’s fine, okay, hunky dory.
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Then shortly after that breakfast would get
there and you would go through each person
00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:09.999
and feed them their breakfast
00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:14.999
and you fed each and every person.
00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:19.999
They umm… they set her food down there and
told her, \"Nancy, if you want that food,
00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:24.999
you’ll feed yourself. Otherwise,
you’re not getting anything to eat.\"
00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:33.000
Someone stole a hamburger, ran
to the shower room to stuff
00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:54.999
in their mouth and that
person choked and died.
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There was the situation of the room and board, there
were just constant communications that seemed
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umm… like blackmail. If
you want him to umm…
00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:09.999
eat well then you pay for it.
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They would umm… go to the parents
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and threaten them, they had one man for this
area that was really nasty and threatening,
00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:24.999
and uh… other parents
would come to me crying,
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\"What are we gonna do, we don’t have
the money.\" They were paid wise
00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:34.999
because tax dollars were
allocated and at the same time
00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:39.999
they were collecting money from the parents.
Parents were put through a lot of stress
00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:44.999
and misery, and plain hell.
00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:49.999
There were always problems with clothes.
Uh… We would send certain clothes to him,
00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:54.999
he would sometimes have those clothes and
sometimes have somebody else’s clothes
00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:59.999
or sometimes clothes would just disappear.
Every morning someone would bring something
00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:04.999
and if it fit fine and
if it didn’t fine too.
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People were given what they would wear
00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:14.999
and there was no choice. The
use of the chicken dresses
00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:19.999
that they wore and that’s
what she calls them.
00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:25.000
It was not a fashion
statement, she’ll tell you.
00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:44.999
The most common clothing items for
men were heavy denim jumpsuits.
00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:49.999
There was one gentleman
who was always wanting
00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:54.999
to disrobe and take his clothing off. So what staff would
do was they would put the jumpsuit on him backwards
00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:59.999
and close at the back of it and pin
it, so that he could not open it.
00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:04.999
It reminds you wore like a straightjacket.
00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:09.999
[sil.]
00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:14.999
Early medical care for this population
00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:19.999
resulted in real heavy use
of psychotropic medication.
00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:24.999
Almost everybody took Thorazine,
some people took Dilantin.
00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:29.999
There were staff people that used to talk about the
Thorazine shuffle because people were sometimes
00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:34.999
so overly medicated that
their gait was impaired
00:17:35.000 --> 00:17:39.999
and they would sort of shuffle. The visual
image that I’m pulling up right now is… is
00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:44.999
a man in a cotton jumpsuit
shuffling across the sidewalk
00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:49.999
from one building to another, umm… you know with their head
down and kind of this drool out of the corner of their mouth.
00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:54.999
Because they were taking multiple
psychotropic medication in high doses,
00:17:55.000 --> 00:17:59.999
which really served to do nothing other
than impair their ability to learn,
00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:04.999
you know, their ability to…
to understand reality.
00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:09.999
[sil.]
00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:14.999
Talked to one individual who hated going in the basement and when
she would go to the psychiatrist they were put her on a medication
00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:19.999
because they thought it was a problem that she was having. Finally one day,
a staff person that was with her in a psychiatrist office said to her,
00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:24.999
\"Why do you… why do you hate going into the
basement?\" And she said because at Apple Creek,
00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:29.999
they used to… that’s where they
would do the shock treatment.
00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:34.999
And I said Sometimes
00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:39.999
I kept my (inaudible) some of
them have shock treatments.
00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:44.999
[sil.]
00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:49.999
(inaudible),
00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:54.999
they had treatments like shock treatments.
00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:59.999
I’ll never forget walking into a
euphemism called cottage sea,
00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:04.999
I say a euphemism because
it was a star-shaped,
00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:09.999
astroid-shaped building, individual cells.
00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.999
It was built as replica building at
Mid-State Correctional Facility.
00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.999
It was a prison building.
When people got in trouble,
00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.999
they would go there.
