Remembering a Remarkable Life

The Rev. Canon William Maurice Branscomb, Jr., at his 90th birthday celebration with longtime parishioner Frances Hinckell, also 90, at Grace Church Woodlawn, Birmingham, Alabama, where he was rector for many years. A parishioner writes, “Grace is what it is because of his leadership.” 

(From The Daily Office, Asia-Pacific, New Zealand, photo by Elizabeth Anderson)

My Memories of Maurice Branscomb

The life of the Reverend Canon Maurice Branscomb, or as most of us called him, “Father B,” was celebrated at Grace Episcopal Church where his funeral Mass took place on January 20. “A most remarkable man,” “one who stood with dignity,” “a priest whose concern for the poor arose from his prayer life,” were some of the comments heard during the service. At 92 years of age, his had been a life of joyful service that had touched many. He was an anomaly to some: a strong advocate for high Anglo-Catholic liturgy, he also had an undying motivation to reach out to the poor and the outcast. As I told one of my friends, “Even now, just remembering Father B inspires me to keep trying.”

That First Encounter

I will never forget my first encounter with Maurice Branscomb back in 1984. I was at a pivotal point in my life. At 29 years of age, I was a Baptist seminary graduate having spent two years on the mission field and involved in hospital chaplaincy, yet I found myself inwardly driven to break away from my Baptist moorings. Even in seminary, my church history studies had peaked my interest in the Catholic Church, and while serving overseas one of my friends was an Anglican priest who had converted from the Baptist faith.

I was considering a move toward what I was seeing as a more historic expression of the Christian faith and had spoken with a few people about my search. One Baptist pastor suggested I go find Maurice Branscomb and see what he was doing on Birmingham’s Southside. An Episcopal chaplain on another occasion had suggested the same thing, “Go see what Father Branscomb is doing at St. Andrew’s and see what you think.”

I had called ahead to arrange a visit. Father Branscomb welcomed me into St. Joseph's House, the parish house that is adjacent to St. Andrew’s Church. Dressed simply in a blue work shirt and slacks, his open countenance was warm and inviting. I had told him that I was interested in exploring the Episcopal Church. He was interested in hearing about my own journey. As I sat with him telling him my story, I could not recall a time when I had been listened to so deeply and fully.

A Rich Expression of Faith

Father B then told me a few things about his church. He picked up a 1979 Book of Common Prayer and showed me how to navigate it. He pointed out some of the founding documents included therein. “These documents show you our history and how we got to where we are now. They are not necessarily things that everyone has to believe to be part of our church, but they give you an idea of who we are.” He pointed out that I was coming at an opportune time – it was the beginning of Lent. “You will be able to witness the church’s preparation for Easter, our most defining season!”

During that conversation, he told me about the ministries that were happening there at St. Andrew's. There was the soup kitchen (Community Kitchens) that served lunch Monday-Friday to anyone who walked in. Southside Ministries operated from there to provide food, clothing and other types of emergency relief. St. Andrew's Foundation, founded by Fr. Francis Walter, provided independent living training for adults with developmental disabilities.

He then showed me around the sanctuary at St. Andrew’s, explaining every arrangement of that physical space and invited me to join them on Sunday. My goal was to enter in to the life of the church, to observe it long enough to find out if it was a place for me. He was more than happy to have me sojourn among them for as long as I saw fit.

St. Andrew's Church (photo from Church's website)

A New Paradigm

Thus began what would be for me not just a pivotal moment, but rather a complete paradigm shift and the opening to a new approach to life. I don’t think I had any other formal one-on-one meetings with Father B, but for the next three months I “sat at his feet” at Saturday morning Eucharist, Sunday worship, Stations of the Cross, etc. It was a small congregation, so anyone involved in the life of the parish had close contact with one another. Sometimes I would stop Father B to ask him questions about “why do we do this in the service?” or “what does this or that mean in the liturgy?” I even sat in on the confirmation class he led that spring.

Then he was gone. After 12 years as rector at St. Andrew’s he accepted a call to Holy Communion Parish in Charleston, S.C. I was sad to see him go, but he had ushered me into a happy communion. I would continue to explore the life of faith at St. Andrew’s Church for a few months before officially being confirmed in November of that year. 

I became involved in the life of the church, serving as acolyte at the altar and later singing in the choir. I found gainful and meaningful employment in social services with the St. Andrew’s Foundation, working with adults with developmental disabilities in group homes and supervised apartments. On a daily basis, I witnessed the work of the soup kitchen that Father B had started years before (and which continues to this day). In the meantime, I met the woman who would become my wife right there at St. Andrew’s (at the coffee hour – I remember it like it was yesterday when Vicki and I met). It was a most fulfilling time of life for me.

