WORKING
AT FAIRFIELD HILLS HOSPITAL
IN NEWTOWN,
CONNECTICUT.
Jerry Haffke Remembers:
Part VIII
Newtown Hall, The Administration
Building
Returning to
Fairfield Hills
March, 1967
Coming over the railroad bridge
and passing Mile Hill Road, I once again saw the one story apartment building
for married employees on our left, "Watertown Hall", and remembered with a smile
to myself, how Pete and I had wondered about this construction when we walked
down from Route 25 for the first time in June of 1963. We had then, only for a
few moment, thought that this might be the hospital and wondered what to make of
that little place...
And little did I know, while wistfully reminiscing, that not too many
month away, I would live there with a new wife.
As the road makes a gentle turn to the right, I could suddenly see the
approaching green with it's two flag-poles and behind it "good old" Shelton
House. I immediately visualized Mrs. Adams, Mrs. Schwaller and Dick Bouton and
oddly enough my old friend Stationitis the housekeeper.
John dropped me off in front of Shelton House and told me to come over to
his room in Norwalk Hall after I was done with all the formalities and
paper-work. Not wanting to use the old, ratty elevator, I walked up the two
flights to the third floor where Mrs. Adams "ruled". Arriving on the third
floor, I could hear a lot of talking and laughter which came from the left end
of the corridor where I remembered the "class-room" to be located.-So there was
a class going on. I heard Dick Bouton's somber voice attempting to teach over
the apparent levity of his students. Nothing had changed! And suddenly the
thought came into my mind that this might be my class, the class in which I
would have to finish my Psychiatric-Aide course. Turning to my right, I went
straight to Mrs. Adams' door which was slightly ajar. Hearing no conversation
inside, I knocked and heard an immediate "come in" from her. And there she was,
the "mother-figure" to the whole hospital. Upon seeing me, she rose up from her
office chair and came striding over towards me to embrace me once again in her
ample bosom. She was genuinely happy to see me and, as she told me, so very
proud of my service in the Army. Of course, she was an old-fashioned southern
lady from Texas, patriotic to the core and thus her words were coming from her
heart and soul. She then literally dragged me by the hand to Mrs. Schwaller's
office to tell her the good news of my return. Mrs. Schwaller, in her exuberant
way, seemed even more joyous than Mrs. Adams. She, somewhat skinny and tallish,
was an ex Navy nurse and just as patriotic as Mrs. Adams. Grabbing me by both
hands and shaking them vigorously, she too congratulated me on my patriotism and
dedication for having willingly served in the U.S. Army despite not even being a
citizen and also told me that she had thought that I might just return to
Germany to avoid military service. I felt like a celebrity without deserving all
those accolades. Sure, I loved America with all my heart and soul then, but I
didn't think that my serving in the Army deserved all that enthusiasm. I had
just done what I had to do, just like most of my comrades and friends. We were
drafted after all and didn't really have that much of a choice in the matter.
Nevertheless, I did feel "on top of the world" when they both received me with
such praise and admiration.
In the meantime, while Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Schwaller were "celebrating" my
"homecoming", Mr. Bouton came up behind me and patted me on the back. Turning
around, I saw him smiling at me with an, for him, unusually broad smile. He too
grabbed my hand and shook it vigorously, welcoming me back. Never before had I
seen Dick Bouton show so much emotion. Then Mrs. Adams told me to go over to
Personnel (at Newtown Hall) and take care of the re-hiring formalities. Asking
me when I wanted to start, I told her: "as soon as possible". This was a Tuesday
and the State payroll at that time began on Wednesdays. Mrs. Adams then said:
"Well, then you start tomorrow". Telling me that a class which already was in progress
would be just right for me to catch up from where I had left off, I realized
that my premonition upon hearing the class-room laughter had been correct. Mr. Bouton told me that he would see me "tomorrow", shook my hand one more time and
returned to his class-room. Mrs. Adams then told me in her motherly, stern way:
"Now you go on over to administration, dear, and I'm going to call them and tell
them that you are re-hired". Mrs. Schwaller waved me good bye, and I walked down
the stairs to the first floor and out of the main entrance.
