Ep. 8: Fairview Training Center: History and Treatments

Episode 8 tells the story of Fairview Training Center (originally the State Institution for the Feeble-Minded) in Salem, Oregon. Listen to stories of the abusive practices that residents endured and learn about the long fight for individuals with disabilities to gain equal civil rights.

Transcript

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Behind the Walls of the World’s Psychiatric Hospitals! I’m your host, Dr. Sarah Gallup. And I have to start off by saying thank you to all the folks from Salem and Dallas who have started listening to the show! It is so good to get support from my hometown! I heard from many people who said they or a family member worked for OSH. I heard from people who had creepy experiences down in the tunnels. I hope that series was helpful to learn more about the history of the hospital and more about our local history.

As a sort of byproduct of that conversation, I was asked if I could cover the Fairview Training Center in Salem, Oregon. You may remember that I briefly addressed this in episode one and said we would have to cover it another day. Well, my friends, today is that day! This episode examines the history and the many ups and downs of Fairview.

The history of this facility is dark and filled with good intentions but terrible practices. I want to offer a trigger warning for child abuse, elder and dependent adult abuse, sexual abuse, and inhumane medical practices. If you’re not in a space to listen to that today, I invite you to listen to a different episode or come back and listen when you have more bandwidth for those topics.

For now, come on in and get comfortable as we go behind the walls of Fairview Training Center…

In episode one about the history of the Oregon State Insane Asylum, we talked about the origins of the hospital. I broke down the diagnoses of the first 300+ patients who were admitted there. Among the men, 37 of the 231 newly admitted patients were diagnosed as epileptic, idiots, imbeciles, or feeble-minded. You may remember from that episode that epilepsy was considered a mental illness in those days. Among 102 newly-admitted women, 15 had been diagnosed with epilepsy or idiocy. So approximately 16 percent of the new admissions were diagnosed with what was considered “feeble-mindedness” at the time.

If you’ve ever worked with severe and persistent mental illness and developmental disabilities, you’ll know there are similarities – but also some major differences. For instance, most developmental disabilities begin at pregnancy or birth or during early development. Psychosis, mania, and some mood disorders, however, generally don’t begin until early adulthood. Someone with developmental disabilities may need lots of medical care or physical assistance, whereas someone with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder will not likely need either, unless it’s for an unrelated cause.

An article from the Capitol Journal dated November 5, 1906, says – well, basically what I just said but with extremely degrading language. The article also adds this little clinical detail (and remember that schizophrenia was still considered a dementia at this time): “Dementia…begins with average intelligence, which gradually diminishes; idiocy with a low amount of intelligence, which gradually increases.” It also goes ahead and defines the term “feeble-minded” for the public: “The compound word, feeble-minded is very comprehensive in meaning. It includes all grades of idiocy and imbecility, from the persons a little below the normal, incapable of education by ordinary methods, to a profound idiot that simply eats and lives.” Reading these old articles about folks with mental illness and/or developmental disabilities is heart-breaking. The language they use to describe people with different abilities is generally…disgraceful and perpetuates the stigma against them, as they’re often referred to as “the unfortunates” or “the helpless” or some other term that completely strips them of agency.

Here’s an example about a young man named Roy Fifield who was transferred from OSIA to the new institution for the feeble-minded. Here is how the Oregonian newspaper described him: “Roy has grown to the physical proportion of a youth of 18, while his mind has failed utterly in its growth. This hapless freak was taken into custody.” Well, great. That’s gotta do wonders for a person’s self-esteem. I’m guessing his parents didn’t clip that article and put it on the refrigerator. Also, I just want to add that Roy was later able to leave the institution to return to school in the community. He was on the honor roll and was also apparently a good singer, too, as he got solos in community events. Sooo…hapless freaks can turn out pretty good.

