(birds chirping)
- [Narrator] This is
Glendale Cemetery,
where some of Akron's wealthiest
and most revered
citizens are buried,
along with other residents
from a wide variety of
socioeconomic backgrounds.
Like most cemeteries, the
gravesites are visited
and cared for by
surviving loved ones.
What does Glendale
Cemetery have in common
with this Akron park
known as Schneider Park?
From the mid-19th to
the early 20th century,
bodies were buried here, too.
Does anybody realize that?
The residents who live here?
The people who walk their dogs
or take their kids
to play sports here?
Where are the gravesites and
why does no one care for them?
Why have the people buried
here been forgotten?
- [Narrator] Grass grows
in unusual patterns
at Schneider Park in West Akron.
In certain areas, the earth
has settled into a curious grid
of ridges and hollows.
Some secrets are buried
forever in Akron's past,
but others lie just
beneath the surface.
"Are you talking about
the Graveyard Path?"
asked Ralph Witt, 84, of Akron,
who grew up on Delia Avenue.
"That's the Graveyard Path.
"It cut through from Sunset
View across Schneider Park
"and came out on
Crestview there."
When Witt was a boy,
the park didn't exist.
The land was a
wild, muddy swamp,
and some neighborhood children
were afraid to go near it.
"That's where they buried
the people," he said.
"I used to see bones
every once in awhile.
"They were sticking
out of the ground."
- [Narrator] We collaborated
with a local theater group
called Theatre on the Spectrum
to produce this opening
newsreel for their play,
"Along the Graveyard Path."
- [Man] Perfect!
- In 2012, Laura Valendza and
I began teaching a drama class
for kids on the autism spectrum.
We knew that the
arts could help kids
learn their social skills,
how to control emotions,
and generally how to
communicate better.
And we developed the idea
of Theatre on the Spectrum.
But now it's just not Theater
on the Spectrum of autism,
it's Theater on the
Spectrum of all abilities.
- Yeah, I mean,
we've been playing
Thanksgiving football
here on this field
for about 15 years now.
And then, yeah, a
couple years ago,
I found out about the
whole bodies being buried
underneath the football field.
- As far as I know,
there are no plans
for any kind of
memorial or monument
to commemorate
what happened here.
Why is it not disrespectful
for the residents
to bring their dogs
across here and defecate?
You know, look at
it like this, right?
Like any other known
cemetery or burial ground,
do you find other people
playing soccer or football
or driving cars?
Just because there aren't
headstones or markers
doesn't mean it's
not sacred ground.
- [Narrator] Michael
Elliott, Reference Assistant
at the Akron-Summit
County Public Library,
has poured over funeral records,
sorted probate documents,
and scanned death certificates
in an ambitious effort to
unearth Infirmary history.
Elliot decided to reconstruct
the Infirmary Cemetery.
So far, he has documented
300 Infirmary burials
from 1908 to 1916, plus 156
deaths from 1867 to 1908.
- Frankly, we don't even
know the exact dimensions
of the cemetery.
The graves were never marked.
If they were, it was
with a wooden cross
or something of that
nature, which did not last.
- Body selling
was a big problem.
So Case Western, at the time,
would have just been
the Case Institute,
was buying a lot of cadavers
in the Northeast Ohio region.
So what the doctors and the
superintendents would do
at the Infirmary was
they would just not write
a death certificate,
and then just sell the
body under the table.
- [Narrator] The Graveyard Path
is reluctant to
reveal its secrets.
"Who knows how many deaths never
got recorded?" Elliot said.
- One of the biggest challenges
that historians face,
just in general, has to do with
when you're looking at the
history of groups of people
who traditionally don't
make the history books.
The very people that we're
often most interested in
leave no paper trail.
And so, yes, it's
a very frustrating
thing for historians.
It makes it very difficult
and very challenging.
But on the other hand,
these are stories
that I think are
so very important
and really need to be told
as imperfectly as we
are able to tell them.
- [Narrator] The 15-acre
park off Mull Avenue
is one of the last vestiges
of a 230-acre farm,
where the Summit County
Infirmary operated for 70 years.
Today, the quiet neighborhood
has tree-lined streets,
upscale homes, and
well-kept lawns.
In the 19th century, it was
a shelter of last resort
for the homeless,
helpless and hopeless.
- The common
denominator, probably,
for the people that lived there
were people down on their luck.
They had no money,
they had no family,
no one to take care of them.
Sometimes mental
illness was a problem.
Sometimes alcoholism
was a problem.
Usually it was someone
who was totally destitute.
