Dixmont filmmaker, of Hopewell, works to reclaim cemetery
Brian C. Rittmeyer
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
They were an embarrassment.
Their families put these mentally ill people away, forgot them, spoke of them no more. No one wanted them back, not even when they died.
About 1,300 people, once patients of Dixmont State Hospital, are buried on a wooded hillside behind where the demolished institution stood in Kilbuck. Small, rounded, weather-worn stones mark the graves. With one exception, only numbers -- no names -- identify the dead.
Brush, branches, leaves and fallen, rotting trees consume their resting place. A Beaver County filmmaker, born 40 years after the last patient was buried there, hopes to change that.
Kate Guerriero, 29, of Hopewell, is organizing a cleanup of the cemetery. She began researching Dixmont's history in 1999 while a student at Carlow University, and her documentary on Dixmont debuted last year at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center.
"This has just bothered me from day one," she said. "These are people here. They are people who had lives, and they're totally forgotten. It's like they're abandoned again. I said that someday I'd go back and clean that up."
Guerriero is looking for people willing to donate labor and equipment toward the cleanup, scheduled for May 26. She especially hopes to find those who can lend chainsaws and a wood chipper.
"This is going to be a big task. It will be a good day's work."
She's also seeking money to pay for a memorial marker at the site.
"I'd be more than happy to maintain it. It's a respect thing. It breaks my heart to see it in this condition," she said.
The cemetery sits on land owned by the state, away from the planned Wal-Mart development off Route 65 that a landslide halted in September.
Guerriero found records showing the first burial occurred May 26, 1863, and the last on March 8, 1937. She has a list matching each grave number with the person's name, date of birth, age, gender and hometown -- but any other information about them state officials keep sealed.
Marking the graves with numbers instead of names prevented identifying them as mental patients and was simply easier than engraving a name, said Beryl Johnson, of Moon, who worked in Dixmont's psychology department from 1970 until it closed in 1984.
In the records, Johnson came across a letter from a patient's family, telling the hospital superintendent not to send home the patient's body.
"What struck me about that was, it was such a stigma to be mentally ill. They did not want this family member to be brought back even though he was dead," she said. "They just didn't want to resurrect that. As far as they were concerned, he was gone."
Notices for families to claim relatives' bodies went unanswered, as did those saying that patients were well and ready to be released, Guerriero said.
"They were abandoned from the start," she said.
Joseph Steffy's headstone stands out as the only one with a name. He died June 1, 1881, at age 40. Steffy might have been a Civil War veteran, earning him the honor of a marker, Guerriero said.
Johnson believes the cemetery could contain two Civil War graves belonging to Confederate soldiers who were brought north on prison trains bound for Elmira, N.Y., and off-loaded in Pittsburgh because of illness.
"I often wonder if their families ever knew what happened to them," she said.
Bob Cammarata, 66, lived at Dixmont while his father, Joseph A. Cammarata, served as superintendent from 1946 to 1966. A self-described "mischievous boy," he had free run of the hospital and its grounds, but didn't discover the isolated cemetery until he was 12 or 13. He visited it again a few years ago.
Cammarata, who now lives in Maryland, said cleaning up the cemetery could serve as an apology for the indignities endured by those buried there.
"It's a lot bigger than I thought," he said. "When I was a kid, I found three gravestones. I didn't realize the extent of it."
Few people tried to reach the cemetery, which was overgrown even when the hospital was open, said Johnson. Curiosity steered her there a couple times.
"Finally, there's recognition that these were people, who, like any other people, had problems. ... They were hospitalized in a facility that took good care of them -- at least as good as it was in that day and age.
"There's some recognition these are human beings. These people deserve respect."
Their families put these mentally ill people away, forgot them, spoke of them no more. No one wanted them back, not even when they died.
About 1,300 people, once patients of Dixmont State Hospital, are buried on a wooded hillside behind where the demolished institution stood in Kilbuck. Small, rounded, weather-worn stones mark the graves. With one exception, only numbers -- no names -- identify the dead.
Brush, branches, leaves and fallen, rotting trees consume their resting place. A Beaver County filmmaker, born 40 years after the last patient was buried there, hopes to change that.
Kate Guerriero, 29, of Hopewell, is organizing a cleanup of the cemetery. She began researching Dixmont's history in 1999 while a student at Carlow University, and her documentary on Dixmont debuted last year at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center.
"This has just bothered me from day one," she said. "These are people here. They are people who had lives, and they're totally forgotten. It's like they're abandoned again. I said that someday I'd go back and clean that up."
Guerriero is looking for people willing to donate labor and equipment toward the cleanup, scheduled for May 26. She especially hopes to find those who can lend chainsaws and a wood chipper.
"This is going to be a big task. It will be a good day's work."
She's also seeking money to pay for a memorial marker at the site.
"I'd be more than happy to maintain it. It's a respect thing. It breaks my heart to see it in this condition," she said.
The cemetery sits on land owned by the state, away from the planned Wal-Mart development off Route 65 that a landslide halted in September.
Guerriero found records showing the first burial occurred May 26, 1863, and the last on March 8, 1937. She has a list matching each grave number with the person's name, date of birth, age, gender and hometown -- but any other information about them state officials keep sealed.
Marking the graves with numbers instead of names prevented identifying them as mental patients and was simply easier than engraving a name, said Beryl Johnson, of Moon, who worked in Dixmont's psychology department from 1970 until it closed in 1984.
In the records, Johnson came across a letter from a patient's family, telling the hospital superintendent not to send home the patient's body.
"What struck me about that was, it was such a stigma to be mentally ill. They did not want this family member to be brought back even though he was dead," she said. "They just didn't want to resurrect that. As far as they were concerned, he was gone."
Notices for families to claim relatives' bodies went unanswered, as did those saying that patients were well and ready to be released, Guerriero said.
"They were abandoned from the start," she said.
Joseph Steffy's headstone stands out as the only one with a name. He died June 1, 1881, at age 40. Steffy might have been a Civil War veteran, earning him the honor of a marker, Guerriero said.
Johnson believes the cemetery could contain two Civil War graves belonging to Confederate soldiers who were brought north on prison trains bound for Elmira, N.Y., and off-loaded in Pittsburgh because of illness.
"I often wonder if their families ever knew what happened to them," she said.
Bob Cammarata, 66, lived at Dixmont while his father, Joseph A. Cammarata, served as superintendent from 1946 to 1966. A self-described "mischievous boy," he had free run of the hospital and its grounds, but didn't discover the isolated cemetery until he was 12 or 13. He visited it again a few years ago.
Cammarata, who now lives in Maryland, said cleaning up the cemetery could serve as an apology for the indignities endured by those buried there.
"It's a lot bigger than I thought," he said. "When I was a kid, I found three gravestones. I didn't realize the extent of it."
Few people tried to reach the cemetery, which was overgrown even when the hospital was open, said Johnson. Curiosity steered her there a couple times.
"Finally, there's recognition that these were people, who, like any other people, had problems. ... They were hospitalized in a facility that took good care of them -- at least as good as it was in that day and age.
"There's some recognition these are human beings. These people deserve respect."
This article was
written by Brian C. Rittmeyer
and published by Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
on Saturday, April 7