While walking across the road, on my way to Personnel, I suddenly realized
that Mrs. Adams had never even asked to see my discharge papers which I had
carried with me in a manila folder. Somehow they must have just expected that I
would come back with nothing less than an honorable discharge... At Newtown
Hall, I went through the impressive lobby waving to an old acquaintance, Dennis
Massi who worked in the post office. Looking down at me were two or three
portraits of former state dignitaries as well as paintings stemming from
Roosevelt's Federal Art Project, depicting landscapes and mural type of people
at work. God, I loved that era, Roosevelt and his social programs and especially
the mural type "realistic" paintings done by artist employed in those programs!
Upon reaching the first floor, I went into the main Personnel office and
met a Mrs. Conally. Little did I know that one day I would rent an apartment in
a house which my friend John Kilpatrick would buy, right below hers. She too
congratulated me upon hearing from me that I had just gotten out of the Army and
proceeded to pull various form-papers out of metal cabinets. Handing me the
papers, she asked me if I would be living on the grounds again and I nodded
"yes" in affirmation. Filling out the papers, I did then have to write my
discharge form number on one of them. When I was finished, she once again handed
me a slip to give to the Norwalk Hall matron and I was done.
John Kilpatrick was waiting for
me, sitting in one of those big leather chairs in the Norwalk Hall lobby and
followed me on my way to look for the matron who was supervising patients busy
cleaning rooms on the second floor. Of course she too remembered me and greeted
me happily also. Walking downstairs with us to her "apartment" office on the
first floor, she told me that she had only two empty rooms, one on the first
floor and one on the second floor. I chose the one on the second floor for the
"view" and a little more peace and quiet. Handing me the key, she smiled and
said that she thought it was my friend Pete's former room. I was stunned, what a
coincidence! And true enough, it was Pete's old corner room, by the side stairs,
on the second floor...right next to my old room. This room had two windows, one
going out toward the back and Mile Hill Road and the other towards the
administration building and was ready for occupancy, spotlessly clean and bed
made up. I was home again!
Being lunch-time, John drove me over to the Bridgeport Hall cafeteria.
Once again, I was kind of worried that "Gert" might pull me out of the line,
because I wasn't authorized to eat there until the next day. But, once again,
Gert surprised me, greeting me with a smile and welcoming me back. How could she
have known? The dining room was packed and people were looking up at me, many of
them waving "hallo". John and I found two seats at Harold Huntington's table.
Harold, this huge man, stood up to great me with vigor. He too, patriotic to the
core, congratulated me. The meal was great, Salisbury steak, potatoes, green
beans, butter beans and a vegetable salad, along with cake, chocolate milk and
their famous, strong tea. I was in heaven. While eating vigorously, many old
friends and acquaintances came up to our table greeting me. Jimmy Stewart from
the linen room with some of his crew, people from Fairfield House, from Norwalk
Hall and my old friend, Jimmy Fowler the union rep. for the CSEA. What a great
surprise that so many people remembered me and were willing to welcome me back.
Nancy, from the serving line, came over to see me for a few seconds while there
was nobody left in line. She too was so happy to see me, congratulating me, that
I almost felt like crying for joy. Never had I expected such a "reception"
coming back to a place of work! Even Mr. Geyger, the head man of the entire
kitchen and cafeteria came out of his office to greet me...
Having finished our meals and
smoked some cigarettes with our tea and coffee, we left the cafeteria. I felt
like I was dream-walking and still couldn't believe all the attention I had
received, even from people with whom I had had very little contact previously.
Marveling at the greatness of America and it's wonderful people, I stumbled
along following John towards his "Wagoneer". We had to go back to Pete's house
in Bethel to get my duffel-bag with my few items of clothing and "toiletries".
Arriving at his house, we found him getting ready for work at the
afternoon "relief" shift. Telling him quickly about the events at Fairfield
Hills, he seemed a little "put-off" that I was moving out so soon. I felt bad,
but I always needed my own space, even if it is only a room in a dorm. Living
with others, even with friends, is stressful to me as I like nothing more than
to be free and able to come and go at a whim. Pete understood of course, as he
knew me well enough by then.