To my delight, a few years after Maurice Branscomb moved to Charleston, he decided to come back to Birmingham, this time to Grace Church in Woodlawn where he would continue his work of High Anglo-Catholic Liturgy and ministry to the people on the streets. I was deeply involved at St. Andrew’s and felt no urge to go to Grace (though I did visit on occasion to witness Father B in his element). I wrote him upon his return and told him that that it was a joy for me just to know that he was here in town.

Grace Episcopal Church in Woodlawn where Father B continued
his "altar and street" ministries (photo from Church's website)

Final Visits

In 1997, I got word that Father B would be retiring and moving to south Alabama. They had a big celebration for him at Grace. I composed a poem for him on that occasion and presented it to him at the retirement event. It would be another 16 years before I would see him when he returned to St. Andrew’s Church for their 100^th anniversary celebration. Three of their former rectors were present to celebrate the occasion. (I told people it was better than when the five Doctors came together on Doctor Who).

I was no longer at St. Andrew’s Church. I had been working in healthcare for a number of years and my family and I were members at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church. I would not have missed the occasion to see Father B again – he would have been in his late eighties by then. I was glad to be there for the centennial service. As I walked out of the church where the three former rectors were greeting the people, I took Father B’s hand. The ageing priest smiled, looked into my eyes and reached out to touch my face, as if to say, “Is that really you?” All I could say was, “After all these years!”

I would not see Father B again. He was in fact living in an assisted living center in south Alabama at the time, though he still took part in priestly duties when he could. When word came in January that he had died, I went back to my files to find the poem I had written 20 years before. Re-reading it, I saw that I could change the first lines and it would be a suitable writing in memorium. I shared it on my blog and with friends who knew Father B. I was glad to have the poem to bring his life to mind, but I was so grateful that I had been able to share those words with Father B himself, while he was still a young 72 year old retiree.

In Remembrance

The Rev. Kent Belmore was the celebrant and homilist at Maurice Branscomb’s funeral. Belmore had been a curate under Father Branscomb at the Church of the Holy Communion in Charleston, S.C. In his homily, he mentioned that Maurice did not talk much about Heaven or dwell on it because living faithfully in the here-and-now was what was important to him. Father Belmore told us that instead talking about Heaven, he wanted to look at the biblical term, resurrection. “The word for resurrection in the Koine Greek literally means ‘to stand with dignity’,” he told us. “Maurice Branscomb was definitely one who stood with dignity in all that he did.” He then asked the congregation to stand for a moment to affirm the reality of standing with dignity as we remembered Maurice Branscomb.

Remembering Maurice Branscomb will continue to inspire me to keep trying. Now I have that sure image of the Christian hope and proclamation that we can and will stand with dignity in the presence of God – and that God’s presence is most surely found in the poor and the outcast as well as at the altar.

Here is the poem I wrote for Father Branscomb upon his retirement and then revised as a memorial to his life:

     In Remembrance of Father Branscomb

All good graces

And light eternal

To the one who has shown great compassion

     in all things.

Your boundless energy

With your endless capacity for caring

     has been a blessing from God.

Many have seen how your compassion

     made the liturgy come alive,

     brought sustenance to the needy,

     created a space for those who would rest

         and a ministry for those who would serve.

A true priest,

     a wellspring of joy

        and a midwife to the soul –

To name but a few traits

Of a servant with no regrets,

Whose magnanimity

Welcomed so many

     (and such a variety)

To the Lord’s Table.

Rest in Peace, Father Maurice Branscomb

~ Charles Kinnaird

And you don't have to take my word for it. You can read a wonderful and insightful article from the local newspaper here.     



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Flashback: Form and Substance: How a Sonnet Saved My Life

[While I am working on another project, I am re-posting some of my favorite essays. This post originally appeared on August 22, 2011.]

The Sonnet

The sonnet is the most restrictive of

Poetic forms. A scheme is strictly set

Dictating poet's rhyme and rhythm, yet

He chooses it for lofty thoughts of love,

Admiring noble deeds, or saintly stuff.

Indeed, the sonnet always seems to let

Transcendence have its way so as to get

A sense of freedom. Thus we see it prove

To be the highest, freest form to whet

A true Poetic. Often when I see

The bounds within which I must find my way,

(The cold collective spreads its mindless net

And freedom seems to fade) I wish to be

A living sonnet soaring through the day.

