Monday, May 12, 2014

On The Death of Dr. Joseph H. Ladd, 40 Years Ago Today

The following was originally published in the Providence Evening Bulletin on Monday, May 13, 1974:

Dr. Joseph H. Ladd, who pioneered efforts in Rhode Island to rehabilitate the mentally retarded, died yesterday at the age of 98.

He was the husband of Pauline (Falco) Ladd.

He was the first superintendent of the Dr. Joseph H. Ladd School in Exeter, which opened in 1907 with seven mentally retarded boys under his care.

At that time the institution was known as the Rhode Island School for the Feeble-Minded and the residents were called "inmates." Dr. Ladd's half century career was spent seeking a bette approach to the problem.

Dr. Ladd guided the institution through its growth from a single farmhouse to a sprawling complex housing nearly 1,000 residents at the time of his retirement in 1956. Despite the growth, the school was perennially overcrowded and understaffed. Much of Dr. Ladd's career was devoted to pressing the state for more funds and personnel. In the early days, the school was so isolated that it often was snowbound during the winter.

Dr. Ladd and his first wife, the former Margaret A. MacInnes lived in close contact with the inmates, and shared their meals with them.

In its early days, the institution was a "school" in name only, lacking facilities for education or even adequate shelter.

Years later, in 1948, Dr. Ladd was to recall,

"The feeble-minded were regarded as a tremendous menace to the community and as totally beyond help. The ideas was that all of them were potential criminals.

"In a way, of course, everyone is a potential criminal. But we've since discovered that the feeble-minded are no more so than anybody else and that if given a chance they can adjust themselves and lead useful lives within the limits of their intelligence.

"In the old days, people believed that the mentally deficient should be kept out of circulation and incarcerated as cheaply as possible."


At the same time, Dr. Ladd admitted that the school, which was later to bear his name, had, unfortunately, remained largely custodial because funds for training, education and recreation were not readily appropriated.

As the school expanded, Dr. Ladd gained fame as one of the nation's leading authorities on the care and treatment of the mentally deficient.

In 1946 he reached mandatory retirement age but was granted a special extension which allowed him to continue his work at the school.

He remained there another 10 years, retiring in 1956, a year marked by scandals over alleged abuse of the students by some staff members.

Since his retirement, Dr. Ladd and his wife had lived at 132 Division St., East Greenwich.

In 1969 he was inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame.

Dr. Ladd was born in 1876 in High Forest, Minn., a son of the late George W. and Emma (Cory) Ladd.

His family came east when he was a youngster and he received his early education in Vermont public schools. He spent two years at Norwich University, Northfield, Vt., before studying medicine at Dartmouth Medical College, where he received his degree in 1900.

That year he joined the staff of the Walter E. Fernald School for the mentally handicapped in Waltham, Mass. He remained there until 1907, when Rhode Island opened its school in Exeter and named him as superintendent.

After the death of his first wife in 1927, he married the former Pauline Falco of North Providence.

Dr. Ladd was the state chairman for the 1965 Easter Seal campaign of the Meeting Street School. He was a past president of the American Medical Association, the Washington County Medical Society, the Rhode Island Medico-Legal Society and the New England Psychiatric Society.

He is survived by a son, Joseph H. Ladd, Jr. of Monterey, Calif., two daughters, Mrs. Theodora M. Kendrick of Providence and Mrs. Valorie Ladd Scott of Westfield, Mass. ; five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements by Marino & Sons Funeral Home, 265 Admiral St., Providence, are incomplete.

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