After leaving Pete's house with my duffel bag, we took a ride to "uncle John's cabin" on Transylvania Road in Southbury. The cabin was still in the same unfinished state as it had been three years ago, but a new house had been built almost across the street from it. Southbury was then still very rural, especially around the Transylvania Road area. Land and property were cheap then. Today, in 2007, it is an extremely expensive "desirable" area of Connecticut. Hanging around his cabin for a while and walking through the wooded property, we became bored and decided it was time to leave for Fairfield Hills again. The traffic on Interstate 84 was sparse as always. This Interstate highway was not yet connected to other Interstates in the Hartford area as it is today. Thus there was only local traffic and non of the now so prevalent trucks. In fact, a long stretch of I-84 only had one road finished and traffic went in both directions on it.
I took a long hot shower at
Norwalk Hall once I had settled in my dorm room and then went with John and some
others to the cafeteria again to eat supper. It had been a long and exciting day
for me and I looked forward to reading a book for a while and then go to sleep.
The next day would be tense, having to meet my new class-mates and I wanted to be
well rested for it. But that wasn't to be. Old friends from my former days at
the dorm were knocking on my door. There were Stationitis first, telling me in
his broken English how much he had missed me and then adding that his friend Gerald
Brown, "the Jew", had been fired while I was gone. I was stunned to hear that
because I had just a while ago wondered why I hadn't seen him yet. Yes, Stationitis told me, Gerald Brown had been fired because some people didn't like
him in Fairfield House and therefore set him up by turning him in for sexually
abusing "Rudi", the patient whom I have described previously. Of course the
whole thing was a lie, Gerald would have never done that and everybody, just
about, knew it. Nevertheless, the charge against him, that he had masturbated
Rudi who did have frequent erections, as I well remember, came from two fellow
employees whom I never liked. They were brutish types, who worked on the
adjacent wing, Fairfield 1B. One, an Irishman, who could easily fit the
description of a sadistic cop or jail warden and whose name I don't want to
mention was despised ever since he got Gerald fired with his lie. I remember
that Gerald was not well suited for this often violent building because of his
eccentricity, but to charge him with something so serious and ugly, just to get
rid of him, is beyond evil. The hospital had to act on the accusation, and since
there were two or three people who were in on this, this poor soul was fired.
When I asked John and Harold Huntington and others about Gerald the next day,
they affirmed to me that they knew it was a set-up, that Gerald had given Rudi a
bed-bath because he had soiled himself, and that, while Gerald washed his
dirtied privates, Rudi had had an erection. This was not Gerald's fault,
obviously, he had only done what he was supposed to do, clean this patient, who
was always restrained because of severely self-abusive behavior, in his bed. His
penis and scrotum was soiled with fecal matter and when Gerald washed it, Rudi
had an erection! Since this happened on a regular basis, these two or three evil
characters were just waiting and just "happened" to walk by Rudi's open
seclusion room door to "catch" Gerald "masturbating" Rudi....
Upon hearing this unbelievably evil story, I realized, for the first time
in my life, how "dangerous" it was to work in nursing and even more so, to work
with mentally ill patients. How fellow workers, fellow human beings, could be so
callous and cruel, just because they don't like somebody, to ruin his whole
life, is beyond me though. Rumor had it that he had found a job as a "sanitation
worker" in Bridgeport. I just couldn't imagine that this highly intelligent man
who spoke several languages fluently, ended up dumping people's garbage cans
unto a truck, because of false witnesses who "didn't like him and didn't want to
work with him".
Needless to say, this story, this abominable lie about my former friend with
whom I had traveled to Montreal, and with whom I had had so many intelligent
conversations about Germany, Israel and politics, shook me to the core of my
being. And I was no innocent boy anymore, the army had shown me some ugly
characters, but I had never heard about such evil. Perhaps the only experiences
which came close to this, happened to me in Fort Knox, when, on a Sunday
morning, I had walked to get some coffee at the service club, when three or four
black soldiers literally pushed me off the sidewalk calling me a racist "honky".