00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:29.999
A lot of them had be put in seclusion
rooms with the door locked
00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:34.999
and that was something very scary
which I didn’t want to see.
00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:39.999
I was in there for very brief
time, but it was scary.
00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.999
Because I didn’t have anybody to talk to.
00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:49.999
There was a woman that I worked with, another person who is living in the
community that that ended up there a lot and she would tell stories about
00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.999
how they were just… how she would eat.
They would just open the little window
00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
where they could talk to somebody, they didn’t look at people very often. And
would throw in a sandwich and there was a hole in the middle of the floor,
00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
and there was nothing on the floor to sleep on.
They slept on the hard cold floor, what she said.
00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
There’s a hole in the middle of the floor and they would
hose it through the bottom of the… under the door,
00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
there was a little opening and they’d put a hose through and
that’s how they’d hose it out at night or when they ever chose to,
00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
umm… to… to clean out the defecation.
00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
People were put in mechanical restraints.
00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
If someone hit them self in the head then
they would be placed in full arm splints
00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
so that they could not bend, which
also meant they couldn’t eat.
00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
You would see some bumps or bruises or
burns on people and you would wonder
00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
how did that happen. I’ve had individuals who
told me that they were physically struck,
00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
umm… struck with bar inside of a sock
00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:55.000
’cause evidently that didn’t leave bruises.
00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
Oh, you can get beat up
pretty bad, real bad.
00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:10.000
I seen it happen.
00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:28.000
So we had him tied up
in his chair and while
00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
he was still tied to the chair, the staff
person pushed the chair up to the waterfront
00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
and shoved his head under the water
fountain and turned the water on.
00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
I remember even going and reporting that, but the supervisors
were, \"Well, did this really happen and explain this in detail,\"
00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
and kind of questioned
me with the idea being,
00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
are you sure you want to make this report?
The message I got from them was,
00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
if you’re stepping forward, you’re going to do this, you’re
going to put me in a quandary where I have to act on him.
00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
And I think their idea was like,
don’t make me act. One resident
00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
umm… I know talked about getting a can of pop
if he would perform oral sex on someone else
00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
and he would do that and… and laugh about
it because it would get him a can of pop.
00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
Us people demand sex for candy bar, as
I seen people demand for cigarettes,
00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
uh… candy, stuff like that.
00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:33.000
[music]
00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
Dr. Delaney was appalled by the
conditions in which people were living
00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
and he garnered the support
of family groups and media,
00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
umm… local newspaper,
00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
local television media and
opened his doors and said,
00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
\"Come in, I want you to see… I want
you to see what people are living
00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
and how people are living, what their life is like. Umm…
You know, we’re not gonna keep it isolated anymore.\"
00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
Umm… He advised this
parents group to sue him.
00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
He took parents into those
living areas for the first time.
00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
This was so disturbing for these families to see how their children or siblings
were living and they wondered how they could even survive in such conditions.
00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
[sil.]
00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
In 1974, I had the opportunity to come to
Ohio, came out for a visit on a weekend.
00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
I got shown around Apple
Creek, every nook and cranny.
00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
I was just too young to be scared kid
00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
and I looked at the guy who showed me around,
the new superintendent of the facility,
00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
and the other fellow I was
with from Massachusetts.
00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
And I looked at Joe and Joe looked at me
and we got wide-eyed and I said to Joey,
00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
\"Let’s do it. We had nothing to lose.
00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
There’s nowhere to go but up.\" There
were a number of people in the system,
00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
would come out of the civil rights movement,
like come out of resisting the war
00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
and channel that same energy into the last
spoken for minority in the United States.
00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
[sil.]
00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
I never forget a woman by the
name of Joanne (inaudible)
00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
was introduced to me in the summer of 1974.
Will the committee please come to order?
00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
She was invited to testify
at the budget hearings.