The 1906 article goes on to make the case that feeble-minded inmates deserve an education because Oregon and other states educate the blind and deaf, so why not these folks, too? That’s basically what their argument boils down to. Then they really get to the heart of their argument and show how they actually see people with different abilities: “But there is another reason why the feeble-minded should be cared for that outweighs all others in importance to the state. The effect of the mingling of the feeble-minded with society is a most baneful evil. The states are just beginning to realize that this is the source of much of the pauperism, feeble-mindedness, insanity, and crime. Competent authorities estimate that from 40-50% of feeble-mindedness comes by inheritance from neurotic parents, and Dr. Kerlin says that there is no field of political economy that can be worked to better advantage for the diminution of crime, pauperism, and insanity than that of idiocy.” A couple of obvious things to point out here. Yes, you heard it correctly that they said mixing folks with mental and physical disabilities with “society” is a most baneful evil. The worst thing they can think of is a child with average abilities hanging out with a kid with Down’s Syndrome. Or someone with Autism having the audacity to go out in public. It’s appalling. And what’s worse, this Dr. Kerlin dude is essentially saying that keeping folks with disabilities out of society is a political token to reduce poverty, crime, and mental illness in general. Not only does that grossly oversimplify complex societal issues, it also is just plain inaccurate. I seriously doubt there’s a wily band of folks with cerebral palsy or multiple sclerosis committing crimes out there – and if there is, I haven’t heard about it.

Okay, getting back on track: It does make sense, that not long after OSIA opened, the state recognized that it needed another facility to house folks with different needs than those with psychosis and mania. So, in 1907, funds were set aside to build five buildings that would make up a new asylum for the feeble-minded, idiotic, and epileptic. 672 acres of state-owned land outside Salem were purchased for the development of the State Institute for the Feeble-Minded. On November 30, 1908, the first inmate (as they were known) was a 10 year old boy named Jack Crawford. Jack had epilepsy, as many of the initial admissions had, but no mental illness. Thirty-nine inmates transferred from OSIA to the new asylum. The oldest transfer was 88 years old. Most were under 21.

According to the OPB documentary “In the Shadow of Fairview,” many of the admissions to the Institution for the Feeble-Minded were children of poor parents or immigrants from small towns who were at their wit’s end. There was so little understanding about mental illness and physical disabilities at the time and having a child who required so much care when they had others to feed and care for was undoubtedly very difficult. Add in poverty and lack of local resources, and it’s no wonder that parents felt they had no other option but to send their child away. The documentary doesn’t state this, but I also wonder if there was a shame attached to having a child with different abilities. As that article from 1906 said that I read earlier, mental illness and physical disabilities weren’t only misunderstood but they were rejected from society. Mixing them with “normal” children was a “most baneful evil.” Sending a child away was likely a way to save face.

Inmates to the new asylum were separated by age, ability, and sex. In the first years, there were about 180 inmates, among which 75 were enrolled in the school. But administrators wondered if there was really a purpose in providing education for these feeble-minded children. In a 1913 biennial report of the institution, administrators wrote, “We are becoming more and more convinced that to spend years teaching a child reading, writing, and numbers is not only foolish but a waste of time and money.” Can you imagine today denying children with special needs an education because it’s “foolish” and “a waste of time and money”? 

Similar to the insane asylum, the new institution began with some good intentions. They had a farm, an orchard, a dairy, and inmates who were physically and mentally capable of working took on some of these jobs. Boys worked on the farm, while girls did laundry and sewing. They followed the belief that “We learn by doing; the working hand makes strong the working brain.” There were also different skilled classes offered, such as wood carving, basketry, pyrography, sewing, tailoring, lace making, net making (for hammocks and such), domestic and laundry work, printing, carpentry, brush and mat making, and shoe repairing. Pyrography I figured had to be something to do with writing and fire, and guess what, it involves decorating wood or other materials with burn marks resulting from the controlled application of a heated object such as a poker. Thanks, Wikipedia! I looked up some pictures, and it’s purdy. So there were attempts to teach new skills and offer vocational training.

On a national level, not a lot was done for folks with developmental disabilities. Around 1918, after the end of WWI, veterans were returning from war with physical disabilities. So Congress passed the first major rehabilitation program – for soldiers. In 1920, the Smith-Fess Act passed to guarantee federal funding for vocational rehabilitation, job counseling, and training for people with physical disabilities only. Still nothing for individuals with developmental disorders. That wouldn’t come until decades later.

By 1922, there were 630 inmates at the Institution for the Feeble-Minded. They were busy constructing new buildings to house more people. Tuberculosis was on the rise in Oregon; the TB hospital near the insane asylum was full, and the Institution for the Feeble-Minded was filling up with sick patients, too. 