CLK                                       2/82

The sonnet, like so many aspects of society, provides rules, structure and boundaries. We can find comfort in those boundaries we see in society. Boundaries give definition to what is expected and provide security in our roles. On the other hand, boundaries can be restricting and oppressive. We have common metaphors that speak to this paradox: “keep your hand on the plow,” “stay on track” are just as familiar as “he was chomping at the bit,” or “pulling at the traces.” Boundaries indeed offer guidance, but sometimes one must slip the traces or jump the tracks. I recently read some words from Spanish poet Antonio Machado which speak poignantly and profoundly about how we make our own way to find our true path in life:

Why should we call

these accidental furrows roads?

Everyone who moves on

walks like Jesus, on the sea. [1]

The sonnet above is one that I wrote when I was 28 years old. I offer it as an example of how one can be awakened by one’s own poem. At the time, I was teaching English at Hong Kong Baptist College on a two-year assignment with the Southern Baptist International Mission Board. I had graduated from seminary and had plans to go into ministry upon return to the States. During my first year back in the U.S., I was in the middle of a chaplaincy training program at Montclair Baptist Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. One evening I was re-reading the sonnet that I had written two years before. For some reason, I imagined myself as a 68-year-old man and a young man was reading the sonnet. The young man asked me if I ever learned how to be a living sonnet. The only honest answer I could give in that imaginary situation was, “No. I never did.”

It was at that moment that I realized I needed to get out from where I was at the time. Toward the end of my chaplaincy training, I was offered the opportunity to apply for an opening in the chaplain residency program at the hospital. To the director’s surprise, I never applied for the position.

Finding New Directions

“Where will you go from here?” the Pastoral Care director asked. I had no clear answer, except that I knew I had to go away from where I was at that moment. The next year proved to be a formative year. I left the Baptists and found St. Andrew's Episcopal Church where there was a commitment to high liturgy and social service. While there, I found employment at St. Andrew’s Foundation working with adults with developmental disabilities in group home settings. The overarching ideal at St. Andrew’s Foundation was “normalization,” meaning that we would allow each person to live as normal a life as possible, with normal routines rather than being defined by their disability.

St. Andrew's Church

The home where I worked was a couple of blocks away from St. Andrew’s Church.  In those days, the bell in the church steeple would sound out the hours. The liturgical hours (Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline) were designated times of prayer throughout the day. This was a form that I was unaccustomed to, having grown up Baptist. While I worked with clients at the group home, even though those liturgical hours were unfamiliar, it was meaningful to hear the bells sound during the day. It reminded me to stop, if only briefly, to acknowledge that I was working within a larger context of meaning.

Even more than the liturgical hours in the background, the group home residents themselves gave my life a centering. More than teaching and certainly more than professional ministry, my work now seemed like real life. Teaching and ministry are both wonderful and needed professions, but my own strengths and abilities did not fully align with the tasks in either milieu. I was therefore not finding life within those structures.  At St. Andrew’s Foundation I sat on front porches and in living rooms of those group homes visiting and talking with residents who were limited in many ways, but they helped me to see more clearly what real life is about. All manner of assumptions were dispelled during those days. We were all learning each day how to better find our way in the world. They needed help with shopping, banking, household management, job training, and managing the conflict that arises just by living with other people. They were learning to have a home of their own, and I felt like I was finally home.

I would later recount, "It was at St. Andrew's that I came to realize that people who live with disabilities have something very important to say about what it means to be human. How we respond to people with disabilities says something very important about who we are as human beings." [2]
 

Nothing is constant, however. After several years of rewarding work at St. Andrew’s Foundation, I was also starting a family and needing to broaden my possibilities. To that end, I went back to my old alma mater for a degree in Nursing. My first job in the Nursing field was as a psychiatric nurse at the same hospital where I had once been a chaplain. I remember walking across the hospital grounds one evening, recalling how I had made that same walk years before as a chaplain. Back then I was thinking, “I don’t belong here.” That night, however, as I walked the grounds as a nurse, I said to myself, “This is exactly where I belong!”

Writing New Avenues and Looking Inward

I continue to make a living in healthcare, and I also continue to write. The point of sharing my sonnet is to show how the process of writing can help us to know who we really are, at least that has been true for me. My writing has taken the form of daily journals, personal letters, dream journals, essays, and poetry. The poetry that I have written over the years often has served as a kind of spiritual diary, recording where I was, what I was thinking, and how I was feeling at the time. Sometimes the writing surprises me by opening up new windows and new avenues. Sometimes the writing, as with this sonnet, helps me to see a bit more clearly how to live more congruently with my inner self and ideals.

