 Hello, and welcome to Senior Moment. My name is David Refsin, and I am your host. Senior Moment is about seniors and for seniors. I am very pleased to have as my guest today Ed Orzakowski. Ed has written a book about the life of a man named Donald Vitkis and his journey from hell to a productive member of society. Ed, welcome to the show. Thank you, David. Glad to be here. So, tell me a little bit about some of the early years of your life. You did a lot of teaching, but talk a little bit about that part of your life. Well, I grew up in the Florence section of Northampton, and I went to Northampton High School, UMass, and I graduated from there, and I met my wife in first grade. So our first date was the junior prom in high school, and we got married after we got out of college. I didn't know what to major in at the time, because I didn't realize what interest or talent I had in writing, so I was briefly an engineer for about 10 days. My son did the same thing, and he's a writer, so it doesn't change. So, you taught for a long time? I taught for 35 years at Quabog Regional High School, which is a two-town district, Warren, in Westbrook Fields, near Sturbridge. And was literature or writing part of that? Yeah, I taught high school English. I was chairman of the department, and writing was part of the program, college composition, but this was a time when elective programs were beginning in high school. So I had a short story course, journalism, novels, and writing. Is that what kind of led you into your own idea of writing? I'm not sure it led me into it. Well, I guess it did. It prepared me for it, anyway. I had done some writing of just short articles for newspapers or letters to the editor is really probably how it began. And then I was sort of a Walter Mitty writer, I think, because I subscribed almost a charter subscriber for Writers Digest magazine. I've been subscribing for a long time. I enjoy reading about writing. I enjoy learning more about the craft. And I had worked part-time in radio as a newsman and also began a journalism class where I taught. So all of it kind of steered me in that direction. If I'm not mistaken, you also had some connection with Straw Dog's Writers Guild. Well, I'm a member of Straw Dog Writers Guild, yeah. And it's a great organization. Well, it's based in Northampton, but we have members in a wide area. And what's good about it is that you're just with other people who have a common interest and also get a lot of good tips, too. Right. That's what I was just thinking, probably more than anything else. There's somebody who's written a book and will talk about that in a little bit to give you some ideas how to proceed or things of that nature. I think that would be very helpful. Writers groups are invaluable. I've been in three or four different writers groups and they all have a different nature to them because of the membership that people are in that particular group, but they're all very helpful. Okay. Certainly the majority of reason why we're here has to do with the history of a place called the Belcher Town State School. This was a school for what they then termed mentally retarded people to be housed in this facility. And maybe you could talk a little bit about the history of the school. Okay. Belcher Town opened, I think, in 1922. And originally it was intended to be a place where people with mental handicaps, not necessarily mental illness, but mental handicaps, something that people were born with, could go to and be out in the country and perhaps a healing kind of environment and be schooled and prepared for some kind of a job or life on the outside. So it began with some very idealistic goals. But over time it was understaffed, overcrowded, and under-budgeted, which led to eventually a lot of problems of abuse and neglect, and particularly into the 1940s and 50s in that era. One of the things they talk about in your book is that kids mostly would come into the facility, they would evaluate them, and whether it was true or not, label them as, again, the words back then, mentally retarded with very, very low IQ. And it's kind of wondrous to see, in fact, was that really true all the time, especially with the tools they had back in the 50s or 40s or 60s. And I think Donald is one of those kind of people who came in at a young age, and we'll talk about Donald in a minute. So in 1972, my understanding is Benjamin Ritchie, whose son was a patient at the school, Bobby, filed a lawsuit, I guess, with the State Department of, was it health? Well, at that time it was called the DMR, Department of Mental Retardation. And that was in 1972. And when Ben realized what the conditions were like, where his son was sent, first of all, he was sent there because the DMR school system wouldn't take him. There was no special education back then. So it was common for people to be sent to Belcher Town State School. And when Ben found out what the conditions were like, he began working with other parents. There was an organization called the Friends of Belcher Town, parents mostly, to bring goods that were not available. I mean, common things like toilet paper or toothbrushes. And then they began fundraising. And eventually the lawsuit came about, and it was a class