Oregon Voices: Oregon State Hospital during the 1960s: A Patient's Memories and Recent Interview of Her Doctor

Abstract

OREGON VOICES Oregon State Hospital During the 1960s A Patient'sMemories and Recent Interviewofher Doctor byC.L. Brown with and interview ofJoseph H. Treleaven THE THREE-STORIED, SPIRED building stretched for a full block along Center Street in Salem, Oregon, just a few blocks from my childhood home. On weekend walks, my mother would sometimes take us past the seemingly endless structure,and,when I asked about it, she explained that crazy people lived in thebuilding and that the bars and screens over some of the narrow windows were there to keep themfrom gettingout. Little did I know that,by the time I turned sixteen, Iwould be a patient atOregon State Hospital (OSH). A 1952 brochure published by the hospital for visitors indicates that patients were not allowed onto the 180 acre campus without an escort.1 When I arrived at thehospital in 1965, however, the sidewalks crisscrossing the park-like expanse, landscaped to bloom in the spring and summer, bustled with patients, student nurses, and young internspassing each other on theirway to various destinations. Ground privileges were earned by patients. In return for devoting a few hours a day to an Industrial Therapy (IT) assignment, patients were rewarded with a "number 2 card," which allowed them to come and go from the buildings at will during certain hours. For a time, I was allowed the card as a result ofmy efforts in two separate assignments. In the first, I helpedfeed byhand thedisabledand wheelchair-bound patients on a geri atric ward. In the second, I donned a shower cap and cape, then soaped and rinsed patients who responded to me with vacant stares and pas sive cooperation. Other patients accepted IT assignments in themain kitchen, warehouses, landscaping 282 OHQ vol. 109, no. 2 ? 2008 Oregon Historical Society Views of thebeautifulgrounds of the Oregon StateHospital could be seenfrom the third floorwindows of theday room of Ward 81. crews, greenhouses, beauty or barber shop, and sewing room. In nice weather, Iwalked outside on the southeast corner of the cam pus and saw numerous greenhouses. I was told they provided starts for vegetables grown to feed patients and for theflowers that lined the walkways. Near the greenhouses, long-shuttered structureswith attached loading docks bordered the several acres of arable land between the hospital grounds and theOregon State Prison walls. I thought thebuildings looked like the remnants of a farm. I later learned that, at one time, the hospital ? a largely self-contained community when Iwas a patient there,having its own library,fire trucks,morgue, and religious services, for example ? had depended on patient workers to pro duce and harvest all of theagricultural products consumed at the institution. In 1893,thehospital actually produced enough to feed not only themselves but also the institutions for the deaf and for theblind.2 When Iwas a patient at thehospital, the fields appeared unused, although the tracks of a narrow gauge railway remained, leading from thefields and into the entrance of a tunnel. The sys tem ? still in use in 1965 ? allowed for the transportation of all kinds of goods to different sections of the hospital, even in bad weather. As a new patient, I had been escorted into the tunnel system to have my picture taken and toget tested for tuberculosis. Men pushing hot-food carts passed us, headed for the elevator that took them into the building above. Other Brown,Oregon StateHospital During the 1960s 283 I fS-^?rv. s h%v Patients couldwork on the Oregon StateHospital farm,pictured hereduring its operational days beforetheauthor arrived at thehospital. cartswere heaped with laundry,which I later learned was sent to the prison forprocessing. Once, another patient and Iducked into the tunnels towait out a sudden rainstorm. She asked me if Iwanted to see something.When I said yes, she tookme to an area where the tunnel opened up into an alcove beneath the oldest part of thehospital. She pointed to what appeared to be concrete benches, each embedded with an iron ring, and told me that patients had been chained to those rings long ago. In 1965, the hospital operated an outpatient department in addition to its inpatient services, and itwas through the outpatient portion of...