By Marla Miller
The Republic
Editor's Note: An exclusive week-long series of articles explores the past, present and future of the Muscatatuck State Developmental Center in Butlerville. The center opened in 1919 and is scheduled to close by Jan. 1.
BUTLERVILLE — Dorothy Stewart appeared from around the corner, casting a few curious glances as she approached and then walked past a comfortable acquaintance and unwanted visitor without exchanging hellos.
The short, white-haired woman planned her entrance, waiting to size up the stranger in her territory.
She limped down the corridor in Springdale Hall at Muscatatuck State Developmental Center and turned into a room where decades earlier she cuddled crying babies. Now she files papers, makes copies and answers the phone.
Stewart is among the final 50 residents at the state-run institution for the mentally and developmentally disabled. Since the day she learned of its closure, the strong-willed 73-year-old has maintained she would shut off the lights.
She still plans to.
One of the center residents’ most vocal proponents, Stewart remains loyal to her home of nearly 54 years. She arrived March 16, 1950, as Muscatatuck was approaching its prime and highest census count.
“It’s just fun,” she said. “It’s always been good to me. I’ve always loved it.”
Stewart welcomed what seemed to be a refuge from her troubled childhood and impending incarceration. The 18-year-old high school dropout and runaway came from Gibson County Jail, eager to say goodbye to her hometown of Princeton in the state’s southwestern corner.
“I was happy to be sent here,” she said.
Stewart could have left Muscatatuck a long time ago, actually decades before discussions started over whether to close the institution. Two brief placements in a foster-care type setting turned her off to the outside world and independent living.
“We’ve been placing folks in the least restrictive environment that they would need since I started working here,” said Jane Baker, a 22-year employee who served as a rehabilitation therapist and helped plan Stewart’s recreation.
Baker is director of staff development and works with Stewart in Springdale, which has become the hub for personnel files, payroll and medical records in recent years.
“It’s always been the goal of the facility to have people go out,” Baker said. “She just never wanted to leave. This has always been home.”
Capable, but content
Stewart, known around Muscatatuck as friendly but temperamental, brushed aside pink roses the visitor presented her. She huffed over having to answer questions and started asking them instead.
Underneath the wrinkles and white hair, behind the gold-rimmed glasses and pink lipstick, is an observant woman who can read, write, care for herself and manage her finances. She no longer needs a guardian and has written 25 pages of a memoir, which she plans to circulate among the center’s employees.
“She is definitely the exception. She’s the most capable resident (remaining),” said Cindy Speer, the southeast regional coordinator for Division of Disability, Aging and Rehabilitative Services, helping with transitions and outreach.
Then why was she sent there?
When Stewart first came to Muscatatuck, it accepted a variety of patients that would never be admitted today, Speer said.
“Twenty-five to 30 years ago, there were a lot of Dorothys here,” she said. “The judge probably determined Muscatatuck was a more appropriate place for her to be than the penal system. Even if they looked a little different, they usually ended up in a place like Muscatatuck. There weren’t many alternatives.”
Stewart sat looking out Springdale’s second-story window and into the leafless trees that border the property and cocoon residents as she began offering information about her life. She insists she was always content, never wondering what she might have been missing.
“I was happy here,” she said. “I’ve been out twice, but I’ve come back. I’ve just enjoyed living here. I’ve never been out there so that’s why I don’t want to go out there.”
Occasionally, she turned her head to make eye contact, flashing a big smile when recalling funnier memories such as the time she and another resident fled to Cincinnati. They lasted less than one night.
“I was probably 20,” she recalled. “We told the attendant we were going to go out and hang up some clothes, so she let us out on the landing. She opened the landing right about the time the phone rang. We took off.”
After the two hitched a ride with a truck driver, he dropped them off but after passing a police station in Cincinnati, got questioned and detained by the cops.
The punishment for running away varied. Stewart said she was supposed to have her head shaved but avoided it.
“They didn’t do mine,” she said. “I said it was against my religion.”
Free reign
Her competency has benefits. It seems Stewart was luckier than most Muscatatuck residents, getting to come and go as she wanted and work a variety of interesting jobs.
“I’ve always been able to do what I’ve wanted,” she said. “I’d say ‘listen here.’”
Able clients such as Stewart helped care for other residents. In 1952, children under age 6 started being admitted to Muscatatuck. She fed and rocked babies in the nursery and dressed and supervised school-aged girls.
“I’d see that they was clean, that they looked nice when they went to school,” she said.
Stewart enjoyed the job of nanny and watched many of the children grow up in the institution. She saw some of them leave and some of them die, including many infants she carried to Muscatatuck’s morgue.
