Suitcases

A few years ago I attended a conference at the Sagamore near Albany for work. While there I seen a presentation titled "Suitcases: The lives they Left Behind". It was a piece that some researchers had put together. They had gone to the Willard Psychiatric Hospital in hopes of finding some artifacts to safeguard before the hospital grounds were renovated, demolished, or completely closed to the public. What they stumbled upon was a find much greater than they had hoped to.

Using two former employees as guides, they happened upon an old attic door. When the door was pried open, they discovered amongst the debris a collection of suitcases. Suitcases that had been placed there many years earlier when their owners had been placed in the hospital. I sat in the overcrowded conference room with my fellow employees and others from many different social services agencies from across the state in awe of the presentation. It was a presentation that touched everyone in the room so deeply that we all left the room overcome with emotions. By using the contents of the suitcases and the patients records the research team worked many years piecing together the lives of the suitcase owners. Many of the suitcases held the person's most prized possessions... photos, clothing, mementos, jewelry, personal care items. All things that once they arrived at Willard they never seen again.

A vast majority of the people who were placed in Willard and labeled as "insane" were not. Refusing to leave a bar when asked to, getting upset over a restaurant messing up their food order, questioning if God truly existed when a spouse and child suddenly lost their lives, crocheting a pair of baby booties while being pregnant then keeping that pair close to her after the baby died during childbirth... all reasons why some were placed in Willard. Questioning why they were there and when they could leave... reasons they were kept there.

Willard was a self maintained facility. There was no reason to leave the property. They had their own power plant, post office, entertainment hall, their own bakery, their own farms (vegetable, fruits, as well as pigs, poultry, and cattle), fire department, work shops, morgue, burial grounds. It also had numerous residential halls as well as on campus housing for some staff and administration. It was the responsibility of the patients there to maintain the facility. They worked every manual labored position. One patient hand dug thousands of graves in his time at Willard. He was still responsible to dig final resting places when he died in his sleep at the age of 90. He was labeled as having paranoid schizophrenia by the same Dr who wrote in his case notes that "patient has good judgment, fully orientated, cooperative, logical, good memory and insight, no delusional trends and requires no medications at all. "

Growing up in the Finger Lakes area I knew of Willard. I knew it was a hospital for the mentally insane but I did not realize the conditions that the people there lived in. I left the presentation wanting to know more. When I came home and told my family of the presentation I learned of a new person who had been placed at Willard wrongly. My Grandfather. My Grandfather was an alcoholic. One night while drinking he was showing off with a gun and accidentally shot himself. He survived the mishap but the mishap had him placed in Willard. It took my Grandmother months to have him proven to be of sound mind and released. I never meant my Grandfather as he passed away before I was born. When I asked my parents if he ever said what Willard was like they just said he never wanted to discuss what he saw or experienced. They said they visited him there often and it was not a very pleasant place.

When the book that the researchers were writing was published, I bought the book. I cried as I read it. The stories of the people lives they were able to peice together are unbelievable. A few times I drove to Willard. Not having access inside the compound itself though. I would drive by and see the buildings and wonder what was held inside. This summer I had the opportunity to find out. It was an opportunity that I did not hesitate to take and what I seen inside was beyond my imagination.

As a fundraiser Willard was opened to the public for one day. My Mother and I went together. They only had certain sections of the facility available to tour. Part of the facility is now a boot camp for drug addicted state prisoners. That piece was not available for us to tour. Some residential buildings had been boarded up and condemned as they were unsafe. Those too were not open to tour.

The tours were supposed to be guided tours. Each building you went into also had former staff members who worked at Willard inside them to offer additional insight and information on that particular building. The weather was rainy and dreary so our tour guide quickly left us to be on our own. My Mom and I walked building to building, soaking it all in so to speak.

We went to a building that had many functions before becoming a residential facility when the hospital got cited for being overcrowded. That building was the eeriest building. It had a feel to it to just ran chills down your spine. A paranormal studies group had been there a few years ago and the notes they had left behind of the experiences that occurred while they were there still hung on a bulletin board on the wall. Notes scribbled of " voices heard down hall, sounds of a bell repeatedly sounding, screams heard on back wing, lights won't stay on." Followed by a note that said " Dude, I can not wait to get out of this place in the morning.." written from one paranormal studier to the other.

The tour guide took us to the basement of that building. The basement was filled with cement tunnels. All going in different directions. At the end of one tunnel was a room that had a beautiful mantle and elegant flooring. That was the only room that had flooring. The rest were of cement. The lights consisted of an exposed light bulb hanging every so often. While we were told when we entered that building that no person was ever held there against their will, at the end of one tunnel was a cell. It had a barred gate that went from top to bottom with a lock on the door. It resembled that of which one would see in a jail. At the bottom of it was a slot that a tray would fit through. Nobody held against their will? Yeah, OK.


We drifted away from the tour guide when we were on the 3rd floor of the same building. Last I heard the tour guide saying was that people were fortunate to have luxuries here that they may not have had access to had they not come to Willard. While wandering away, I saw a set of doors that were partially opened and labeled "Treatment Room". I walked inside and this is what I seen...

I don't know about you, but those are "luxuries" I could live without.


We went to the morgue where we seen were autopsies were performed and bodies held until the other patients made the casket and dug the grave.


We went into Hadley Hall where there was an auditorium where movies were played and dances held. Downstairs was a bowling alley. It was without any doubt the only building I seen that offered the patients there anything positive and uplifting.


We toured the building that housed medically fragile patients as well as the operating room. We did not however see what it was like in their day as it is now a remodeled building with many updates. We also were able to tour the old nurse training facility. Again, all remodeled now into a day care center.


We were told that they had underground tunnels that connected all buildings to a central building. We also were told that in all buildings patients were able to come and go in and out of. We were told that the patients enjoyed being at Willard and took pride in their work that they did so willingly in the many different labor shops and fields. The people providing the tour stated that when people arrived at Willard, they did not want to leave even when they were told they did not need to be there. This is something that is the direct opposite of what is pieced together in the book I read and the presentation I seen. Both of which were validated by patients records and information from other sources.


There were two buildings that haunted my mind the most there. First the one with the luxurious treatment rooms and cell portioned basement. Second was this building... Nestled in the midst of the other residential buildings.

When I asked what it was, I was at first dismissed. When I continued to pry, I was told nobody knew. I looked in the windows, in the midst of the debris I seen three things... a single cot, a small tray table, and an old wooden chair. There was no door on any side of this building. I returned to the tour guide, telling her what I seen through the windows and asking if it maybe was some sort of a isolation facility. She was quick to tell me that no such isolation ever occurred at Willard and that the building was used for storage. I am not sure what the building's purpose was but regardless it un-nerved me.

While the tour guides information was not the same as the information of the researchers, it was still a nice chance to get inside the facilty and draw my own conclusions and try to see the way things may have been. My only hope is that those buried in the overgrown and unkept cemetary with no markers (as Willard's employees pulled them all from the ground and tossed them over the banksides in thoughts of making it easier to mow) are now truly finding peace.