- [Narrator] In 1849,
Summit County Commissioners
paid $3,953 for Joseph
McCune's 150-acre farm.
Originally known as
the County Poorhouse,
the Infirmary was
a grim institution
for destitute, elderly
or disabled people
who had no place else to live.
Its residents, who
were called inmates,
were required to
work on the farm
if they were physically able.
The farmhouse and
barns were remodeled
to accommodate about 50 paupers.
Over the decades, the
County added buildings
while buying more land.
The farm was self-sufficient
with grain from the field,
fruit from the orchard, and
meat from the slaughterhouse.
In 1865, construction began
on a $20,000
infirmary on the farm.
- This created a lot of
tension in the community
'cause, of course, this
cost taxpayers money
to expand these facilities.
And this is, you know, Americans
have never been really keen
on raising their taxes.
But, on the other hand,
they realized, well,
you gotta do something
with these people.
- [Narrator] At the
opening ceremony in 1866,
Commissioners praised the
building as an ornament
and an honor to the County,
and a mark on the
exalted humanity
and liberality of her people.
Two years later, Inspector
A.G. Byers begged to differ.
And in 1868 Reports to the
Ohio Board of State Charities,
he described a hellish
tour of the facility.
- Yeah, well, in general,
you never wanted to be
in one of these places if
you could possibly help it.
And certainly if you came
from the middle class,
upper middle class,
oftentimes you had an out.
You had the ability to
have someone care for you,
you could be kept at home,
or there were
private institutions
which took good care of people.
These facilities were
chronically underfunded,
which meant that there
were a lot of corners cut,
the conditions oftentimes
were deplorable.
Sanitary conditions
were terrible,
medical conditions were
terrible, the food was terrible.
And that's even
if the institution
is run by people who are
really trying to do their best
with the limited means
to, at their hand.
Oftentimes these institutions
also suffered from the fact
that there were people
who were skimming money.
- [Narrator] Inside the building
was an Insane Department
with grated doors and cells.
Mentally ill individuals
were locked away
in squalid quarters.
"There were quite a
number of filthy, insane,
"idiotic and epileptic
inmates," he wrote.
"A terrible stench permeated
the entire building," he noted,
"and some inmates were kept
in, quote, 'rude board pens.' "
- Oftentimes people
would have just been
thrown into pesthouses,
which are basically
quarantine facilities that,
at other infirmaries,
would have been used for
if you had tuberculosis
or something contagious,
send 'em to the pesthouse
so that they don't
infect other people.
But oftentimes they were used
at Summit County Infirmary
as a form of solitary
confinement or punishment.
The investigations by
the Ohio Board of Health
and the Ohio Board of Charities
found that women were
being thrown in there naked
for days on end.
This was a rampant
problem of abuse of power,
both by the superintendents
and the doctors.
(discordant electronic music)
♪ For the crime of
being different ♪
♪ For the crime of being slow
♪ For the crime of
not quite fitting in ♪
♪ We sentence you to go
♪ Where you will
be with others ♪
♪ Who are also of your kind
♪ Far away from city lights
♪ Out of sight and out of mind
- A lotta people really
didn't care what went on
in the Infirmary.
These were people that
oftentimes, like I said,
were the parts of society
that most people really didn't
associate with, most people
and, of course, the
middle class and above.
- Early on in the
Infirmary setting,
people were defined as
being mentally deficient,
was a phrase that was used.
Eventually, feebleminded
became used.
Feebleminded
translated eventually
into three categories
of feeblemindedness,
idiot, imbecile, and moron.
So idiots were people
who had a behavioral age
that appeared to be in the
vicinity of two years old.
Imbeciles were people
with a behavioral age
roughly in the vicinity
of seven years old.
And a moron was somebody who
was fairly high-functioning
with a behavioral age
roughly around 12 years old.
- Insulting words were used
to describe people
with disabilities.
- [Woman] Oh, look who's comin'.
(group laughing)
- Idiot, imbecile,
moron, retard.
- The Insane Ward
would have included
pretty much a lot of people
that today we wouldn't consider
needing institutional treatment.
So this would have
included everyone
on the autism/Asperger's
spectrum.
- I have autism and
it makes me different.
My brain processes differently.
- I am also on the spectrum.
This is something a lot of
people don't know about me.
It's usually hard to
talk about because
I've always found
it as a hindrance.
- [Eric] This would
have included people
who had learning disabilities,
so people with dyslexia
could have ended up
there, considered idiots.
- I was born with a cleft
lip and a cognitive disorder.
At school, they didn't
know what to do with me.
I wanted to be normal,
but what is normal?