She also worked at its canning factory, laundry facility and sewing room. Later, she took jobs at a funeral home and a restaurant and then cleaned homes in North Vernon.
Today Stewart earns a paycheck, a portion of which helps cover expenses and provides spending money, but she was never bothered by working for room and board. For the most part, the state has covered her care, she said.
“I didn’t care about the money; I just enjoyed working,” she said. “Back then, we had nice beds, good food to eat.”
Stewart lived in dormitories all over campus, usually paired with women her age, and said she liked moving around. She made many friends with residents and employees.
Around 1954, she was assigned to the basement of Unit 15C. She shared the quarters with 91 other residents. Despite the conditions — there was one attendant for each shift, three commodes, two showers and one bathtub — it remains one of her favorite places.
“Everybody got along; everybody helped each other out,” she said. “It was quiet. You couldn’t see people looking in.”
Full life
While living in Unit 15’s basement, Stewart had a nervous breakdown and was transferred to another facility for insulin shock therapy. Unhappy and scared, she longed to return to Muscatatuck.
“It’s more safer here, and you really don’t have to be afraid here,” she said. “Years ago, it was a little bit scary.”
Stewart maintains she lived a full life at the institution, never missing things like marrying or learning to drive. She sang in the choir and led the band as a majorette.
She also took trips to shopping malls, amusements parks and ball games, and she traveled to New York, Washington D.C., and North Carolina.
“We used to go lots of places back then,” she said. “They used to have skating on Saturdays and Friday night, movies on the big screen. They also had dances and big carnivals. Now, all they’ve got is layoffs, layoffs and closure.”
From the 1950s into the 90s, the campus boomed with activity, Baker said. Muscatatuck hosted parades, parties and picnics. It also offered extensive recreation opportunities through its playground equipment, ball diamonds and Camp Holland.
“This was like a little town when I started here,” she said. “Use to, we had a lot of programs going on all over campus.”
Residents could take part in classes such as woodworking, ceramics and bowling.
“We’d go blackberry picking, mushroom hunting, bike riding,” Baker said. “Basically, it depended on the client, if they had safety skills.”
In the evening, the more independent clients could obtain a pink pass to leave their units. This pass system is another rule Stewart overlooked. She spent her evenings watching television, ironing and washing clothes.
When she wanted to leave the grounds, she called for a driver.
“I did everything and still do,” Stewart said. “I used to go visit people. I’d just go.”
Brave new world
Although Stewart remains skeptical about life post-Muscatatuck, Baker is proud of the growth she has shown.
“She went from worrying about herself completely to worrying about other clients and what the staff is going to do,” she said.
Stewart praises the employees who have cared for her and is upset over their displacement.
“I’m going to miss the staff and the clients,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about anything.”
Most of the friends she made through the decades have died. Her concern extends to the center’s final clients. The majority are medically fragile and need special facilities, Baker said.
“For people that have been here so long, that’s all they know,” Stewart said. “Lots of these clients, they don’t understand.”
Baker is in the process of signing up Stewart for Experience Works Inc., formerly the Green Thumb program for senior workers, so she can continue working in North Vernon.
A trusted friend, Baker also has accompanied Stewart to look at apartments in town. She’s tentatively settled on a mostly senior housing complex, where she will live alone, but she won’t confirm her move in date. She’s also learning to drive a scooter.
“I’ll be scared at first, especially at night,” Stewart said.
Baker, however, is confident she will make an easy transition.
“In fact, when we went to visit, she had a friend before we left,” she said.
Speer agrees.
“I really think we can build the supports she needs and she’ll have success in the community,” she said. “I think she’s going to have wished she did this 20 years ago.”
Stewart said it’s been difficult to watch the center slowly ship patients and employees to other locations but believes it would have been harder to go early on. She is adamant about staying until the end.
“There are five people I love real well,” she said. “Once they go, I’ll start thinking real hard about leaving. I think I should be the last one to shut the door.”
Speer said center officials plan to honor that request.
“If she would like to turn the lights off, even if she’s living in the community, she can come back and do that,” she said. “She’s sort of earned it.”
When asked about that day, when she’ll be forced to face her fears and find a new life outside Muscatatuck, Stewart paused to reflect:
“I don’t know how I’m going to feel,” she said. “It’s going to be hard. I’m not excited about it, but it has to come.”
SATURDAY: Muscatatuck adopts a new role as a homeland security training site as the Indiana National Guard moves in.
Portions © 2004, The Republic, Columbus, Indiana