Rediscovering Lost Innocence by E. Pierre Morenon

Author:E. Pierre Morenon
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780759110977
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

When I read her report in 2002, only Cottage C remained; eight of her enumerated cottages—from the clinic and nursery to the barn—had been removed. However, our available historic maps (figures 4.1–4.3) in comparison to her listing were inconclusive. For example, the 1908 map (figure 4.1) labeled buildings and cottages by letters: A/B, C, and so on. Her “newer cottages” (#5 and #8, above), completed in 1913 and 1917, were not on this 1908 map. We had very accurate maps from 1937 and 1966 (figures 4.2 and 4.3) created from post-1930s aerial photographs, but the buildings on these later maps are not labeled. Taken as a group, there were enough scale variations, inconsistencies in labeling, and missing details on each historic map to raise questions which only the equivalent of a Rosetta Stone could answer.

In 2007 Michael Hebert discovered that missing link—a previously unknown 1930 topographic map (figure 9.4)—in a cabinet in the basement of one of the old state institution buildings in Cranston. Hebert had been working with the State Home Project since 2001 through his office at the Rhode Island Department of Transportation and understood the significance of this 1930 map to our work. The original now resides in the Rhode Island State Archives.

This 1930 topographical map, drawn by engineer W. F. MacDonald, plots the sequence and names of houses that Doris Hayden saw between 1928 and 1932 as she turned to the right and came up the drive to her home. The first building was the “clinic” or “hospital,” known as Cottage F and the “isolation ward” in other sources. It had housed children but was primarily a medical clinic. Arriving residents were quarantined in this building for several days before moving to an age- and gender-appropriate cottage. Many former residents remember this first day. Cottage F was used for general health purposes until 1964, when it was replaced by the new medical services building, later known as Building 9, which now is the School of Social Work. The MacDonald map and Doris Hayden’s memory map outline the same sequence of buildings (table 9.1) around the superintendent’s office between 1917 and 1950, when building for the O’Rourke Children’s Center began.

MacDonald’s map, drawn during Doris Hayden’s residence, reveals the roads, buildings, and tennis court, but not the cinder path that she described. In an interview, Donald Washington described how his mother Vergie Washington used to watch a girl play tennis on it in the late 1920s; I suspect this girl was Doris Hayden. We are not sure, but we think the tennis court was built for the exclusive use of the superintendent’s family and was probably not used by State Home children.

Figure 9.4. 1930 topographical map of the State Home and School. Rhode Island State Archives. (MacDonald 1930a; redrafted and simplified by Carolyn Costa for this text)

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