A Chat with Dr. Ladd

A quaint tale told from Dr. Ladd's perspective - hardly more than a curiosity, but a fitting one for this week's weather, and a good place to take up again our egregiously delinquent blogging routine.

This comes from the Ladd School's newsletter, "The Exeter News," January, 1956 issue:

A Chat With The Superintendent

"Looking for news from the administration for this month's issue of the paper, your reporter found Dr. Ladd in a reminiscent mood. 'Well, I had thought of giving you something about snow,' he said, and began telling of the storms which used to beset the School in the early days of its existence.

Once a very dependable patient by the name of Guy, who was sent on an errand in such a storm, stopped at the office (when then was in Dr. Ladd's home) to pick up the mail. Dr. Ladd says that he had an intuition that something might go wrong, so he started after him to see that he didn't lose his way. Evidently it was so bad that it was impossible to look ahead to see where one was going for more than a few seconds at a time. It happened, therefore, that Guy had left the road and circled around to crisscross it several times. The Doctor caught up to him just as he was crossing it again - heading in the wrong direction.

He said, "Hi Guy -- having any trouble?"

Guy answered in his very slow, deliberate monotone, "Yes ... I don't where I am ... can't find the road."

Dr. Ladd put him on the right track and started back himself. By glancing up every so often he could see the lights at his house and head himself in the right direction. As he came to a small hill, however, he found that his view of the lights was shut out, but he kept going in what he thought was the right direction. After a while, he stopped to get his bearings and saw the lights way off to his left. He couldn't understand how he had gotten turned around this much but struck out for the lights once more.

When he finally reached the spot where the light was coming from, he discovered that from the bottom of the hill he had started after the wrong set of lights, and had ended up over by the Colony instead of at his home at the other end of the reservation. He remarked that it had been foolish of him to set his course by the lights in the first place, and that he finally made it home safely by taking note of the direction that the wind was coming from, and since he know that this was storm from the North, taking his bearings accordingly."

The Ladd School, By Any Other Name

On March 14, 1958, Rhode Island Governor Dennis J. Roberts signed the bill officially naming the Dr. Joseph H. Ladd School in honor of its founder, and then recently retired superintendent, Dr. Joseph Ladd.

Fifty-six years later, and some two decades since the institution was abandoned, Rhode Islanders still call it The Ladd School, even though it was renamed, in 1978, the Dr. Joseph H. Ladd Center. Little is it known, however, that even before it was called The Ladd School, Rhode Island's only public residential institution for people with developmental disabilities was called The Exeter School, with reference to its location in the rural farming town of Exeter, Rhode Island.

Rarer yet is the knowledge that before it was known as The Exeter School, the institution was originally called the Rhode Island School for the Feeble-Minded.

The Bones of Gary Hayman

Sixty-one years ago today, on September 23, 1952, Gary Hayman, a nine-year-old boy with autism, vanished from the Ladd School without a trace, never to be found ... almost.

In the afternoon while the children were lined up at the end of class on that fateful day, Gary must have bolted from the school unseen, or so reports suggest. When his teacher realized he was missing, the school's administrators took swiftly to action, rounding up small search parties of attendants and inmates, and blasting three short, sharp blows of the whistle from the smokestack at the power plant on the other side of the campus - a measure taken for all runaways from the institution.

Little did anyone know that this time, however, it would be different. When their search turned up empty-handed that night, so began a long, strange and harrowing story that remains to this day - all but forgotten - one of the most mysterious and tragic events in local history.

An Historic Occasion

Nineteen years ago this week, Rhode Island formally commemorated the closing of the Dr. Joseph H. Ladd Center at one of the State's least known parks; the Ladd School Memorial Park.

Situated at the corner of Main Street and School Land Woods Road in Exeter, the park, designed by Karen Hillman, was established in tribute to the thousands of people who lived and worked at the facility from 1907 to 1994. It stands upon the place where the original Rhode Island School for the Feeble-Minded was founded; the site of the Hoxsie farmhouse where Dr. Ladd and the first eight inmates of the institution settled more than a century ago.

Surrounded by a replica of the stone wall that once surrounded the farmhouse, an engraved plaque is affixed atop a stone podium, which reads:

The Ladd Center
1907-1993

Dr Joseph H. Ladd established the Exeter School for the Feebleminded on this site in 1907. He guided its development with dedication for 48 years. During its86 year history Ladd Center was home for 4,533 disabled men, women, and children who were cared for by skillful and compassionate employees. Ladd Center was closed in 1993 after alternative programs were established throughout Rhode Island. This alternative system of facilities was developed over a 15 year period with funds overwhelmingly approved by Rhode Island voters. Leadership in this major effort was provided by govenors J. Joseph Garrahy, Edward D. Diprete, and Bruce Sundlun; by the directors of the Rhode Island Department of Mental Health, Retardation, and Hospitals, Joseph J. Bevilacqua, Thomas D. Romeo, and A. Kathryn Power, By the department's executive director Robert L. Carl, Jr.; and by The Arc, the Ladd Parents' Association, and MHRH staff.

Superintendents: 1907 - 1956 Dr. Joseph H. Ladd, 1956 - 1978 Dr. John G. Smith, 1979 - 1993 George W. Gunther Jr.

Last person moved to a community based facility on March 25, 1994