00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
Mrs. (inaudible) came in and
sat down, took a sip of water
00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
and said, \"My question is,
00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
why is it that the people
who swill the hogs
00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
at the Agricultural Research
Center across the road
00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
from Apple Creek Developmental Center or
State Institute where my son Jimmy lives,
00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
why do they make more per hour than
the people who take care of my son?\"
00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
And she got up and walked out.
00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
We’ve had this vision
00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
that we would break down
the state institutions
00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
by creating new development
centers, smaller in size
00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
in the urban areas. We would get
people out of the state institutions
00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
and get them back closer
to their home community.
00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
We challenged the old ways, we challenged the
regimentation, we challenged the rituals,
00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
we challenged the… the illogic of 20 people
00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
side by side pushing on
and the inhumanity of it.
00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
And unfortunately, the first
wave of response to that
00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
was resistance. A young supervisor
00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
walked in to (inaudible) on
a second shift unexpected
00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
and caught an employee in a shower room,
00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
he had a male consumer
up against a tile wall
00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
with a mop handle under the chin
00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
of the individual and the individual
toes were not on the floor.
00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
We charged him with abuse.
00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
We challenged the sheriff to
arrest him for simple assault
00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
and it was done. There was to be a trial
00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
at the Wister courthouse
for simple assault.
00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
It was around October of 1974
00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
and I will never forget looking up
the stairs of Wister courthouse
00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.999
and seeing Dale K. Reusch in
full Klu Klux Klan regalia,
00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.999
saying, \"I came to show support for him
00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.999
because after all, all he was
doing was his job to keep order
00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.999
among the inmates out there on the Hill and
if good people like myself don’t stand up
00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:54.999
for good people like him, we’re going
to have the same kind of trouble
00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.999
we had down in the south when we
let those other folks on busses.\"
00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.999
The hair on the back of
my neck stood right up
00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.999
and I knew we were in deep, deep trouble.
00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.999
Trying to establish the original groups…
group homes was very difficult.
00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
Neighbors had a great fear of the
individuals who were coming back
00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
from the institutions.
00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
The philosophy was, \"That’s great, you can build a
home for these people, but not in my neighborhood.
00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
You don’t know what’s it gonna
do to my property values.\"
00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
There were public hearings. Some people
got very nasty in the neighborhoods
00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
about the fact that they were going to be
subjected to a group home in their neighborhood.
00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
I used to go to zoning hearings and I parked my car
with the nose out because when the hearing was over,
00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
I wanted to get the heck out of there
before the neighbors came after me.
00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
And so, they were pretty testy times and
some of them were pretty threatening times
00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
and umm… we’ve had some homes that… where we had law suits that have
gone on for years with us trying to get neighbors to accept us.
00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
If I know they were going to do
something, I think it was burn the home.
00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
If he stepped on their property,
00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
they were going to shoot him.
I got a baseball bat
00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
and I parked up the street. They
were not going to hurt my child.
00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:29.999
He hadn’t done anything to them.
He just moved into a home.
00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.999
That’s all that he did, moved into a home.
00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.999
There’s been a whole lot of progress.
I think the community…
00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.999
the movement to the community was providing
more human dignity in people’s lives, which is,
00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.999
what more can you ask for in life, is giving
somebody their own dignity and self-worth.
00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.999
Harry Byrd played football for East High School.
He unfortunately was subject to epilepsy,
00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.999
another piece of his misfortune was that
he stood about six foot five inches
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
when he was in high school, probably
weighed 230. He was a scary epileptic guy.
00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.999
And he was unmanageable at home.
00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.999
So he was sent to Gallipolis and
he lived there all of his youth,
00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
early adulthood, and adulthood.
00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.999
And I met him in 1980 when
he was in his late 50s.
00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.999
He was a walking, talking
regular kind of guy.
00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.999
And one day we said to him, \"What
do you really want to do, Harry?
00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.999
And he said, \"I’ve always
wanted to see the ocean.\"
00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.999
Harry went out to the ocean,
00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.999
took his shoes off, waded in the
surf, had a big smile on his face.