It was around this time that Dr. Bethenia Owens-Adair (you may remember her from episode 1) was advocating for eugenics. She believed that women’s suffrage, prohibition, and eugenics would improve society. Well, I agree with one of those things. Anyway, Dr. Owens-Adair advocated for sterilization for inmates from the institution for the feeble-minded, saying, “You can be safe in the community because you can’t reproduce.” As early as 1917, patients from the insane asylum and the institution for the feeble-minded began to be sterilized routinely. A film promoting the use of eugenics informed the public that “once they’ve been born, defectives are more useful and happier in these institutions than when at large. But it would have been better for them and the rest of the community if they’d never been born.” Then, in 1923, the Oregon Board of Eugenics was established. At this point, over 30 states had passed compulsory sterilization laws – and, in some cases, euthanasia of the severely physically or mentally disabled. After the Board of Eugenics began, sterilization became a requirement for discharge. So forced vasectomies, hysterectomies, tubal litigations, and sometimes castrations were required in order to return to the community. This continued until the last sterilization in 1978.

In 1933, the institution changed its name to Oregon Fairview Home. According to the legislative bill that made the change, it was “a more suitable designation and a wholesome name.” While it’s true that the name was improved, the beliefs about the people who resided there had not. In 1936, Oregon Governor Charles Martin stated that “the theory of mercy killing of the hopelessly feeble-minded is a fine thing in principle.” A Willamette University sociology professor, Dr. S. B. Laughlin, touted that “feeble-minded children beyond rehabilitation should be chloroformed.” So clearly, society’s views of folks with disabilities hadn’t changed much over the previous decades.

Oregon Fairview Home continued to struggle with underfunding and understaffing. After the end of WWII, there was only one staff member for every 85 residents. There were a dozen residential cottages, and the overall population had soared above 1,000 residents. As had likely been happening for decades, older and more capable residents were responsible for taking care of younger residents. They weren’t trained staff, and they were struggling with difficulties of their own. This inevitably led to accidents – accidental injuries and even accidental deaths, such as one boy who died from burns after being scalded in a bath and one girl who died of suspicious injuries after saying she wanted to leave the institution.

In 1951, parents of young people with developmental disabilities founded the Association for Retarded Citizens, or ARC, which is still around today. This was the first advocacy movement for folks with developmental and intellectual disabilities. It served as a support group for family members and care givers, it offered training, and worked to include individuals with disabilities into the community. It began with the slogan, “When you give help, you give hope.” 

The baby boomer generation was quickly filling up the cottages at Fairview. By 1953, 1,562 residents were living there, with hundreds on the waitlist, and administration was bracing for that number to surpass 2,000 residents by 1959.

In 1958, Fairview turned 50 years old. Surprisingly, six of the original patients still resided there. It was around this time of the 50th anniversary that film crews began showing up at Fairview. They filmed in the dormitories and the classrooms. They filmed outside. The end result was a 26-minute film entitled “In Our Care” that was later released to the public in an effort to educate the community on this previously hidden and shamed demographic. One line from the film sums up their efforts: “They don’t need pity, just your knowledge of their existence.” I can think of a few other things viewers could do to help, too. 

The video introduces viewers to six of the cottages at Oregon Fairview Home. Kozer, the video explains, is one of three hospital-type units. There are 120 beds, and most patients are bed-ridden and require constant care. There are wall-to-wall cribs shown in the footage and nurses using outdated and dangerous caring techniques, like placing babies on their stomachs to sleep. The video shows that the children’s schedules include “several hours of play time in the play porch.” This appears to be an enclosed porch with very few toys, if any, for the young children to play with. Then it’s time for lunch, which can take up to two hours, because the children need to be fed by others and sometimes assisted in swallowing. When a child shows some ability to feed themselves, a nurse tapes a spoon to the child’s hand so that the spoon does not get dropped. 

If children continued to be unable to walk or feed themselves, they would eventually be transferred to Patterson Cottage. Patterson housed 160 residents in 6 wards. Residents ranged from 8-23 years old, but most were under 12. About half were bed-ridden. Patterson was designed to care for residents with severe intellectual disabilities, physical disabilities, or brain injuries. Many of the residents here still needed assistance with eating and bathing. The scenes from bathing were…graphic and most certainly would not be released to the public today. Patterson also had one unit (ward 5), which housed girls with behavioral problems. These “disturbed girls” as they were known were likely to hit, kick, or bite people or throw objects.

