WORKING
AT FAIRFIELD HILLS HOSPITAL
IN NEWTOWN,
CONNECTICUT.
Jerry Haffke Remembers:
Part III
The back of Bridgeport Hall (the
main cafeteria and kitchen) is on the left. Shelton House would be on the right.
Canaan House looms behind Bridgeport Hall (with school bus in front). Cochran
House is visible way in back.
With our work becoming routine and life on the grounds becoming comfortable and more relaxed, Pete and I used our week ends off to travel around the area with John Kilpatrick, Jerry Hatchey and Gerald Brown. We were often invited to go for a ride as these good friends seemed to vie for our attention and often volunteered to show us the beautiful surroundings of Newtown, Sandy Hook, Lake Candlewood, Lake Lilenoah, Seaside Park in Bridgeport, New Haven, Derby and Ansonia, New Milford and even New York City.
Picture on left, I'm visiting New
York City and Picture on the right, I'm in Seaside Park, Bridgeport, Ct.. Both
pictures were taken in summer of 1963.
New York City Summer 1963 while
Pete and I still worked at Danbury Hospital.
John Kilpatrick took us often to his "cabin" on Transylvania Road in
Southbury, which wasn't finished and had no indoor plumbing either. We had to
use an old-fashioned "outhouse" to relieve ourselves and there was no running
water either. So we often brought large bottles with water with us when we went
there in order to make coffee and wash the dishes. Transylvania Road, at least
the part of it where John had his cabin, was wild and undeveloped. Although,
further up, it became somewhat more "civilized", almost suburban. John's brother
with wife and children had a fine property up there.
Going to John's cabin seemed like the ultimate "get-away" to me, like an
almost "romantic" ultimate "escape" from civilization. Reminding me of the early
settlers and the wild west. He had a TV there and a little wood-stove, where we
would, during the winter months, sit in ratty easy chairs and on an old sofa to
watch the "John Burke Show" in the late sixties. John and I loved that show
because John Burke, a somewhat arrogant and conceited "host" managed to have
some very interesting people on his program. John, like myself, had a sarcastic
sense of humor as well as an open mind to an "alternative" understanding of
history and politics. John admired the German people, much more than I ever
could and thus had a deep empathy to the German suffering during World War I and
II. Having lived the horror and fear of the great-depression in the 1930's, he
had never forgotten those day and was thus very emphatic with the suffering of
the people in Germany. Thus we would often discuss the events leading to the
second World War and even argue about Germany's role in it. I was much more
critical of Hitler and the concentration camps than he and thus had to often
"set him straight" on those issues. He had a typically American Yankee sense of
fair play and justice, a sense I had found quite predominant in the people I met
in those days. Those were the days and years before "political correctness" and
social engineering poisoned that great American quality of character and made
America into what it is today, a society of people who are afraid to trust their
own senses and their own judgment. A society where people are afraid to speak
what they really think, if they dare to think at all.
I am so grateful to have come to the United States when I did in 1963 and
was thus able to experience this once great nation with it's truly wonderful
people before it was destroyed from within. Having experienced, first hand, the
indescribable generosity and kindness of the American people everywhere I went,
uncomplicated and sometimes even naive, I am so saddened and angry, seeing what
has become of them today through insidious propaganda, brainwashing in schools
and ruthless manipulation trough enforced "political correctness" everywhere.
This wonderful generation has gradually disappeared, faded away and the young
people, the generations after them, have no idea what greatness America has
lost.
The America of "Leave it to Beaver", "Mayberry" and "Dennis the menace" was
true, and let no one tell you otherwise.... I have seen and been lovingly
embraced by it. I am a witness indeed. Perhaps it wasn't quite as innocent as I
felt it to be, but, nevertheless, those shows weren't that far off in truth, in
reflecting that great era.
Picture on left: Visiting the
Hudson River on the way to the Bear Mountains in upstate New York, with Jerry
Hatchey and John Kilpatrick, summer 1963.