action lawsuit with organizations of parents and guardians from other schools as well, like what was called Munson State Hospital back then. Right. You had mentioned, we were talking before, that if you went to visit, and my understanding is your sister-in-law was a patient there as well, and they don't let you into the actual facility. They only let you into the visiting room. How do you think Benjamin found out about the conditions there? Do you have a sense about that? That's a good question. I'm not sure. Well, what I do know is that when he did find out about the conditions, and when he got into the lawsuit, Judge Toro, Joseph Toro was a federal judge. He and Ben and a few other dignitaries toured Belcher Town. And as soon as Judge Toro saw what the conditions were like, he said, okay, I don't even need a trial. This is, he issued a consent decree, and that ran from 1972 to 1992, and the same judge had oversight of it all those years. They went through several judges prior to that. I'm not sure how many, and the same thing with attorneys until they finally found one, Beryl Cohen, who was a state representative at some point, or senator, I'm not sure. And he took the case, Pro Bono, and without the convergence of those three men, Ben, Ben Ritchie, Beryl Cohen, the attorney, and Judge Toro, this wouldn't have succeeded. It just wouldn't have happened. So now we're talking 1972. The lawsuit has been filed. The judge sees what's going on and realizes this is not a good place for folks to be. So things start to change both internally, meaning was it hiring more staff? Was the policies of how they dealt with these folks change at that time? Well, I'm sure there were physical plant deficiencies that were improved. The conditions were, as you said, people were not allowed, visitors were not allowed to be on the visiting room. So I never saw what the place was like. I learned about it from people like Donald, who told me what it was like. So it would have been a gradual process of improvement. I've begun writing a book about a woman who grew up there that I met as a result of Donald's book. And she was there about 10 to 12 years after he was. And she tells me by the time that she was there, it wasn't a great place by any stretch of imagination, but things had improved. The life wasn't as regimented as it was when Donald was there. So my understanding as part of the decree was to actually eventually close the school down, but it took a lot of time to get the folks who were patients in there into other places or facilities. I'm not sure the original intent was to close it. It was to improve it. And then over those 20 years, eventually it did close. And you're right. People began being moved out to other facilities. There was one here in Amherst called Sunrise Avenue that I think still exists. That's where my sister-in-law went when she got out of Elterton. So it took a while for things to get to, you know, final closure. I'm assuming that what happened over those 20 years between 72 and 92, did they possibly not take any more folks into the state school? That's right. And so eventually the population started to get whittled down. Right. Right? And they went out into community housing or small venue situations. Maybe an unfair question, but I'll ask. Anyway, how did it turn out for these small programs? Did the judge in the court see that this was a beneficial situation for the patients? Well, yes. And you know from Carolyn, maybe a little bit about that. There was resistance from communities, not necessarily here in Amherst, but in other towns people didn't want this kind of home being built in their neighborhood because they feared what the residents would be like. So eventually, well, I've lost track of what the question was. I may have a senior moment. That's okay. No, no, no, that's okay. It's in these small community settings. Somebody like Carolyn, did she thrive in those settings? I mean, was it obviously a better place than the state school was? It was a better place. For one thing, it was a brand new facility. Okay. But part of the problem was that many of the staff that had been at Belcher Town, probably the bulk of the staff, were relocated to these other homes. Okay. And it took a long, long time for the mindset of workers to change. It wasn't just something that happened overnight just because you've got a new facility. So in some cases, these places were like many Belcher Towns. So the instances of abuse and neglect still might occur. And it was through, it's the reason why, that is a reason why parent organizations like Advocacy Network and the Friends of Belcher Town exist. And they still do. It's to some extent. They still do. Okay. Now we're going to talk about part of why we're here. Ed has written a book called You'll Like It Here, which is kind of a crazy title when you hear what this is all about as you've been hearing. But I wanted you to talk about how your chance encounter with Donald Vittges happened and subsequent interaction with him. So maybe you can address that. Okay. Well, through my, because my sister-in-law, Carol, was a resident at Belcher Town, my wife Gail and I became involved as eventually coal guardians in Advocacy. We joined at, back then it was called, I'm