Once children from Kozer were able to walk and feed themselves, they would get transferred to Snell Cottage. Snell housed 120 residents who ranged from 3-12 years old but who had the mental age of 1-5 years old. They practiced toilet training and dressing themselves. Older residents helped the younger children during meal times if they needed extra assistance. There were some attempts to teach table manners, although with so few staff, I’m sure it was a futile effort. After lunch, it’s nap time. And there was something about this footage that bothered me most of all: the children were face down on the floor with a white sheet over their heads. It looked like a bizarre crime scene. But, according to the video, the floors were heated. C’mon. The floors were heated? What kind of bougie setup did they have back in 1950-whatever? Anyway, they followed nap time with a two hour play session in the basement recreation area, which is exactly what it sounds like – an indoor playground, surrounded by white cement walls and extremely small windows. In the middle was the playground equipment that most tortured me as a child: the merry-go-round. I remember getting plenty of headaches and nausea and bruises from that thing, and I’m sure these kids did, too.

Next, Byrd Cottage was the largest cottage at Fairview at the time and was often overcrowded. In 1959, there were 325 residents who ranged in age from 12-97 years old, with most in their 50s. Byrd Cottage was originally intended for elderly residents who were mostly bed-ridden. There were also a fair amount of residents with brain injuries and cerebral palsy. Byrd Cottage housed many residents who had physical disabilities but mild or no mental disabilities. Those folks often felt infantilized and struggled with the simple tasks asked of them because they were too easy. There was also a ward for residents with mental disabilities and psychotic symptoms. Prior to the introduction of psychotropic medications, about 2/3 of those residents were in restraints nearly all the time.

Chamberlain Cottage was a workers cottage for female residents, aged 8-35 years old but mentally 2-6 years old. These residents often had been diagnosed with moderate to severe mental retardation or brain damage. Chamberlain was frequently overcrowded. Residents here were able to perform simple job tasks, such as laundry, farm work, kitchen, and dairy. Their tasks were often repetitive, like an assembly line. Discipline here involved isolating residents from others with the intent of protecting themselves and others. Later residents would say that they did not have toilets in the isolation cages. When they would have to use the restroom, they were supposed to flag a staff member, but that was easier said than done. Sometimes they would soil themselves before a staff member could arrive, and then they would get in trouble again for making a mess.

Jones Cottage was a worker cottage for older residents, most of whom were in their 60s. Their daily routine involved sedentary acts, like cards, table games, and spinning tops. They mostly stayed in or around the cottage. 

The film offered a note of…what I think was intended to be hope?... toward the end. The narrator stated that half of the residents who get admitted to Oregon Fairview Home will leave and about half of those will be partially self-supporting in the community. Those don’t seem to be particularly good odds, especially when many of the residents eventually became wards of the state and never returned to their families of origin.

In 1961, the State Mental Health Division was created to oversee Oregon services and state institutions. Finally, there would be at least occasional oversight into the practices at Fairview.

By 1962, the resident population reached its peak at over 2700 residents. The entire complex had about 60 buildings. 

In 1965, section 208 of the Voting Rights Act allowed people with certain limitations (blindness, disability, or inability to read/write) the right to vote with the assistance of a person of their choice. This was a significant step forward for a demographic that had previously been denied some of their basic civil rights.

That same year in 1965, Oregon Fairview Home was renamed Fairview Hospital and Training Center. Due to overcrowding and understaffing, drastic measures were used to contain residents who began acting out or getting aggressive. In basements and under stairwells, there were makeshift isolation cages where residents would be locked in. Others were shackled to their beds since there was insufficient staff to work with them individually. Straitjackets were used for violent patients or those engaging in self-harm behaviors. Psychotropic medications were being regularly used at that time; sometimes residents would be given intentionally high doses of sedatives to keep them calm and quiet.

By the late-1960s, the farm, dairy, and orchard had all been eliminated, so work opportunities became far fewer. This was around the time that Oregon State Hospital also eliminated their work farm because of the rise of psychotropic medications.

In 1969, tragedy struck Fairview. Around 3 am on the morning of July 26, 1969, an alarm went off. Byrd Cottage, which housed residents with physical disabilities and elderly residents, was on fire. Some of the residents with the most severe physical disabilities were in adult-sized cribs that couldn’t fit through the door, leaving them stranded as the flames engulfed the building. Staff who were on site had to roll each crib to the door and carry the patients out one by one. As the fire grew larger, the roof became increasingly unstable. Suddenly, it collapsed, trapping several residents inside. By the time the fire was extinguished at 4:20 am, three residents had died and nine were injured. 

