505 Comments for Dever State School

Keith -- I think your comments are thoughtful and well said. I am sure Lynne will second this. But, on the other hand, who knows!! You seem like a very kind person.

You know, sometimes I wonder if we are getting it all wrong. I mean, there's all these comments about "so sad" and "I'm glad I'm normal" and "well, it takes the children's mind off of how they are not normal", but really I begin to wonder if many of them were even that self-aware. I mean, my friend's brother has a high-functioning type of autism of some sort. He's quite intelligent in certain topics like history which he will obsessively study, but he's certainly not "normal" by most definitions, but he really doesn't seem to comprehend that in any way. He's pretty much always just laughing and enjoying things regardless. Even if he's being made fun of or something it never quite registers in his mind that there is "something wrong with him". That being said, I don't feel many of the children in places like this would comprehend their situation to the degree many would like to believe. These places look pretty stark and depressing now, but even the nicest mansion in the world after 30 years of abandonment would pretty much look the same. So, I don't know. I kind of imagine that the staff for the most part tried to give them a good life. Also, they at least had the prospect of having playmates. I mean, how many of these children would have had a chance of having very many friends? At least in a facility like this there was plenty of other children that they could associate with if for no better reason than because everyone was pretty well stuck with one another. Who knows? I'd much prefer to keep the child at home with limited visits to a clinic or some other day-time care facility, but I guess what I am going at is that we can't always jump to conclusions and assume everything was doom and gloom every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year. Especially when we are dealing with people who's minds certainly would give them a far different perspective on the world. There'd probably be alot of terror when the child first arrived, but as they got to know staff and understand the daily schedule, I think many of the children would have settled in without too much thought of their situation, at least in the sense that many would like to expect they would. Or, I could just be drunk. Who knows?

... a dorm in the basement?

Not so happy at all...

yeah its super ugly, it looks like our school sunnymead middle school

I have a nice clean tub at home thanks.

There was a kid in my elementry school who sometimes got pushed around in a device similar to this, though he usually used a regular wheelchair.

this place was a prison & cruel!

this was a prison

a nightmare of a place...I was there

I was here in this green room... long ago...very bad place

Looks to me like the chair is smiling in anticipation

Tumbling down the rabit hole

Yeah this place gives off a creepy vibe at night. The tunnels just seem to go on forever. There was a chair in a tunnel with blood all over the tray and a room under the kitchen that had a spread out area of what definetly appeared to be blood. No to hijack motts work but you guys can appreciate a music video I made of our trip within the bowels of this place. http://media.putfile.com/Dever-Asylum

I do see the ring of dead grass at the upper right side.
If you look at the building wing towards the left of the photo, see how the exit door is placed at the rear, and the rows of windows, it almost looks like an old bi-level railcar abandoned in a yard.
A CSX facility had ancient Chesapeake & Ohio Railway double-deck passenger coaches in one of their yards, along with locomotives stripped of their engines and transmissions

This reminds me of my childhood. We didn't need much to be happy.