If you are one of the hundreds of people who have flocked to the Cayuga Museum to see the traveling exhibit “The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic,” you will be excited to hear that Darby Penney is coming to Auburn.
Penney will hold a book signing at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 13, at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center for the book she co-wrote as a companion to this nationally prominent traveling exhibit.
This book signing, like the exhibit itself, is sponsored by Options and made possible through the generosity of First Niagara Bank and the Peer Networking Group of Central New York.
If you have not yet been to the Cayuga Museum to see the exhibit, time is running out. The exhibit's last day is Sunday, April 20.
Though I am always one to encourage people to visit Cayuga Museum, I feel a special urgency this time. This exhibit is powerful.
“The Lives They Left Behind” is the story of the patients at the former Willard Psychiatric Center in Romulus, Seneca County. When the hospital closed in 1995, a treasure trove of suitcases was discovered in the attic of one of the buildings. The suitcases belonged to patients who lived and died at Willard.
Over the 126 year history of Willard, more than 50,000 patients were admitted. The average stay at the institution was more than 30
years and nearly half of the patients admitted died while at Willard.
Those statistics are stunning on their face, and from a professional perspective, as an advocate for people with disabilities, they are horrifying. But, those numbers don't convey the humanity of that reality.
When I first saw “The Lives They Left Behind,” I came face to face with the lives of people who spent the bulk of their lives in an institution.
Their life stories are not caricatures. They were ordinary people with problems that are all too common to this day. And for that they were locked away out of sight from the community.
During much of the history of Willard, treatment was primitive at best and often non-existent. Even when patients were deemed “cured” many of them stayed in the hospital anyway because they had grown old and simply had nowhere else to go.
Yet, through all the tragedy that is so eloquently presented, one is left with questions rather than judgments. The humanity of the staff at Willard comes through as clearly as that of the patients.
Today, it is estimated that one in five people lives with a mental health disability. We have come a long way from the conditions at Willard in the early 20th century, but questions remain about how society should deal with these difficult issues.
This exhibit does a masterful job of showing us that behind even the most difficult public policy debate is our common humanity.
For more information about this exhibit, visit suitcaseexhibit.org.
Collin M. Sullivan is the ADA/access advocate for Options for Independence.
This book signing, like the exhibit itself, is sponsored by Options and made possible through the generosity of First Niagara Bank and the Peer Networking Group of Central New York.
If you have not yet been to the Cayuga Museum to see the exhibit, time is running out. The exhibit's last day is Sunday, April 20.
Though I am always one to encourage people to visit Cayuga Museum, I feel a special urgency this time. This exhibit is powerful.
“The Lives They Left Behind” is the story of the patients at the former Willard Psychiatric Center in Romulus, Seneca County. When the hospital closed in 1995, a treasure trove of suitcases was discovered in the attic of one of the buildings. The suitcases belonged to patients who lived and died at Willard.
Over the 126 year history of Willard, more than 50,000 patients were admitted. The average stay at the institution was more than 30
years and nearly half of the patients admitted died while at Willard.
Those statistics are stunning on their face, and from a professional perspective, as an advocate for people with disabilities, they are horrifying. But, those numbers don't convey the humanity of that reality.
When I first saw “The Lives They Left Behind,” I came face to face with the lives of people who spent the bulk of their lives in an institution.
Their life stories are not caricatures. They were ordinary people with problems that are all too common to this day. And for that they were locked away out of sight from the community.
During much of the history of Willard, treatment was primitive at best and often non-existent. Even when patients were deemed “cured” many of them stayed in the hospital anyway because they had grown old and simply had nowhere else to go.
Yet, through all the tragedy that is so eloquently presented, one is left with questions rather than judgments. The humanity of the staff at Willard comes through as clearly as that of the patients.
Today, it is estimated that one in five people lives with a mental health disability. We have come a long way from the conditions at Willard in the early 20th century, but questions remain about how society should deal with these difficult issues.
This exhibit does a masterful job of showing us that behind even the most difficult public policy debate is our common humanity.
For more information about this exhibit, visit suitcaseexhibit.org.
Collin M. Sullivan is the ADA/access advocate for Options for Independence.
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