For all who have an interest in writing, I say, by all means write! Don’t worry about whether it is “good enough.” That sonnet that I wrote all those years ago is certainly no Shakespeare or Dante, but it contained a true observation that allowed me to take a probing look within myself. Make sure that what you write is your true voice. You will probably learn more about yourself, and the writing might even save your life.

                                                                                                               Charles Kinnaird

_____

1.  From I Never Wanted Fame, by Antonio Machado (translated by Robert Bly), Ally Press (limited edition) 1979.
2. From "An Ordinary Life" at http://notdarkyet-commentary.blogspot.com/2010/11/ordinary-life.html

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You may be interested in reading these related posts:

• An Ordinary Life
• Any Tree That Falls: why creative people must create

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Remembering Dorothy One Year Later

An Epilogue to Wednesdays with Dorothy

"A Year to the Day"

There may not be a specific time needed to complete grief work, but we often think in terms of one year to come to terms with our loss.  Within that year, of course, there is an initial time of intense grief followed by the ebb and flow of varying degrees of emotion. There are periods of intentional remembering and then there are moments in which a memory may be evoked by an event, a place, a conversation, or a simple object such as a cup of coffee.  Sometimes it is a seemingly coincidental encounter.

Just this week I was in a meeting at the hospital where I work. One of the supervisors at the hospital approached me and asked, “Didn’t you have a friend that you visited on our unit in Palliative Care?”

“Yes,” I answered, and then told him a little bit about Dorothy.

“Now I remember,” he said to me, “I read her story when she was on the unit. I was so moved by what that dear lady had been through. I remember she had a lot of friends from her church who came to visit. How was it that you knew her?”

I recounted to him how I had been with the St. Andrew’s Foundation for 12 years before I moved into the nursing field, and how it was during those years that I came to know Dorothy. I went on to tell him of my regular meetings with Dorothy to record her life story. That conversation and that chance encounter took place on April 16, exactly one year after Dorothy’s death.

A Therapeutic Endeavor

When I first began “Wednesdays with Dorothy” my purpose was to share her story in her own words. I knew I would share a little bit each week. Beyond that, I had no plan as to how long the series would take. I would simply share a little each week for as long as it took to tell her whole story. I had no idea at the time that I would bring the series to a close right on the heels of the anniversary of her death.

It was like an inner prompting. I knew that it was time to start sharing her story on my blog and so it was that on August 15, 2012, “Wednesdays with Dorothy” was launched. Being able to wrap it all up exactly a year after her memorial service (April 18, 2012) is an added confirmation that it all fell into place just as it was supposed to.

A Witness to the Realities of Social Services

It has certainly been therapeutic for me to recount Dorothy’s life on these pages. I hope it has been meaningful to those who have followed along each week.  My first intention was to share the voice of one who had witnessed an important time in our history so that others could hear from a different perspective.  Dorothy’s testimony gives us a view of how our society has handled mental health treatment over the years.  There were the years in which the mentally ill and the handicapped were warehoused behind the closed doors of institutions. We were able to hear, for example, Dorothy’s eye-witness account of what life was like inside Partlow State School and Hospital. Her account was much different from the glowing reports that Dr. William Partlow gave in public during the very time that Dorothy was institutionalized.

Dorothy’s life also coincided with the move toward de-institutionalization brought about by the Wyatt vs. Stickney decision in the federal courts. We were able to hear what she thought of the process of moving from the institution to the community. We heard what she liked and what she did not like about that transition. Above all, we were left with no doubt about the fact that Dorothy herself longed to be free from institutional life and loved her experience of having her own apartment in the community.

There were times when “the system” failed her. First there was the institutional life that took advantage of her higher functioning abilities within that population and kept her confined without the opportunity to realize other possibilities. There was the brief jubilation of freedom from institutional life as the State Mental Health Department was forced to comply with the federal court order to move residents to greater levels of independence. There was also the reality, in some ways as harsh as institutional life, that there were simply not enough resources in the community to serve everyone with mental health needs.  If Dorothy had had to rely solely on mental health services where case workers are stretched with incredible case loads, her life in the community would not have been so successful. 

Dorothy managed to keep an informal support group of friends in the community and at her church who helped her as she patched together her own system of services. The latter part of her life further symbolized the shortages of social services offered.  She was moved out of the division of Mental Retardation/Developmental Disabilities with the State Mental Health Department when she “tested out” of the mental retardation classification. The good news was that she had some case management services that allowed her to continue to live in her apartment. The bad news was that when it looked as though she would need more services, it meant getting onto a waiting list at a time when she needed immediate help. Fortunately for Dorothy, she had her network of friends to see her through during her final days.  Any parent of an adult child with disabilities can tell you that waiting lists are long, and services offered are few. We have gone from neglecting the needs of patients warehoused in the institution to unfortunate shortages of services in the community.