- The concept of insanity
obviously is something that's
very culturally constructed,
because insanity is
basically just what is normal
or culturally-appropriate
behavior, and then what is not,
would be considered insane.
- Another big change that
happened in the late 1800s
was the advent of
Darwinian thought.
Charles Darwin publishes
"Origin of the Species" in 1859.
And whereas Darwin really mostly
was trying to describe
a biological principle,
there were some people
who thought Darwin's ideas
could be transferred
to human society.
One of the most famous of these
was a guy named Herbert Spencer.
Spencer coined the term
"survival of the fittest."
There are fit people and
there are unfit people.
And the unfit people, you
can guess who they are.
They're the people who are poor,
they're the people
who are indigent.
They are the people who have
some kind of disability.
- I was born with a
cognitive disability.
- I was born with
cerebral palsy.
- I was born profoundly
deaf in both ears.
- I was born
C-section premature.
The nurse said I wouldn't
survive, but here I am.
- This idea that the unfit
were an increasing
burden on society
was driven by this
so-called social Darwinism
that we need to make sure
that the unfit aren't
going to swamp out
the fit people in
the population.
And this becomes a really
important principle
underlying the subsequent
eugenics movement.
- It was one of
those alarming things
where it can start
to sound rational.
It can sound rational until
you really think it through.
The consequence of
thinking this way
has immediate, really
immoral sequela.
But on top of that, then
you look more carefully
and the science is poor,
the science is bad.
We do not have science
that substantiates
a eugenical perspective.
- The threat of the feebleminded
to the eugenics crowd
was that these people
aren't just dull,
these people aren't
just not very bright,
they actually felt these
people posed a threat.
- [Carolyn] So physical
disability, mental disability,
and some form of immorality or
criminality line up together.
That is a package.
Those things more often
than not co-occur.
And that, for the
sake of society,
for the greater good,
that we needed to not choose
to bring that into the mix
but also for the
sake of the child.
- I began volunteering
with CADA two years ago
and their project,
Theatre on the Spectrum.
But like most people,
I was shy at first.
It can be difficult
to get used to the way
autistic people communicate.
- Hi, my name is
Cyrus Shahriari.
- Hi, I'm Sid Kranz.
- Hi, I'm Jake Dietz.
- But after awhile I
kept coming and coming,
and I began to talk with them.
And I'd realize that
they're just like I was.
They went to the
same movies I did,
they had homework like I did.
They had all the same thoughts.
See, autism isn't a
disability or a handicapped.
It's more like a different
language, a different dialect.
- All of us able-body
and disabled
have something to add to
the experience of life.
All of us experience the
same joys and sorrows
that life has to offer.
All of us are people.
- The quicker we
understand this,
the quicker we move on from
mistreatment or discrimination,
and the quicker we move towards
acceptance into society.
- In order to do
the kinds of things
that the eugenicists
wanted to do,
you actually needed
the government
to impose certain laws
and certain strictures.
And this then affected
things like County homes.
The people who found
themselves in County homes
often were the
destitute, the poor,
the people that eugenicists
felt were not the best people.
- If I lived then,
I would be scared.
I wouldn't know what
might happen to me.
- I feel like disability
rights now have improved
so much over the past few years,
but there's always more
battles to be fought and won.
- I was bullied all
throughout high school,
and I wanna do something
to help stop bullying.
- At school, my teacher said
I wouldn't amount to anything.
She said I would be
home with my parents
for the rest of my life.
I never thought a teacher would
say that to me, but she did.
- Hereditary
breeding for animals
and hereditary breeding
for humans lined up,
and then sorting
people in infirmaries.
And this idea about some
people needing to be isolated
because they might be defective
lined up so nicely with some
of that eugenical thinking.
And this sort of behemoth
of controlling the human
population was unleashed.
The late 1800s, in 1880,
we suddenly have an emphasis
on controlling women.
- [Narrator] In an 1887 article
titled "Infirmary Horrors,"
Ohio Board of Charities
Secretary, A.G. Byers,
warns that the birth of a
child to an insane mother
at the Summit County Infirmary
is not an isolated incident.
For Byers, this Akron horror
and other unwanted births
at infirmaries around
Ohio can only be prevented
by achieving the complete
separation of the sexes.
- They wanted to separate,
segregate males from females.
They didn't want any
hanky-panky going on there.
And to build enough institutions
to house all the people
that they viewed as
feebleminded or unfit
would have cost
way too much money
than most people would
be comfortable with.
And they came up
with what they viewed
was a much more
cost-effective measure
and, for some people, a
much more efficient measure,
and that was forced
sterilization
of people who they
deemed were unfit
and should not reproduce.