Picture on right: Visiting New Haven, Ct. coast line with George, also a German
who worked for a short while in the central linen room. Also in 1963.
Picture on left: George and I and on right, Pete, on the same
trip to New Haven in 1963.
Yes, I am not ashamed to say that I loved America and it's people and I felt more at home here than I had ever felt in Germany. It was a truly "free" country and everything was uncomplicated and possible, or at least, it seemed that way. There was very little "documentation" like I had experienced in Germany, very limited paper-work and bureaucracy. There was no fear of being accused of "discrimination" and "abuse" and people were able to think and speak freely. Employers could hire you if they liked you without fear that they were violating some kind of insidious "quota" and racial relations (at least up north) were based on personal character and honesty, not enforced government quotas and threats. You were who you were and were accepted according to your character and personality. Sure there was "discrimination" and sometimes plain old "racism", but those occurrences were rare and frowned upon. Frowned upon not by enforced regulations and laws, but by peoples innate sense of fairness and justice. I have been called a German nazi by an angered person on a few occasions, but never took it to heart because it was said in the heat of anger and didn't really mean anything. For example, a guy whom I really liked, Charlie Galchos, had a room at Norwalk Hall right next to mine. This was in 1970, and he had a few nights of Christmas parties in his room which lasted almost all night. There was a lot of drinking and raucous singing of Christmas songs. I had one night of it with little sleep and on the second night, at about 2 am, I knocked on his door and asked them to please keep the noise down because I had to be at work in Cochran House in the morning. Charlie was not too happy about my "interference" but promised that they would "celebrate" more quietly. The walls in the dormitories weren't very soundproof, and soon after I heard Charlie cursing me loudly, calling me a god-damn Kraut and nazi. It hurt, heck, it stung me deeply, because I really liked him, but I never held it against him after because I knew that his "name-calling" was only a surface reaction to my complaint, a drunk expression of momentary anger. Isn't it that we all tend to have outburst of anger, calling people names at that moment and then regretting it? Is that so evil, so unforgivable, that we need government regulations and laws to get revenge? I always felt that one's character and personality overcomes all prejudice not laws which stifle free expression and un-complicated relations peoples of all races. We all have our "quirks" and inherent characteristics and are thus vulnerable in many ways. Is it so terrible to occasionally be subjected to criticism, name-calling, or even a joke? People of all races and ethnicities have learned to adapt and get along in America, long before "politically correct" thought control became the law. It was ever so gradual but therefore it was natural, without hypocrisy and good. Seeing what enforced political correctness and anti-discrimination laws have done to this country and the free interaction of it's people, I can not help but be abhorred. There is more name-calling and labeling of people now than there ever was. And with the incredible influx of immigrants, legal and not legal, from third world countries, the division and racial as well as ethnic separatism and in-fighting for "opportunities" has made this once great nation into a third world cesspool and battle ground for gang warfare. America, the real America, is now only a memory. It is a giant dying a slow and painful death.
Picture on left: New Haven Court
House where I would eventually receive my citizenship in 1969. On right part of
New Haven harbor.
Both pictures taken on the same trip in late November 1963. Please notice the
flag on top of the court house flying at half mast.
This was due to the assassination of president Kennedy on November 22, 1963.
But please forgive my ranting
about the glories of the past. I believe though that it is all part of my story
and thus part of my life, not just work, at Fairfield State Hospital, another
giant of a past era destroyed by the same forces which destroyed America.
Fairfield State Hospital, to me at least, was an expression of this once great
country, just as president Roosevelt and his New Deal. It was the expression of
a social consciousness which only this great statesman could have wrought during
a time of "depression" and burgeoning, ruthless Capitalism. He was able to find
a middle-ground between capitalism and social need. What ever his faults might
have been, he was able to answer the social needs of the American people not
only with a charismatic personality but with deeds, of which one, Fairfield
State Hospital, was just a minimal, but, nevertheless, important example.