The street was deserted, and I had never seen these characters before. We were
all in uniform and I had walked to the right of the sidewalk to let
them by. But they were out to get a white boy I suppose and I didn't know what
was happening. When I looked at them in total amazement, they told me to "beat
it" or they would "beat the shit out of me." This was in 1965...
Another incident was when I was stationed in Tappan, New York. There was a
Puerto Rican cook who stole large amounts of food from the mess-hall and
transported it almost on a daily basis, in the trunk of his car, to the Brooklyn
neighborhood where his family lived. The mess sergeant, in charge of the food
ordering, must have known what went on, but was afraid to do something about it.
He was an older white guy almost ready to retire after twenty years in the Army.
Not able to make the books balance, because of the excessive food ordering he
had to do, he, one evening, drove to the George Washington bridge, stopped his
car and jumped into the Hudson River below. I found out later, that there was a
big inspection coming where he would have to account for all the missing food
supplies and that, rather than turn the cook in and face the consequences, he
decided to take his own life... So officially, the story was that HE had stolen
the food and upon discovery committed suicide. But I knew better, because, at
that time, I worked as a second cook in Tappan and knew this Sergeant Cruz who
had befriended me as a co-worker. I had seen him load up his trunk at many
occasions and sometimes even ridden in his car, with him, to Brooklyn. When I
had asked him about the food, he told me that it was alright, that this was
"excess" food and that the Mess-Sgt. knew about it. He further told me that this
food was an Army donation to poor families in New York. At that time I believed
this story, because I wanted to and didn't want to "rock the boat". After all, I
reasoned, who was I, a Corporal, to question my boss the Sergeant. Of course I
really didn't know until after the poor Mess-Sgt. had committed suicide and was
"officially" blamed for the missing food, what the real story was. But what
could I possibly do? The man was dead already and the Army was much to big for
me to challenge the official version of their "findings". Now the cook who stole
all the food, Sgt. Cruz, didn't mean to drive the Mess-Sgt. into committing
suicide, but must have known and not cared about the consequences of his
stealing for this poor man. To me that is evil, almost as evil as what those
co-workers of Gerald Brown had done to him.
I didn't go to sleep that night until after 2 am. Too shook-up by Gerald Brown's story and much to angry, I visited with many of my old friends and even met some new ones. Wondering about my old friend Jerry Hatchey, I was told that he had quit the hospital in 1965 and moved to New York City. He had been such a good friend to me in 1963 and I felt even worse after hearing that. Also, another friend, Mike Shengrian, had gone on to Syracuse, New York to study forestry...
Pete's sister Ingrid and her daughter Pia
all dressed up
for Easter Sunday 1964. In the background is Pete's
old "Metropolitan", a nightmare of a car. This picture
is taken on West Street in Danbury, in front of "Bargain World".
Go
to Page X
Picture Page courtesy of
Beryl Carr
with pictures of Beryl Carr, Cliff Kearnan, Paula from the pharmacy, Florence
Brown, Ms. Raeford R.N.,
Dover Seawright, Dr. Didios, Dr. Seanado, Tommy Ferrell, Andres Vaga, Flo
Erickson, Carol Lockwood,
Lynn Wilson, and many more employees.
Go To Page XI
Various Pictures and
Historical Articles from a Pamphlet
Issued to FHH Employees in 1983
Go To Page XII
This Page Is Dedicated To The Loving Memory
Of Our Friend And Co-Worker At Fairfield Hills Hospital,
Evelyn M. Brown
With A Collection Of Pictures Sent To Me
By Her Loving Granddaughter Penny Lee. Group Photo From The Early-To
Mid- 1970's
Probably Taken In Cochran House Basement O.T. Room.
Far Left Standing Is William "Billy" Lawlor, Center-Table Is Charlie
Gallagher,
Second From Right, Standing, Is Kay Hodgman....
All The Others I Know And Worked With, But I Don't Remember Their
Names.
Also Pictures of Dino Lopez, Georgia Lasorco and of Jerry and Donna
Haffke
From the 1970's.
Go back to Page I of Working at Fairfield Hills Hospital