A Personal Milestone

My remembrances of Dorothy have also given me opportunity to recall my own life-changing encounters. When I began my work at the St. Andrew’s Foundation, it was a definite turning point in my life. My work in the group homes was a time to re-focus and to see things from an entirely different perspective. It enabled me to get off of a dissonant vocational track and to spend some time at a slower pace. I was able to learn some important lessons about life from people who live with disabilities.

I have told people that my job as Program Director at the St. Andrew’s Foundation was the best job I ever had – it was the best job in the world as far as I was concerned. I was in the middle of the life of St. Andrew’s parish, I was involved in meaningful social ministry, and I was working with people with whom there is no “putting on airs” – you have to be totally real and down-to-earth.  I grieved when the time came for me to move on with a nursing career, but I knew at the time that I needed to make the move into another field in healthcare.  Times change and the job that I saw as the best in the world does not even exist today since the the supervision of the group homes has been passed to the ARC of Jefferson County.   The St. Andrew’s Foundation served its purpose in its time, and I am proud to have been a part of it.

With my continuing friendship with Dorothy, I was able to stay in touch with that life that I had learned at the St. Andrew’s Foundation.  Dorothy and I shared that memory of life at the group homes, and we shared an on-going friendship.

"All Things Must Pass"

I don’t like the term “closure.” I’m not sure we do ourselves any good with the notion that we can close one chapter or event in our lives and keep it in some kind of box while we move on. I believe we widen our circle as we go along, dispensing with nothing, affirming everything that has occurred.  At the same time, I realize that everything changes. There is an impermanence to things that we must learn to accept. By telling the story of Dorothy Faye Burdette in “Wednesdays with Dorothy,” I have been able to let some other people know about her life and the things she endured as a person with disabilities. I have been able to celebrate the ministry of the St. Andrew’s Foundation. I have also been able to affirm a period in my own life that saw a restructuring in my personal philosophy of living. I will not close the lid on any of that, I will just acknowledge the passing of an era and look forward to what lies ahead. Though a life has come to an end, the ministry of St. Andrew's Foundation has passed the baton to others, a personal career has long since gone and new experiences have come into the field; I will try to hold the memories dear while I continue to widen the circle.  

____________

For Further Reading:

• Wednesdays with Dorothy: A Blog Series
• An Ordinary Life
• Form and Substance: How a Sonnet Changed My Life
• An Interview with Francis Walter

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Wednesdays with Dorothy: Making the Transition from Group Home to Apartment

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St. Andrew's Episcopal Church
(our offices were in the Parish Hall)

“Hi, Charlie. How you doin’?” Dorothy greeted me as she came into my office. 

“I’m doing fine, Dorothy,” I replied, “How are you?”

“I’m purty good. It’s kinda cool out there today. I took my time comin’ over here. I wanted to wait ‘till the traffic died down before I left the house.” 

This was the day for Dorothy to pick up her Food Stamps. She would always come by the office for one of us to give her a ride down to the Food Stamp Office.  Dorothy lived five or six blocks away from the St. Andrew’s Foundation office. She usually walked everywhere she went and would often come by the office for various things such as help with paying bills, or getting a ride to an appointment.

“Charlie, I brought you and Harry and Edsel some Hershey bars – and they’re still fresh. I just got them this morning.” 

“Thank you Dorothy, that was very kind of you.” I said. “I’ll enjoy that later this afternoon.” 

There were several of our former clients who were living in their own apartments in the Southside neighborhood. They were among the earliest to come out of Partlow State School as a result of the court order in the Wyatt v. Stickney class action lawsuit against the State Mental Health Department. One of the things that made the work of the St. Andrew’s Foundation successful was that our office was not only in close proximity to the group homes, it was also near enough to the various apartment buildings were our graduates, like Dorothy, resided. They were technically no longer under our care, but we had a relationship with them and they knew they could come to us anytime they had a question or a problem. Each of our “graduates” had a case manager with the state mental health department, but the St. Andrew’s Foundation was there to provide continuing support for them even though there was no financial remuneration. We were essentially providing volunteer services, but it was for people we knew and cared about. They had a history with us and a trust of friendship. It was that relationship that helped them to live successfully in the community.

Toward Independent Living

Before Dorothy and the others were able to move into their own apartments, they had to be taught some basic independent living skills.  After they had mastered those basic skills, they would live in a supervised apartment and would be evaluated prior to moving into their own apartment in the community. In my conversations with Dorothy years later, she recalled those days of transition into the community.  

