the Indiana Disability History Project notes that the construction of institutions was woven into the fabric of Indiana's founding as a state Indiana's original constitution provided for quote one or more farms to be in asylum for those persons who by reason of age, infirmity or other misfortune may have a claim upon the aid and beneficence of society.

In 1890, Indiana opened a facility in Fort Wayne for all of the children in the state with mental disabilities and years later a second facility in the city would follow and today both of these institutions and the people that inhabited them have been largely forgotten.

>> This Monday night at 9:00, PBS Fort Wayne tells their story in the forgotten history of state developmental institutions in .

Historically the mentally ill in the United States have largely been viewed as a social and economic issue more than a medical problem.

The solution was basically the same house them together separate from everyone else to be forgotten.

They were hidden away from society and vast state run institutions in 1890, Indiana opened a brand new facility for all of the children in the state with mental disabilities.

It was located on the northeast side of the city of Fort Wayne.

It was called the Indiana School for Feeble Minded Youth.

In those days there were very few people that knew anything about mental retardation.

Nobody knew anything about the severely and profoundly newly diagnosed with mental handicaps and severe behavior problems and physical problems.

You have no rights.

You're locked away.

Yes, you're fed and clothed but you don't get your basic needs met.

You know, it's deplorable.

I mean some people were here what forty fifty years like this is not a way to live.

This is a story of that forgotten place from the archaic days of the past through the medical and behavioral progress that was gained through the building of a new complex to the eventual closure.

What I saw with the lower functioning there was as much progress in that part of our world as there was in the space program from where we were to where it went.

This is a history of the state developmental institutions in .

>> This latest local history documentary from PBS Fort Wayne will air this Monday night at nine and we'll preview that broadcast on this edition of Prime Time.

>> And good evening.

I'm Bruce Haines with us today our Patty Hayes, chief executive officer with Adewusi Foundation and Nancy Lorrain, retired CEO at Turnstone Center for Children and Adults with Disabilities.

>> Welcome to you both.

Thank you.

As we widen out there's Patty, there's Nancy and before us there's a story arc of some 117 years it seems of involving with state developmental centers by a variety of names.

>> Why is this an important story to share?

Well, Bruce , we came to PBS to try and capture this history as part of RWC Foundations recognition of the 30th anniversary of ADA.

Most of us only know disabilities from that time frame when disabilities were a subgroup that we were fighting for rights.

>> But in order to understand how important those rights are, it's understanding the time when the rights were not there and let's go back particularly while there are people still alive who worked at the state center.

>> You captured some great stories from the Henry family and we are finding the loss of some of that.

>> So our timing was kind of twofold.

>> And Nancy, for you this is a story that's sort of a professional homecoming in part, right?

>> Right.

My first job out of college was working at the Fort Wayne State Developmental Center and I just needed a job and a paycheck and I ended up there and ended up with forty four years working with people with disabilities.

I learned a lot but I'm also a I love history and I love the history of this facility and didn't want to see that history forgotten.

Yeah and this history is not only the evolution of a facility but it also seems to be an evolution of philosophy and evolution of language and evolution of of care for persons with intellectual developmental disabilities.

So there are some grievances through a century plus it's it's great in that you've captured some news broadcasts where the term mentally was part of the news story or headlines.

Talking of the school for Feeble-Minded words like idiot imbecile were medical terms things the words we would never use but that was kind of the starting point.

And then the documentary ends up with how are things evolving today for people with disabilities being active parts of our community and in this community you may well have been driving past a part of some aspect of the life of state developmental center activity in inner city and not necessarily known it would that we were all around for this initial photo of the spire.

This is a postcard from early turn of the century or in 1910 or so of of the main building and as you saw in the opening to the video, maybe either both of you would like to speak to this.

It's it puts out a pretty imposing format from the curb.

>> Right.

Growing up in Harlan County and driving down State Street looking at the fence and that building those big buildings that had the tunnels that they used as escape tunnels.

>> I always thought those would be fun but but also I found it as a child to be kind of spooky because there would be these strange people hanging around along State Street on the fence and I didn't have an understanding at the time about what that was, what would even was going on there.

But it was always kind you know, just a scary place.

It looks scary.

It's very gothic and just it was just something that was a little intimidating and was at the time one of the first in the state if not the first in the nation to be of such magnitude with a focus on children I believe men on one side of the facility, women on the other.

We're showing you this overhead shot.

Let's go back one and show the the prior overhead shot.

There we go.

Because this actually if you can get your bearings there's the St. John River on the far left side and then you have North Side Park, North Side High School but they're on the top of the hill is where that large building resided.

>> The only symbol of it left is the column I guess in the park.

Right.

