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“No, ten years ago. I was studious and responsible until that summer, and for a few short months, I got lost in the fun of living life. Since you popped back into my life, I realized I was locked away again, in college and now teaching. So I guess you’re the one to give me another adventure.”
“I could give you a lot more.” I want to show her exactly what I’m talking about. Instead of the shutters going back into place, she smiles.
“I’m good.”
“Yes, you are,” I readily agree.
“Remind me about this place.” I’d rather talk about the two of us, but I have plenty of time. For the first time in a while, I hope this adventure will last for a bit. I’m suddenly not in a hurry to leave and find a new adventure. This is strange for me.
“The Olmstead brothers, whose dad was famous for designing New York’s Central Park, designed the landscape here. The architects for the buildings were Saunders and Lawton. They wanted a self-sustaining and therapeutic colony for the mentally ill. They wanted them treated better than they’d been treated in the past.”
“Well, that’s a good thing.”
“I think it was more theory than practice, unfortunately,” I tell her, and she winces.
“The hospital site included patient and staff housing, a water reservoir, sewage system, lumber mill, quarry, steam plant, greenhouse, canning facilities, gymnasium, library, laundry, dining room, bakery, dairy, and a 700-acre farm for growing veggies and raising livestock. The plans also included the cemetery.”
“So, they built a small town for this hospital. Was this to keep it away from cities?”
“Yes. They didn’t want patients escaping and causing harm to themselves or to others. You probably know more about this, being the history buff you are.”
“I know a lot about many places, but there’s so much rich history around the world and here in America. I’ll never get through it all. I love it though. I love to learn of a new place. When we came here last, I was just beginning my love affair of history. Now, it’s an outright obsession.”
“At one time in the fifties, about twenty-seven hundred patients lived here. That was full capacity, and they were still being pressured to take on more patients. Considering our population was a lot less in the fifties, it was a high percentage of mentally ill people back then.”
“It’s truly heartbreaking at how many people deal with mental issues. I don’t understand it.”
“I can’t begin to comment on it, because I have no idea why some are born with perfectly functioning brains and some aren’t,” I tell her. “I’m grateful I am who I am.”
“Me too. Though I feel guilty for thinking this.”
“That’s because you aren’t a sociopath. You have empathy for others. It doesn’t make you a bad person to be grateful for being healthy though.”
She smiles. “I guess you’re right.”
“I am on occasion. Sadly, for this place and most of the other facilities in our country, the public perception for mental hospitals began changing in the seventies, and this place closed its doors in 1976 after the state cut its funding. Some of the buildings, including the farm’s housing ward, have been torn down. A few remain and are used for job corps projects and drug rehabilitation.”
“Well, it’s good that not all of that money was wasted,” She seems just as upset as I am that a home where people could get help was wasted just as so much money is.
“Of course all of the active buildings are off limits to the public, but a lot of the property is now a recreation area. They have an extensive trail system so we can see the open pastures, forested lanes, barns, a milking shed, a cannery, and other structures used during the hospital’s self-sustaining past. We also can visit the cemetery, the final resting place for at least fifteen-hundred people.”
“I’ve always hated cemeteries. I see why people have to be buried, but I want to be cremated. The thought of my body rotting beneath the dirt is terrifying.”
“I agree. I want to be burned, then have my ashes tossed somewhere cool like a volcano so every once in a while, the steam can blow me all around the world. That way I can continue having adventures even after my body is no longer any use to me.”
She chuckles. “I guess that’s one way to look at it.”
We start to walk. “What’s your favorite part of history to study?”
“That’s a hard question to answer. I haven’t studied a lot of state history. My focus in college was on the Civil War era. I’d love to go to the South for an extended period of time and study the places that were significant to the war. I still don’t understand how tensions grew so high that friends fought each other, that family fought each other. It’s heartbreaking. I want to learn all I can so we don’t ever allow it to happen again.”
“Maybe our journey will lead us there,” I say, loving the idea of taking her to a place where she’s stuck spending more time with me.
“I’m teaching right now, Blaze. There’s no way I can get away for a week at a time,” she says with disappointment. My bruised ego eases at her refusal.
“I might just have to sneak into your classroom and watch you lecture one of these days.” She turns to me, her eyes turning to saucers.
“That’s not a good idea,” she quickly says.