The very first eugenic
sterilization law
was passed in Indiana in 1907.
And then subsequently
over the next few decades,
you have a number of states
that pass these laws.
And these laws would sterilize
people without their consent.
And then, of course, they felt
that they could let them go
and go back into the
general population.
They said this would
free up bed space
so you can bring in other
people into the institutions,
which were already overcrowded.
It made, to them,
perfect eugenic sense
and perfect economic sense,
and perfect sense from
the point of efficiency.
Over the course of
the next few decades,
more than 70,000 Americans
were sterilized involuntarily
across the country.
- Scientific thinking,
scientific thinking,
behind eugenics is faulty.
It is not valid.
Genetics is not valid biology.
And also very importantly, we
value many, many more things
about people than
the surface traits
that the eugenicists
had chosen to identify.
- I realize that what
makes me different,
what makes me unique, is
what drives my creativity,
which makes me the better me.
And it's something I feel like
more people should embrace.
And we should be able
to talk about that more.
Something that really annoys me
is when you get put into boxes.
Like we are more than
just a disability
and we are more
than just one thing.
We're able to do so much more.
We live outside the boxes.
We live in multiple
different boxes.
We can excel in music, we
can excel in our speech.
Our thoughts are special.
There's more to us than
just that one thing.
And I wish people would
try to see that more.
- [Narrator]
Akron's rapid growth
led to the Infirmary's demise.
The city needed more
land for housing.
In 1915, voters agreed
to sell the farm
and build a Summit County
home in Munroe Falls.
Philip H. Schneider,
Director of the
Central Associated
Realty Company,
submitted the winning
bid of $301,879
to develop the Sunset
View subdivision.
Schneider tore down
the old Infirmary,
mapped out roads, and
built fancy new homes.
- We'd never wanted it a
part of our County seat.
We never wanted it part of the
community as something close.
'Cause the idea was, if
it was in the County seat,
people could still participate
in social functions
and still be part of society
instead of being ostracized.
- I am physically disabled.
I have a congenital
heart defect,
which leaves me with
half a functioning heart.
Mental disability or
physical disability,
disability in general,
nothing to be stigmatized,
nothing to be hidden away.
The differences
should be shared,
differences should be
celebrated, because in the end,
that's what ties us
together is our differences.
- [Narrator] Nearly
every block was developed
except for a swampy area
where the Infirmary had
buried its destitute.
Some remains were to be exhumed
and reburied in Monroe Falls.
However, the later
discovery of bones
proved that the effort
was far from exhausted.
When Schneider died in 1935,
he deeded the land to the City,
which built a park in his honor.
(birds chirping)
- Now one of the
things that I think
was personally interesting to me
about the whole
Schneider Park project
was exploring the concept
of how we remember and
forget as a community.
Schneider was trying to
make this into a place
where people wanted to live.
The focus had to move
away from what was there.
They've torn down all of
the Infirmary buildings,
for example, in the hopes
that people would
eventually forget
and let it be something
entirely different.
- Well, in this play, I
learned about the burials
in Schneider Park without
coffins or headstones.
And I wish that we
could do something
to help honor those
who were buried there.
- I think ultimately when we
look at something like this
and we see that discrepancy
from Glendale Cemetery
to Schneider Park,
and when we think about the fact
that we don't know the
names of the people,
with a few exceptions,
who were in the Summit
County Infirmary,
and we don't know
where their bones are.
We've forgotten them.
And they were
marginalized during life
and then they were
erased at death.
I think one of the questions
we sort of have to ask ourselves
is what does it
mean to be human?
- I've never cared
what people thought,
but I have always been
the type of person
who can talk for myself.
- And every one of us
with disability have
something to say.
- We need to be heard.
- I want people
with disabilities'
dreams to come true.
My dream, I would
like to be on TV.
- Some day, I will work
with the motion capture
for movies and video games,
and work with Disney
for animation.
- I know I will be successful
in life because I already am.
- My goals in life
are to be an actor,
or an actor, producer,
director and writers.
Look out, world, I'm on my way!
(slow tempo blues
acoustic guitar)
♪ This melody throughout
time, yours and mine ♪
♪ The stories are in the
bones, lasting stones ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey, the
bones are crying ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey, the
truth is flying ♪
♪ No more, no more, no more
♪ The graveyard is
telling its tale, um-hum ♪
♪ No more, no more, no more
♪ The graveyard is
telling its tale ♪
♪ Um-hum, um-hum
♪ No more, no more,
no more, um-hum ♪
♪ No more, no more,
no more, um-hum ♪