And the documentary captures the change we made as part of that 30th anniversary of ADA and and changing the plaque that was on that column because the column made reference to the mentally that were housed there and we kept the plaque, put it at the history center but changed out to say intellectual disabilities and a little more respectful, less derogatory term and at the time that the facility was under construction in fact every time the facility was expanding it still had not kept up with the population that was prepared to move in such that as additional space was required they went more out of town and now we can show that second overhead shot because now we're taking you to Purdue, Fort Wayne , former IPTF w the state developmental center that folks might be familiar.

>> And Nancy, I'll turn to you for that one.

This is pretty much at the corner of what Hobson Stillwater.

>> Yeah.

And Saint Joe.

Saint John Saint John and right across from Canterbury Green and now it's occupied by IPTF or Purdue.

Fort Wayne and Indiana are Ivy yeah.

>> Yeah.

Some of the buildings are still there but they're being used some of them are being torn down.

>> So we're going to go back to North Side Park.

We showed this one very quickly.

This is a once upon a time shot of the gym which is in North Side Park which is a part of the original complex.

>> I mean these were campuses if I recall and now as seen today or maybe just seen just in passing the facility is still being used the administration building at the corner there at Parnell and State and the ocean to that state street or state boulevard got its name.

You'll need to tune in Monday night to get the complete back story on that one.

But it was an eyebrow raiser when when when we heard it I didn't know it till I until then then one other shot though on location and I'd like the ladies to to to comment because when we talked about expanding this is also not just a structure situation but it's also farms.

There are a number of wide acreages and these facilities sought to be as self-sufficient as possible very much so whether it was cows and it was one of the creative innovative aspects of the program was realizing if they raise cows they potentially taught a trade to the students that were there but they also cut down on the amount of milk that they had to buy.

So as well as farming and making mattresses and shoes and sewing selling their clothing, all different kinds of things because we're Canterbury is and Purdue Fort that was all farm and they had Black Hawk farm and they had I can't remember the names of the other farms but they were all in that area and quite a bit of acreage which later they develop the new campus and not far from that farmland was also an area set aside and this also adjoining Purdue Fort Wayne's campus today God's Acre which I like to share.

>> Yeah, there's a small green space right there at the back.

I call it the back entrance to Purdue Fort Wayne that there you have to go back and look but there are small no desks in the ground.

They moved a statue that was at the state developmental center to mark the spot but many, many unmarked graves when students died often there was no family and they were buried there and so we tried to increase the garden footprint and make a little more of a memorial for the lives that as the title says were forgotten in in that particular space.

>> There is a reference to a statue called The Contenders.

>> Do you remember the contender statue?

Oh yeah.

I was there when they placed it in that you know, the building that Ivy Tech uses now is there I would say their recreation building where the gymnasium is that building was our community mall at the time that we were operating out there.

So that was done by a local sculptor and put in place to signify the people who live there.

There's a girl and a boy and they're back to back and that was placed in the center of our community mall building as kind of a centerpiece the mall, you know, right in the mall there.

So I was really happy to see they moved it over there and they preserved it over at the at the cemetery.

>> Yeah.

So an encouragement as you watch the documentary on PBS when you can then play it out by taking perhaps a different route home stop by the facility or the area of the park there are benches and a place to to see these evidences of history still very much with us.

>> The people the children who were buried there, you know, often their parents were told just place your child in the institution, forget them and the families follow that advice too many times and unfortunately yeah.

>> Yeah.

And in these phases or this evolution not only as I say of facility but also in a philosophy by the time we move into the nineteen thirties it's not only perhaps leave your child and allow us and continue with your lives and be happy for the memories you'll remember him but he won't remember you I think was one of the quotes but concurrent with that was activity in the legislature and within society at large about sterilization and eugenics and a lot of sterilization procedures were performed at the center.

>> Why?

>> Well it was yeah.

Let the nurse handle that question right?

Yeah.

I'm you know there was a belief that a person with a disability would have a child with a disability.

There was a wrongly held belief that people with disabilities are hypersexual.

>> I mean there's a variety of misconceptions that were there but let's not have more people in our community in our country like this devalued life and the best way to handle it was with sterilization.

>> I have a note here that suggests that serros the sterilized bill in Indiana was not repealed until 1974 Governor or Joe if history still rather recent on on some points as we go forward and they're all feeling what perhaps is the largest takeaway from the documentary which is to keep a conversation going about where we are with those who are differently abled and how we work with them and how they can continue to have as inclusive a a life in our community as possible.

The practice was they were not taught to read no schooling.

It was straight to trade work and when we saw five four come through and that right to public education and seeing the students move in to Fort Wayne community schools, it was still segregated and we continue to evolve with mainstreaming that segregation is gone in today's schools and we see people have very significant learning opportunities when the opportunity is there for classroom education.

>> Yeah, which brings us perhaps to what was the jumping off point for a lot of activity back in twenty twenty which was the notion of celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act and and its impact in society.

It took about twenty five years for the act to actually be legislation and now here it is so many years later.

Let me get the sense from both of you about your time at Turnstone certainly in your stewardship at FWC Foundation relative to the ADA we're better off.