Certainly the hospital had been founded and started before his administration,
but the real Fairfield State Hospital was the work of his spirit. Most buildings
were added through laborers working for his Public Works Administration and his
vision of a "better" and more compassionate America was certainly a factor in
the expansion of Fairfield State Hospital.
In early September of 1963, Joe Tinto relayed a message to me that Mrs.
Adams wanted to see me and Pete at her office. We instinctively knew what it was
all about. Our happy, carefree days at the central linen room had come to an
abrupt end. On the way over to Shelton House I told Pete that I didn't really
want to take Psychiatric Aide classes because I really liked working at the
linen room. True, it was mindless work, but I enjoyed it and the people working
with me. Pete felt the same and we decided to ask to be able to continue working
where we already were. Knocking at the door frame Mr. Adam's open door on the
third floor, she asked us to come on in. Sure enough, she told us sternly that
it was time for us to take the test over again as she thought that we had shown
our ability to deal with patients and employees well. I started to tell her that
we were really happy at the linen room, but she would have nothing of it. She
was determined that we were "ready" and thus told us to see Mrs. Schwaller
immediately to take the test again. One simply did not argue with Mrs. Adams,
that much we knew already and thus we left, thanking her. Mrs. Schwaller gave us
a new sheet of questions and we started to answer them. Well, our English, our
conversational English, had definitely improved, no doubt about that. But,
still, reading those questions again and making sense of them, was still a big
problem. Plus, we were just as nervous and sweating for fear that we would flunk
again and be deeply embarrassed by our ignorance. Simple math problems, like
multiplications and divisions, which normally were easy to solve, became, with
our nervousness, seemingly unsolvable. Looking at each other for help became
even more confusing. Pete had different answers than I and working over the math
problems again, I could still not come to the "right" solutions. So I just gave
up and handed in my paper when Pete too was done. Mrs. Schwaller came back,
overjoyed, telling us that we had passed with flying colors and would thus start
classes a week or so later.
We both were dumb-founded and couldn't see how we could have possibly
passed. And to this day I have a sneaking suspicion that either Mrs. Adams or
Mrs. Schwaller had "doctored" the papers in our behalf. Be that as it may, our
time in central-linen had come to an and we were on our way to become
Psychiatric Aide Trainees.
Joe Tinto was already aware of our appointment and lamented that he was
loosing two "good men". Everybody there, in the linen room, seemed to feel sad
about our leaving as we had all grown to like and appreciate each other. Pete
and I had more than just doubts about our "advancement", we were downright
scared about what would be required of us during our training. The only thing
that gave us some comfort was the hope that we, if we didn't "measure up" in
class", would probably be able to go back to the linen room...
Picture taken from a trail on Fairfield State Hospital property
in 1963. The hospital is on the left
where one can make out one of the white towers and the roofs of some buildings.
Homes in Newtown
are visible, nestled in the rolling hills.
Unfortunately I have no pictures of the buildings of FSH because we were warned
not to take pictures on the grounds to protect patients privacy.
Continue to page IV of "Working at Fairfield Hills Hospital"
Go back to Page I of Working at Fairfield Hills Hospital
If you have
worked at Fairfield State (Hills) hospital, especially from 1960 - 1980,
I would love to hear from you. Please don't hesitate to e-mail me at:
discoverer73@hotmail.com
If you remember me, all the better...
I now live in Savannah, Ga.
For more
pictures from Fairfield Hills go to:
http://new.photos.yahoo.com/starsbelowme/album/576460762337228785
Other websites of
interest with many pictures from whom I have stolen some:
http://www.fairfieldhills.com/bldFFH.html
http://www.fairfieldstatehospital.com/
I want to thank those
websites above for their efforts of keeping the memory of Fairfield State
(Hills) Hospital alive
and for the pictures taken after the closing of this once remarkable
institution. And I hope that you, who took and
published these pictures don't mind sharing them with me and my viewers. I have
attempted to contact
www.fairfieldhills.com by e-mail,
but the mail was returned to me as undeliverable. So I figured that
you wouldn't mind my "stealing".