The Women's Group Home (left) next door
 to the Intermediate  Group Home (right)

“I was at the group home for a few years before I moved into that first apartment.  When I was at 1116 [the Intermediate Group Home], Debbie (she used to live in the group home), she came in with several other people. They started putting down mattresses in the floor. We called Alice (one of the group home staff) and she called Francis (Saint Andrew’s Foundation Director). They told them that they could not stay there. Another time, Elmus came over and they had to tell him he couldn’t stay.”

“When it came time for me and Virginia to move into our own apartment, we were delayed because Virginia wasn’t quite ready, and they wouldn’t let us move until we were both ready. It didn’t work out, because I left her and she couldn’t manage.  I lived there about six months, I guess, before I moved out.”

“When I moved out from the group home and shared that apartment with Virginia, I didn’t like living with her because she fussed and cussed all the time.  I went out and left her; I moved to another apartment with another roommate.  I think I was there about two or three months then I moved in here.  I lived with Virginia in that apartment for six or seven months. Her sister came and got her and took her back home with her.”

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Next time Dorothy will tell us about how she found her apartment and what it was like moving into the community.

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Wednesdays with Dorothy: Life in the Institution

(This is part of a series. For Table of Contents go here)

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The Frank M. Johnson Federal Buildingand U.S. Courthouse
 in Montgomery, Ala. (Library of Congress Photo)

1n 1971 when the court order came down in the Wyatt vs. Stickney case, change would reverberate, not just at Partlow State School and Bryce Hospital, but in mental health institutions across the country. United States District Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., of the Middle District of Alabama ruled that patients in all three state mental health institutions (Bryce Hospital, Partlow State School, and Searcy Hospital) were being denied their “constitutional right to treatment.” The court stated that there were three requisites to effective treatment:  "(1) a humane psychological and physical environment, (2) qualified staff in numbers sufficient to administer adequate treatment and (3) individualized treatment plans." (The Yale Law Journal) With the institution’s failure to meet these requisites, Partlow State School began the processes both of institutional reform and of de-institutionalization of many of its residents.

The St. Andrew’s Foundation was organized at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church under the leadership of the Reverend Francis Walter of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama. Organized in 1974, its purpose was to provide training in independent living for residents coming out of Partlow State School as a result of the federal court order.  The goal was to allow residents to live as independently as possible within the community. In the early days of it operation, much of the independent living training dealt with helping the residents to “unlearn” some of the institutional behaviors that had resulted from living at Partlow State School, behaviors that had been adaptive in an institution but not helpful or normal for life in the community.

In my conversations with Dorothy, I was able to see a little bit of what life was like inside the institution, how residents sometimes lived in conflict with one another and with staff, and how residents sometimes collaborated together to find some freedom of activity in spite of being under the watchful eye of hospital staff. I was surprised and amused to hear how residents managed to make their own butter in the days before homogenized milk.

Keeping Possessions Safe

"There was one girl, she would stay up at night. She loved to dip snuff. She would go into people’s packages and things and steal money. If she got a chance she would get a can of snuff. Every time they would catch her she would just scream her head off. I don’t remember stealing anything, but I probably did. I stole a few things after I was discharged [from Partlow].

"I never did get caught with ‘em. I was bad to get candy, now snuff – I never did care for snuff. One time I had a big jar of coffee that this girl gave to me for writing her letters for her to her grandmother. We had these old army lockers to keep things in, and they locked with the same key. This one girl stole my big jar of coffee and put her little jar in my locker. I caught her and I got that jar out and went and told her, “Give me my coffee. She started screaming and everything. The attendant came over and I said she stole my coffee. The attendant took it and put it in the locker room. We didn’t get it until we settled down. I let one of the attendants keep my coffee for me.

"I had a fit one time when I had a picture of Elvis Presley when he first started “Jail House Rock” It was a lady that give it to me. That old man, Mr. Hood Ball was his name, he took it and wouldn’t let me have it and I had a fit. They had to take me to the Main Girls’ Building. I wouldn’t even go back to the laundry because he took my picture of Elvis Presley.  He worked down there a long time, I reckon he retired.  He never did give that picture back – I don’t what happened to it.

"One time I had these rhinestone ear bobs. I was about 19 years old. I would wear those ear bobs and I mean I thought I was the cock of the walk."

Friendships and Peer relations

"There was a girl used to write my letters before I ever learned to write. She would write my letters to my legal guardian. 