As was evident around the country, the political and cultural turbulence of the late-1960s and early-1970s was not lost on Fairview. Residents began advocating for their ability to be self-sufficient. One of the survivors of the Byrd Cottage fire was Linda Gheer, who became a leader of a self-advocacy group in the early 1970s. Together Linda and others from Fairview started People First, which was intended to get residents out of the facility and on their own – not in a group home or nursing home. By the time of the organization’s first meeting in 1974, over 500 people attended. The premise was that they wanted to be seen as people first – not as mentally retarded or mentally disabled. Oregon became the first state in the nation to have a self-advocacy group like People First, and by the first year of its existence, over 1000 people had become part of it. By 1985, People First had gotten international recognition.  

It’s no wonder residents were eager to get out of Fairview. Accounts of resident injuries and deaths were frequently under suspicion. A female resident was raped and murdered; three other Fairview residents were charged but never stood trial. In 1971, Oregon Governor Tom McCall called for the first of a series of investigations into Fairview. I wasn’t able to find the conclusions to these investigations, but they certainly would not be the last.

The documentary “In the Shadow of Fairview” tells a terrible story: that in 1979, two bed-ridden women with significant needs were raped by a caregiver. He had been a convicted sex offender and was working at Fairview as part of a job training program. One of the women who had been raped was unable to speak and therefore unable to speak up about what had happened to her. She got pregnant from the rape and gave birth to a daughter, who was adopted by a family in the community. The daughter, Amanda, was unaware of the crime that led to her birth until she was an adult. She reconnected with her birth mother, who lives in a care home in Portland, and advocates for her mother since she cannot do so herself.

There were many other stories of patient abuse and inappropriate forms of discipline. Some former residents said they were disciplined with leather cuffs, razor straps, and cow whips. Others said they were locked in closets or spanked with shoes. In a video called “Fairview Survivors,” former residents Ken and Shirley Neuman discussed their many injuries that resulted from abuse. Ken stated he was beaten with a pillow and was hospitalized for two days. Shirley said Ken had had his arm broken from being tied down too tightly to his bed. Ken also described a punishment that I saw corroborated in other sources. He described a 60-lb “punishment block” with a padlock on top that would be fastened to him. His task was to push the 60-lb weight up and down the hallway until he was too tired to push it anymore. During meals, they said if a patient didn’t want to eat, staff would twist their arm until their mouth came open and they could force food into their mouth. They both also described psychological abuse by staff: “No one will believe you, but they’ll believe us.”

In 1979, the facility was renamed to Fairview Training Center, as it remained until its closure. In the 1970s, Fairview was the largest institution in Oregon for individuals with developmental disabilities, yet it was still only serving 3% of the Oregon population with developmental diagnoses. Due to deinstitutionalization, the resident population at Fairview had been slowly decreasing over the past decade. Oregon became the first state in the nation to use funds that would have otherwise gone to Fairview to rehouse residents in the community. 

By 1981, over 1300 residents still lived at Fairview. State legislature required a plan to reduce the residential population due to the many investigations that had taken place at the facility. In 1982, a Federal Civil Rights investigation by the US Dept of Justice began and discovered “abusive conditions” and “unsafe practices” at Fairview. Among their findings was that in one month alone, there was evidence of 641 injuries and 27 reports of sex abuse. They immediately withdrew federal funding and decertified the facility in 1985. The DOJ also required that Fairview undergo a comprehensive plan of correction, which involved hiring hundreds of new staff members and putting an end to certain practices, like straitjackets.

Fairview was also sued in 1984 by the parents of two children who were residents at Fairview and by ARC. Disability Rights Oregon filed a class action lawsuit against Fairview for failing to protect the safety of self-injurious residents. Because even when someone is locked in a cage under a staircase, they can still find plenty of ways to harm themselves.

A study by the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology found that between 1963 and 1987, residents of Fairview were twice as likely to die of unnatural causes than people in Marion County who were not institutionalized.

Still, despite all the negative press – or maybe because of positive changes – Fairview became Salem’s largest job site by 1987, with 902 new jobs created. That is rather ironic because that same year, new residential admissions came to an end, signaling the end of resident population growth.

By the end of the 1980s, there was a renewed effort to begin moving residents into group homes in the community, but this didn’t come without concern from the staff at Fairview. After all, many of their residents had spent most of their lives at the facility. In 1989, one resident died within days of leaving Fairview and moving into a community facility. Were the residents actually safer out in the community? Or was Fairview the best placement for them?