00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.999
And after dinner,
00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.999
Harry in years said, \"I’m tired
and I want to go to bed.\"
00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.999
He was in bed about an hour
and a staff person heard
00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.999
a loud thump. Harry had
a seizure and he died,
00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.999
but he saw the ocean.
00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.999
I guess those middle years
were times that were
00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:24.999
still part of his tough struggle.
00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.999
And we give people all of the accoutrements of their
independence that we’re able to give people today.
00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.999
But we gave him something.
00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:43.000
[sil.]
00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.999
[sil.]
00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:09.999
The resiliency for people
with disabilities is…
00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.999
is an asset that I think
we take for granted.
00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:19.999
Umm… they will go and live in and… and
I’m not saying that everybody’s happy
00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.999
and all that stuff that you read about, I’m saying that people
are resilient and they adjust where they… they’re placed.
00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:29.999
But they can tell you, the
individuals I’ve met can tell you
00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.999
that their life is a whole lot better when they move
in the community and if they get family involvement,
00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.999
that’s just icing on the cake. Initially
when uh… folks came back to our community
00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.999
and uh… began to understand
and that’s what it was,
00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:49.999
they had to understand that umm…
you could have these clothes,
00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:54.999
nobody’s going to take them away,
you could have your cologne,
00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.999
you could have your own hairbrush, you can uh…
have umm… shoe, your own shoes, your own coat,
00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.999
your own jacket.
00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
Uh… they just weren’t sure
what this was all about.
00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.999
I remember one gentleman was moved
into a community group home setting
00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.999
in the mid 1980s into his own
bedroom and able to make choices,
00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:24.999
umm… and developed truly into this
wonderful thoughtful young man.
00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:29.999
He got a paycheck. And
you know money is power,
00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:34.999
you know, and to get that, that was one of the
things he said, \"I got my paycheck today.\"
00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.999
You know, he got… he didn’t really know what the amounts
were, but he was saying, \"I got my paycheck today.\"
00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.999
And you’d ask him how much it was and he’d mention
some amount, some amount that made him feel good.
00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.999
He may have said one time, he might have said three
cents. But if three says made him feel good that day
00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.999
then that’s what it was.
He loved to go to work.
00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:59.999
As a matter of fact, when he would come home and stay
with me or stay with my mom during the holidays,
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.999
he’ll get a little anxious because he considered
Mondays the beginning of the work week.
00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.999
We’d have to let him know, you don’t
work today, you go back on Tuesday.
00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:14.999
Hey, good seeing you. I
could use a good handshake.
00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.999
Hey, buddy, how you doing? How you been, you’re
looking good. Whoa, I feel good. I know that’s right.
00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:24.999
Good seeing you, James. Good seeing
you too. He became a stellar employee
00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:29.999
that there every day 7 o’clock.
He worked long, he worked hard.
00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:34.999
He did a wonderful job.
00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:39.999
The secret of our success today
00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.999
and in the future is going to be seeing
every person truly as an individual
00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:49.999
and that the best… the best hint I can
give to a young professional today
00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:54.999
is know every one of them by name, know
something about their life and their family.
00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:59.999
Compassion uh… without pity.
Pity is misinformed
00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.999
and misplaced and it causes people
to act in condescending ways
00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.999
when compassion is informed and
enlightened based on knowledge
00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.999
of an individual person by name. I’m fine.
00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.999
Looks like you’re going to (inaudible).
Jack is a free spirit.
00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:24.999
He’s wonderful at giving
people hope and kindness,
00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.999
and a good ear and good advice.
00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.999
[sil.]
00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:39.999
I was over at his bedroom
umm… not too long ago
00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.999
and umm… he has more stuff than
there is room for. And they were
00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
encouraging him to clean out his closet.
00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
Jack had a pet. I remember
vividly Jack petting the dog
00:36:55.000 --> 00:37:00.000
and they looked so contented.
00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:20.000
[sil.]
00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:30.000
Okay. That’s good, that’s good.
00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:15.000
[music]