>> We have a way to go oh gosh are we better off?

No doubt.

I think there's two things with the I always think about the ADA is one it gave people with disabilities a very strong voice and they they had legislation to back them up before they were still forgotten and ignored and not not able to go into restaurants and buildings and all of those the physical things.

But also it's just about the respect that people with disabilities could gain and also it opened up the world and the Internet helps on that too .

But that opened up the world for people with disabilities and from that technology has exploded and has given people with disabilities a much broader range of either appliances or equipment or opportunities for learning.

You know, people with intellectual disabilities have you know, they're not they're not imbeciles.

I mean they're they're smart people but just didn't have the opportunity or the or the technology or the education and the people to help them achieve what they needed to get what they needed to achieve.

>> And I think it's also an education for all of us that are that don't have a disability that we need to learn language and how people with disabilities are really no no different than any of us.

They just have differences and we all need to learn about that too and what their needs are.

>> ADA had elements that were probably more applicable for those with physical disabilities or sensory blind deaf requirements for Braille on signage, the physical curb cuts and it also had the element of requiring employers to make accommodations for people with disabilities more so physical intellectual disabilities we continue to see opportunities for greater and greater inclusion and now we're talking more universal design.

This morning we were all at the airport as they opened up the new gates and to see what Fort Wayne Airport has done with universal design so that the airport is more welcoming as we see people with autism when we see service animals using the airport cane trail for those who are blind hearing loop.

>> So universal design is the the pace we want to get at where ADA is more architectural and just the minimum standard it being able to provide sufficient accommodation where necessary in order for someone to be able to accomplish tasks that can be contributive and certainly with the coming and going of life through an airport I'm thinking of October as Employment Disability Awareness Month and some of the additional digital kinds of accommodations that are available now to make so much more happen and you can find that all flowing back to the headquarters of what of what ADA came to be when we look at where the state developmental center activities, listen to the name changes because they would move from that to the state hospital and training center or the idea of calling it a developmental center because it meant you were moving forward.

One of the workers there at one point said you have to start where they are, not where you want them to be because your experience.

>> Oh, I think so.

I saw a lot of changes like that even my time at Turnstone .

Just what do they want where do they need to be and work towards that goal and help them work towards and what kind of what kind of things and support systems can you put in place to make that happen?

But you know, the first school I think it was called the Indiana School for Feeble-Minded Youth.

>> So look how far we've come through the years to even in the Fort Wayne State Developmental Center closed you know we're still there was still a lot of progress and there were times when people that were residents there left to live in the community.

I even had doubts to myself are they going to make it because they've been institutionalized all their life but they did and they're thriving in the community so we always can move forward and get better and provide those supports.

>> Yeah, I find that when you're looking at today trying to understand what the conception of the word disability is, you shared some thoughts in a recent newsletter from the foundation.

Let's go there for for for a moment because from your nursing background, your medical background, a disability was always another D word.

>> It was a diagnosis I the what I know about disability was through nursing school and it was identifying the flaws, identifying a condition can we treat it can it be cured as opposed to looking at potential and foundation wants to move away from that medical model and really away from the charity model and instead saying this is opportunity, this is inclusion.

>> How do we make sure everyone has an opportunity to participate in all the opportunities that are here in Fort Wayne whether that's recreation, employment, education, transportation, housing, same opportunity should be available.

>> You disability is a part of every sector of our community rather than something to be cured.

We need to address this an attribute of the people in our cities, towns and neighborhoods.

>> Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And disability is the one minority that any one of us can join at any given time and year and it does not care what church you go to, how much money you have, what color your skin is.

You know you can have become a person with a disability at any time and you'll just have to learn to live with it.

>> Then one of the things that we are learning as we have been living collectively with the experience of those that have moved through and beyond there encounters with Indiana's state developmental centers and the ones in Fort Wayne as well will share with you that indeed this coming Monday at nine we will put the graphic up because for this special program Hebes Fort Wayne worked with more than 2000 images from various sources most of those have never been publicly seen.

>> The station transferred and reviewed over 150 videotapes from the state archives that plus our own interviews reviewing newspaper accounts, other archival material.

It's going to be an amazing time 9:00 the support for the production provided by a grant from HWC Foundation and production assistants including a number of individuals who had professional or personal connections with what would come to be called the state developmental center.

And that is a reflection of both of our guests here this evening Nancy Lorrain, the retired CEO from Turnstone and continue to advocate for disability.

Thank you.

>> Thank you for being here and welcome also Patty Hayes, the CEO currently and and beyond for the AWB Foundation.

>> Thank you so much.

Thank you for the delivering a spectacular product from an idea to capturing an important piece of our history.

>> Our pleasure and again Monday night at 9:00 right here on PBS Fort Wayne and for all of us with prime time, I'm Bruce Haines.

>> Thank you for watching.

Take care and we'll see you again real soon.

Good night