In 1990, a big win came for individuals with disabilities. The American Disability Act, or ADA, was passed into law. This guaranteed Americans with Disabilities unrestricted access to public buildings, equal opportunity in employment, and equal access to government services and employment opportunities. 

1994 brought another big blow to Fairview when 14 employees were investigated for ongoing patient abuse. Of the 14 employees, 11 of them were arrested for their crimes.

In 1996, the state issued a plan for closing Fairview by the year 2000. By 1997, only 300 residents remained there. The following year, there was another push to relocate residents into the community, as plans were being made to sell the Fairview property.

By January 2000, fewer than two dozen residents remained at Fairview. And at 1:15 pm on February 24, 2000, the last resident left the facility, amid a crowd of well-wishers and bittersweet emotions. After almost 100 years, Fairview had come to a close.

And yet, there were some who still had doubts. After all, there was now a waitlist of over 7,000 people who needed services in the community. But an important change came that year with the class action agreement known as the “Staley Agreement.” According to the Connections Case Management website, “in 2000, a group of five Oregonians with developmental disabilities and their families filed a lawsuit against the state of Oregon (commonly known as Staley vs. Kitzhaber). These five individuals claimed they were unfairly being denied access to services they were entitled to by law…The state chose to implement these new services through the creation of private organizations called ‘brokerages.’” So essentially folks with disabilities could select their care and service providers in a way they didn’t have access to before.

In 2002, the Fairview property sold for $12 million dollars to Sustainable Fairview Associates, a group of investors who hoped to develop a sustainable residential community. They had plans to construct 1600 green homes in the area. Unfortunately for them, when the Great Recession hit in 2008, Sustainable Fairview Associates went bankrupt. They sold parts of the property to other developers. Many of the original buildings remained abandoned on the property. It became such a draw for urban explorers and graffiti artists that cameras eventually had to be set up and security guards enlisted to patrol the area. Eventually, by about 2016, all the old Fairview buildings were torn down. They were crumbling and highly damaged from years of vandalism. Today, I’ve heard there are upscale, bougie apartments on the site, but I haven’t seen them myself.

In the 23 years since Fairview closed, there have been some positive changes in the field of mental health that those advocates like Linda Gheer should be proud of. In 2010, Rosa’s Law was signed into effect. It removed the terms “mental retardation” and “mentally retarded” from federal health, education labor policy and replaces them with people first language. Like the advocates declared in the 70s: “we are people first.” Now the nomenclature matches that, to read “individual with an intellectual disability.” To many people not connected to this community or their history, this may not seem like a significant or important change. But words matter. They are more than just their diagnoses. And by putting people first, it shows respect, value, and dignity. 

In 2012, the funds from the Fairview Trust, which was established when the facility closed, helped make accessible modifications to over 1,000 homes in Oregon. Ramps were added to home entrances, bars were added to bathrooms, and other equipment was used to make much-needed modifications.

It wasn’t until 2015, following the Lane v. Brown Settlement, that folks with developmental and physical disabilities earned minimum wage. Prior to this, they were earning sub-minimum wage and often working in segregated work environments. And it makes me wonder, since I’m not familiar with the needs of this community: what still needs to be changed? I wonder who will advocate for the next much-needed changes to help folks with disabilities live their best lives.

In looking at the history of Fairview, not everyone has negative memories. I found a community page of former residents and staff where they recall fond memories, plan annual reunions, and update others on people they know. Some of the folks felt that the documentary “In the Shadow of Fairview” unfairly represented the experience they had there. I’m glad to know that some people had good experiences – and certainly, there were staff members who genuinely cared for residents. Ultimately, I hope that former residents who continue to need assistance are getting the support they need in healthy and happy ways.

And that’s where I’ll end the history of Fairview Training Center. I learned so much about this facility that I didn’t know before – and it is just as local to me as OSH! I’m sure there are listeners out there, especially in Marion and Polk counties, who have stories about Fairview. I’d love to read about them, if you’re willing to share! Send me an email at behindthewallspodcast@gmail.com.

Next week, I’m going to tell a true crime story that originated at Fairview Training Center. You’re going to want to come back and listen to this one! 

Special thanks this week to Missy for adding Ginny to the super secret Facebook page. Remember if you’d like to join that page, send me an email to request an invite at behindthewallspodcast@gmail.com.

For now, do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. Until next time…