4 Comments Posted by mari

DHS was a thriving self contained community many years ago. Patients that could, would work from sunrise to sunset. on the farm and orchards. they would come to the kitchens and have meals of fresh killed chicken , beef ,pork, fresh fruit, and veggies. All animals were raised to feed the hospital, gardens were tendered. MY uncle( a Patient) worked on the farm. He would take produce to Boston and sell it to the markets and this is where they got the extra money to buy more animals and tools

They had fresh eggs in the morning- They were fed very well.

The women worked in the laundry, ironed all the sheets with those big rolling irons. They sewed and mendd clothes.

In the evening the patients were tired fom woking and would go right to bed and get a good night's sleep. The populatin in the 30-s could have been around 2000.

I use to sit with the old men after supper and they would tell me stories of how hard they worked and that it felt good to work outside all day.. These old men who now sat on a stinking unit mixed in with the young hoodlem drug addicts who knew how to work the system to get more drugs.
These poor old men who had nothing to do anymore but look out a caged window. They were so bored beause the only thing they did was watch the tv on the sunporch . They missed working the farm

but time does change and some idiot politician said that these patients were no more than slaves keeping a dying community going. so slowly in the 60's things were shut down little by little, cattle were sold at auction, pigs and chickens slaughtered until there was no more

the meals in the 80's consisted of Powdered eggs, frozen fish sticks, french fries, a meal we use to call mystery meat becuase we didn' know what the hell it was. hamburg hash and instant potatoes..spaghetti with little hard balls (I couldn't call them meat).These old guys never fogot the days when they had fresh milk, and cream, eggs, and chicken, steak and chops...and a fresh apple, peach or pear just for th plucking....

In1972 came the time when DHS was de-institutionalizing and the bonner building was going to house those who could not be released.

MY uncle was released. He had been there for 35 years (he was also one of the first people along with Rosemarie Kennedy to be labotomized).. He was so lost - He called DHS home...he lived for about a year. He was beaten and robbed of his checks by other patients that had become the first generation of essex counties homeless people. My uncle had a room, but we still had to look for him when we didn't see him for a few days. He died of a heart attack when he was take to the emergancy room to get stitches where they cracked his head open.

The old men knew my uncle and from that day on - no one could come near me or even threaten me. They watched over me until they died off one by one or when the laws changed again and they were sent to facililties that cared for the aged and mentally ill.. I cried like a baby.

The dangerous and vilolent people were there too. in DHS the were in those little square rooms. But when they all came to the bonner building it was a nightmare - bad and good, young and old were housed together until 1990..I left in 91 when the bonner building closed down , took the retirement and went back to teaching...

THis is also the bomb shelter - it was painted white to ensure all the light in case of a nuclear war..The tracks are just that. You have to r ealize that this was a self contained community..these tunnels lead to the canning factory. laundry building. slaughter houses, fruit ochards etc.In winter all the food was stored in under gound root cellars. all canned goods were kept here. all food traveled from the tunnels to the hospital in winter - no one had to walk the snowy roads.Patients went to work in the cow barns, pig bans, chciken houses and all this was done through the use of the miles of tunnels that tranverse the hill

- DHS was an amazing place in the early 30-40's.
THose that coud, would work the farm, those that couldn't were locked in those little rooms. In those days when a child of 12 was not behaving normally they just dropped them off at the front and left. I had three patients that had been there since the age of 12 and there were many more on the other units.. They were still admitting in young teens in the 80's but this was stopped when the 6th floor tuned into DYS (Dept of Youth Services. (I worked in the Bonner Building)

I'm in the process of writing a book about the people I took care of for many years. I don't know if this is the proper place to talk about the poor unfortunate people who lived there.

But you know, you had to know these people and you really understood why parents stopped coming to visit them. The were so burned out from caring for thier mentally ill child for 50 or more years.

Don't blame the parents for giving up..They wanted to live the rest of their lives without the trauma of being beaten by their son or daughter, or have checks and money stolen from them, Some even had to move into elderly housing because because they lost their home to fire or going bankrupt. (sp) because of their child.

Mentally ill people are some of the most selfish people in the world. it is me, myself and I - with no thought of what you are doing to another person..But These people are sick and when you understand what their illness is, then we can try to go ahead and bring some kind of peace to their shreiking voices. and minds .I can tell you about what Danvers State use to be like in the 30-40-50's..THis was when DSH was a self-governing little town of its own. The patients, staff, doctors, nurses, all worked together to make the community work...I know a lot about these times because my Uncle was a patient there during these times...and often at night when all the patients were asleep our nurse would come down and tell what it was like years ago - it was not a pretty place.
One movie you might want to find " The snake Pit" made in 1946. It was made on the grounds of DSH, but most of it was made in Marblehead...tthis is what an insane assylum was like ,My book is going to make" One flew over the cucoos's nest" and Girl interrupted look like a nursery school tale...

The person that made this website is an artist indeed.
BUt perhaps yo can get a picture of the fields and lower road and get a thread going on "Hospital life in he early days" so I don't take all the space here....Sorry I took so long to get back - but these pictures bring back memories for more stories...Even a nice shot of the old castle because this is where I'm going to take you. when it was a thriving self-sustained working community..

I worked in this building for 12 years - I met some of the nicest people (and the worse) and have learned alot about life, like thank God I could unlock those doors and go home every night. Some patients we treated like family. we were their only link to the outside, some never knew what it was like outside of those walls.. You can't believe some of the stories the old folks told us.