"After I grew up I learned how to roll hair and pin-curl it. I used to roll this girl’s hair. We used to make hair rollers out of old snuff boxes and brown paper. We would get this old red crepe paper and use it for rough and lipstick. They used to wouldn’t let us primp up or nothin’. I mean they wouldn’t even allow us to dance with the boys until later on over the years. 

"If they caught you embroidering or crocheting they would take it up. I guess they did that because they were afraid we’d get mad and stick one another with the needles. I used to watch a girl tat with a tat and pearl. I don’t know how she did it. She would tat lace – I never could understand crochet either.

"There used to be a girl who would wake me up in the morning. I mean she’d get me up at 4:00 o’clock. She would wake me up to go to the bathroom with her. She’d want to kiss me and make love to me and I wouldn’t let her, and she would get so mad."  

Staff and Staff Relationships

"They used to be real mean, some of ‘em.  I remember when we would be a-laughing and talking. We weren’t supposed to be laughing and talking because they’d have us on silence. And if they caught you talking they’d make us stand on one foot with both hands up in the air. If you put your foot down you had to pick the other foot up and stand there that much longer.

"They didn’t like for us to talk. We used to slip around and talk.  They had four little round tables at each end of the hall and we would sit around them and talk.

"The most important people in my life were some of the attendants, and the most important one of them, her name was Aunt Lily Wilson. One Saturday morning we went to breakfast and she fell out of her chair with a heart attack and she died. I saw her when she fell out of the chair. That night I thought about her and I thought, “She’s with Jesus.” I don’t remember how old I was, but that’s what I was thinking. That night, when I went to sleep, I dreamed that I could see her. She was really good to us. I called her Aunt Lily because she was so sweet. She would always talk to me about Jesus.  She really taught me to love Jesus.

"There were some, there was an old attendant one time – I was talking and she told us to be quiet. For some reason she didn’t like me so well. She took me into the bathroom to duck me under the shower-bath. She used to take some of them and hold them under that water a good while. She couldn’t get me in there. She tried to put an old rag in my mouth and when she did I bit her on the hand. She went over there and told them she got dog-bit coming on duty. If I’d have told them, they’d have probably fired her. But I didn’t see nobody to tell. She was really, really mean.  Her mother worked there, too, but her mother wasn’t as hateful as she was.

"One time I went to the big dining room. I was doing something and a lady got on to me. She made me mad. We had these old tin cups. I threw my cup across the dining room, trying to hit her with it, and somebody told me I was just showing out. I said “Showing out, nothing! You shut up! I’m taking up for myself, I don’t care what you do!” I got sent back to the main building and I had to sit under a table until time to go to bed. There was a lady there named Jessie McCain, she was an old black nurse. She’d always make us sit under the table if we didn’t do what she told us to. Then I got to where I never did argue with folks. After I grew up I hardly ever did argue with nobody no more. I think I was about 24 or 25 [when I figured out I didn’t have to argue back]."

 “When the Cat is Away”

"We used to go into the bathroom at night and make coffee. We didn’t have a coffee maker; they wouldn’t let us have one. We would get clean rags and put the coffee in them. Then we’d hold it under the hot water from the sink and let it run into a glass. Then we would strain it and drink it. Sometimes we would get that instant coffee and go in the shower and make it with the hot tub water. It was real good if you had cream to go with it. Sometimes we would sneak the packets out, and sometime we would get the grounds out of the coffee maker in the dining room.

"We used to get that old red butter color, and they would give us some kind of stuff that looked like butter. Well, we would sneak out some cartons of milk and we would put the milk in a jar to churn the milk into butter from it. You’d have to shake it up and down a long time before it would turn to butter. Then we would take the butter out and mix that other stuff we had with it.  Somebody would always look out for the attendants, because if we got caught doing anything, they would always make us take it back to the dining room, or they would throw it out.

"I used to love churning butter with an old fashioned churn. We didn’t have a churn there, but my Uncle Will and Aunt Alma had a churn. Uncle Will was my mother’s brother. I used to churn with that when I was a little girl."

After School and Work Activities

"Sometimes we would go out into the yard, and sometimes we went out and sat on the benches.    If they caught us laughing or talking, they would make us stand on one foot and hold both hands up in the air. If we put our foot down, we had to stand there that much longer.  Sometimes they would make you stand in the corner, or put you in the closet and shut the door.

"They would make us go to the okra patch and we hated to go, or they’d make us go to the vegetable room to clean vegetables and we hated to go there, too. Me and this other girl got out one time then they caught us when we got back to the room. She made is go right back over there.