trying to think of the name, but it wasn't Advocacy Network. It was some name prior to that. But anyway, she and I both got on the board and we met Benjamin Ritchie, who was for all intents and purposes, he was a driving force. And Ben had written his own book called Crimes Against Humanity, which was a chronicle of the lawsuit because he wanted this to be sort of a guide or a textbook for other organizations to follow if they wanted to initiate kind of a lawsuit like this. And he was invited to speak at Holyoke Community College. And I was helping him at that time, helping him with the book signing. And after Ben's presentation, this man came up to me and said, you know, I grew up at Belcher Town State School and I've been looking for someone to write my story. And it turns out that Donald was the one who had invited Ben. Donald was the oldest, I think at the time, he was 62 years old, a student at Holyoke Community College. And he was getting his associate's degree and he was involved with the psychology club there, I think. And as a result, he invited Ben to come to speak and that's where we met. Now, one of the other things you told me about Donald before we get into your interaction with him is that he worked for 30 years in a print shop. So on one level, the state school couldn't have been any more wrong about this young man who they said had a 41 IQ and yet as time went on in his life, he was able to accomplish a lot of stuff given what his background was in terms of those years. I mean, he went from forced home to forced to home when he was a young boy. So that in itself was trauma producing in and of itself. So tell me a little bit. Now you've met Donald Vittges and he says I want somebody to tell my story and you said yes, obviously. I didn't say yes immediately. About that time, I'm not sure I had retired from teaching or not, but it was pretty close to that time. So, you know, I thought, well, this would be an interesting project. Little did I realize what it took to write a book and what I had to learn how to write a book first, which is one of the reasons why it took about six to seven years to produce a book. But it was certainly a worthwhile experience. Tell me about sort of the interview process. Now, here you are, you're meeting with him, obviously, over many, many, many hours. And he starts to relate what happened to him, basically. Right. It turned out, it was almost like, I'm not a therapist by any means, but it turned out that it was helpful for Donald to be sometimes when he was telling about a very difficult experience at Belcher Town and he might begin to cry. And I'd ask him if he wanted to continue or not. He said, yes, I do, because this is good for me. And first of all, he wanted the story told, but also it was beneficial for him to get the story out. It's, when things like that happen, getting it out is very cathartic in a lot of ways and it really can be sort of life changing in a way that he doesn't have to kind of keep holding on to it and allow to express what really happened. Right. Well, you mentioned the 41RQ. He was tested when he was three years old when he was still in the foster care system and got that result. So when he got to Belcher Town, he was labeled a moron because these were not just slang terms, they were clinical terms, categories according to your IQ. Moron, imbecile, and idiot. And moron was at the top of the heap. And because he was told so often that he was a moron, he began to believe he was or had doubts about it at any rate. And even when he was, after all those years of working and when we got the book out, he would appear at training sessions for the Department of Developmental Services in Northampton. He had been invited to speak there to new people coming into the system. And that's the way he introduced himself. I'm Donald Vitkus, a former moron at Belcher Town State School. At least he said former. Right. When he did these workshops and even in terms of your meeting with him, was he articulate? Did he really...? He was articulate. He was a little rough around the ages. Of course. And very outspoken. He always resisted. He hated authority of any kind, even his own son who became a policeman. He hated that concept. He loved his son, but hated the idea that he was a cop. And he was a very moving kind of experience. I didn't realize that what kind of a friendship we would evolve over the years. That wasn't the original plan or design. But through learning about intimate experiences like this, it just happens. And whenever he spoke at book signings, that's who people really wanted to hear. They didn't want to hear me so much. I wanted to hear Donald. And he was always amazed at how he would rise to the occasion because he was beginning to have seizures. But he really looked forward to these reading events. So you said you had what developed into a long-term friendship with him. So here he is sort of revealing his heart to you in a lot of ways of what's really going on. And obviously that struck a chord with you on many different levels. So was he pretty precise about what happened to him? Was he pretty detailed about his experience at the state school? Yes. I'd have to ask him questions because I want to flesh out something, a