"They wouldn’t let us take a break until we got slap through. One time when I was workin’ in the vegetable room, I raked up a pile of turnip greens in the floor, sat down and urinated in ‘em and then I got up. I said, “That’s what you get for not letting me go to the bathroom.” We used to sneak and slip potatoes and lemons, and everything out – weenies and bread.  In the winter time, we would put the weenies on the radiator and roast ‘em and eat ‘em.  If the attendants caught us, they’d take ‘em all up.

"One time I took some meat patties out of the dining room. I had a muumuu dress with big pockets and I put those meat patties in my pockets. I got caught with them, and this lady told me to go back to the dining room and put those meat patties back on the table. I thought, 'My, my. You can’t have nothin’ around here.'"

___________

Reference cited:

"The Wyatt Case: Implementation of a Judicial Decree Ordering Institutional Change," The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 84: 1338, 1975.

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Wednesdays with Dorothy: How It All Began

(This is part of a series. For Table of Contents go here)

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Charlie and Dorothy at the dinner table

I first met Dorothy Burdette in 1987 when I was Program Director for the St. Andrew’s Foundation on Birmingham’s Southside. She had come to the St. Andrew’s Foundation Group Homes in 1975 after having spent 35 years being institutionalized at Partlow State School. By 1980, she was living in her own apartment, having achieved a long-held dream to live on her own. She maintained that dream for the rest of her life, with help from her friends.

When I was New to the Neighborhood

When I first began at St. Andrew’s Foundation in 1984, my duties were primarily in one of the group homes where eight residents lived. Many of our residents had come from Partlow State School which had come under court order in 1974 to de-institutionalize as a result of the Wyatt v. Stickney law suit. One of the rulings in that case was that Partlow State School and Hospital was "warehousing" its residents and was "wholly incapable of furnishing [habilitation] to the mentally retarded and [was] conducive only to the deterioration and the debilitation of the residents."

I learned a lot as I came to know the group home residents where I worked – all of whom had mental retardation as their primary diagnosis (Developmental Disabilities is the general term now used in diagnosis).  The people I worked with would sometimes talk about what life was like in the state institution. As I would hear some of those guys talk, I would think to myself, “Someone should be writing this stuff down!” It was when I was promoted to Program Director with a wider range of responsibilities that I began my interactions with Dorothy. It was there that I began to hear her story, and there that I began a friendship that would last for years to come.

Even though she had graduated from our group homes and our supervised living apartments, Dorothy Faye Burdette, or Dorothy Faye as we sometimes called her, still found a supportive community among the St. Andrew’s Foundation staff. That is how Ms. Burdette and I met and became friends. She would come by the office from time to time for help figuring out her bills, or with an official letter from some government agency that she needed help understanding. Often we would meet for lunch and then travel to the Food Stamp office so she could pick up her monthly food stamp allotment.

In addition to maintaining a community of support in our offices, Ms. Burdette found similarly supportive communities at her church and among her neighborhood friends. She treasured having her own apartment, and she also had a determination to maintain friendships.  Remarkably, she was able to continue living in the apartment that she moved into over 30 years ago until her death this year at the age of 82. Much of her success was due to her ability to garner her own support system that included friends, church members, and social workers.

Staying in Touch

I moved on from St. Andrew’s Foundation in 1996 to work in the field of healthcare as a registered nurse. Dorothy Burdette and I continued to stay connected. Sometimes I would meet with her for lunch, sometimes she would call me up on the telephone. Sometimes my wife and I would invite her over to our house for a holiday meal. Often when we would meet, she would have a few things she wanted me to help her with: shopping for groceries, getting her bills paid, balancing her checkbook, fixing something that came loose in her apartment.

Sometimes when we met, Dorothy would mention things about her life growing up, or about life in the institution and I would again say to myself, “Someone should write this down.” Finally I decided that I needed to start writing some things down. I thought Dorothy Burdette had an important story to tell, so I asked her if she would be willing for me to record the story of her life in her own words.  We met weekly, usually in her living room, and I ended up with around nine hours of conversation. I would ask her questions about her experiences, and she would provide many fascinating details. I eventually had the story of Dorothy Burdette’s life in her own words which I was able to put into a book. I'll never forget the look on her face when I placed her own book into her hands.

I would like to share on my blog the remarkable life of my friend who made it through incredible poverty, hardship, abuse and institutionalization to find a life of her own with friends to support her. I’m going to call these posts “Wednesdays with Dorothy,” because I hope to be able to get a post each Wednesday to tell you a little more of her life each week.

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[Note: The group homes and supervised apartments formerly known as the St. Andrew's Foundation are now under the auspices of The ARC of Jefferson County]




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