conversation or where it occurred or exactly what happened. And it might take a while to get all that information. But his memory was very detailed, very sharp about exactly what happened. Those kinds of things you don't forget. How old was he when he finally got out of the school, do you know? He was turning 18, which was the time of the Vietnam War. Right. So he had been registered for the draft by a social worker, I presume. It was classified 4F, which meant unfit to serve mentally or physically and he knew what it meant in his case. He was so upset by that because he had already labeled a moron. He went down to the draft board in Holyoke and convinced them to change his status. You know, a lot of guys were trying to keep out of Vietnam. Yes, I know. But he didn't think that they would actually take him to Vietnam or into the service. He just wanted the label removed. So it was like an identification for him in applying for jobs. So he didn't serve in the military then? He did. Oh, he did? He ended up getting drafted and he served a year in Vietnam. Oh, my goodness. And I always tell one of the ironies is a couple of things. For him, being in the service was, he liked it. And he said it was easier for him than it was for a lot of other people because he had already been accustomed to that regimented lifestyle, do this at this time, wear this. And another thing that I'd like to mention is that he carried and operated a machine gun or a submachine gun when he was in Vietnam. Years later, when he was living in Granby, he applied for a gun permit and was denied by the police chief because he had been institutionalized. And here he is out there with a machine gun. Right. Probably killing people. Probably. And learn how to deal with weapons clearly as a result of the war. Right. And you would think he would have been an OK candidate for that situation. Well, Belcher Town was on his record. Right. So here he is. He gets out, I'm going to guess, around 1920, something like that out of the Army. Maybe a little bit later. Well, he got out of the Army in the 70s. Right. But I'm saying how old was he? Was he like 19 or 20? Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you said 1920. No, no, no. I'm not that old either. Yeah. He would have been about 19. And so what happened to him at that point? So here he is. He gets out of the Army. Also, a little surprise, maybe just a side thing. Why didn't he continue with the Army? He didn't have to go to Vietnam anymore. But since it was a place that he liked the regimentation, and he liked that thing, why didn't he continue with it? I'm not sure why he didn't continue. I never asked him that question. He didn't want to make it a career. I mean, it wasn't his intent that he would get into the military. He just wanted that label removed, the 4F label. But it turned out for him that it was beneficial. He always credits the military for teaching him a lot. So what does he do when he gets out? Now he's whatever, 19, 20 years old? Yeah. Well, he searched for jobs. And he worked for a couple of different places and ended up working at, it was called West Vacco Envelope. I believe it was in West Springfield. And that's where he worked for all those 30-plus years as running a printing press. So he didn't bounce from job to job. He kept a job. Not to say he didn't have difficulties there because of his past. But he kept that job until the company moved to Mexico. And through NAFTA, he got training, and that's why he went to Belcher Town, excuse me, to the whole community college, where he had wanted to study computers because he had an interest in computers. But somehow he was steered into being a human caregiver. That's how he got his degree. And he gets married? He got married. He was married a couple of times. He had a son and daughter in the first marriage. The marriage didn't last because there were conflicts, partly because of his background. His job, he always said, was to go out and earn money. That was it. Whatever nurturing there was or parenting there was, that wasn't his job because he didn't know how to do that. He wasn't capable of it. He couldn't even hug his own kids because any kind of physical encounter at Belcher Town meant abuse or restraint. So there was a time when his wife was out and he was caring for his son at home. This was in Holyoke. Across the street one of the buildings was on fire and his building had to be evacuated. And he had to carry his son at arm's length because he couldn't clutch him to bring him downstairs. Pretty amazing story about this man. It really is how he goes from literally hell to be a functioning member of our society to being children and a job and serving in the armed forces. And he never gave himself enough credit for that. No, I understand. And how wrong these folks were when they tested him when he was a little boy to where he wound up. Ed, this has been a fascinating journey. So I want to thank you very much for being a guest. Thank you for asking me to be here. I also want to thank Amherst Media for sponsoring the show and the folks who helped produce it. I know Faith is one of the producers. I want to thank her. So with that I hope you'll join me for the next session of Senior Moment. Thank you very much.