Visionary Voices: Interview with Chuck Peters
July 25, 2013
CHAPTER ONE: BACKGROUND AND EARLY CAREER
09:47:13:13 – 09:47:30:22
Q. My names is Lisa Sonneborn, I’m interviewing Chuck Peters at the Double Tree Hotel in
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania on Thursday, July 25, 2013.And also present is our videographer, Ginger
Jolly. And Chuck, do I have your permission to begin our interview?
A. Certainly.
Q. Thank you. I’m wondering if you can tell me what is your name and your current occupation?
09:47:31:15 – 09:47:56:00
A. Ah, my name is Charles Kantan Peters, I’m retired, probably the only official position I hold is
Tuisech of the south side Celtic Society, which is a minor king with little authority in the Gaelic
language.
09:47:57:25 – 09:48:16:25
Q. Can you tell me Chuck when and where you were born?
A. I was born in Wellsburg, Ohio, which is about an hour from here, in those days it was about a
one and a half from here. Pittsburg was always the hometown, major hometown; I was [born]
in 1933, August 23rd.
09:48:18:10 – 09:49:05:25
Q. Growing up did you have any personal experience with disabilities either in your family or
your community?
A. Yeah, I do, but it had nothing to do with me getting into the field.
I had my mother’s sister, Aunt Helen, had what I now know, cerebral palsy, and was my
playmate, she was much older than me, but she was my playmate.
On one occasion I accidentally tripped her, and ever after when I got in the field and things
were going badly I would say, “God, cut me some slack I’m doing good work now!” And, I had a
cousin who was mentally retarded, but had nothing with me getting into the field.
09:49:06:02 – 09:49:51:03
Q. So, if it wasn’t a family experience that directed you to the field, what did direct you to the
field?
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A. After I got out of the Marine Corp in 1958, I was hired as a peddler for Kentucky and
southern two-thirds of Indiana and...along with a lot of other new guys...and make a long story
short, we all got fired.
Except one who had enough sense to marry the president of the company’s daughter; I was
already married so that wasn’t an option. And I had been trained as a history teacher and was
looking for a job and the only thing that was available was Special Ed.
09:49:54:18 - 09:50:49:15
Q. You said that the only career for you as a teacher at that point, or the only positions that
were available were in Special Ed...
A. True.
Q. But, apart from your experience with your aunt you really hadn’t had any exposure to people
with disabilities.
A. That’s absolutely true and that was pretty typical in those days because Special Ed was just
getting started and expanding.
I started out in a town called West Aliquippa, which was a mule town, it was the low rent
district of Aliquippa and the joke at that time was could hold a mirror up and if you clouded it
up it proved you were alive and wanted to do the job you got hired.
A...fact that the salary was $200 more than the $4,000 teachers were making made it very
attractive, but I had no option - that was the job.
09:50:49:27 – 09:51:08:13
Q. Did they train you to support children in the classroom?
A. Ah...we spent a lot of time observing and working with teacher that had been in the business
a while and yeah, that was the training; later on went back to school and took courses.
09:51:09:03 – 09:51:45:15
Q. What was your classroom like, what kind of resources did it have to offer students?
A. Ah...the cliché at that time was that all Special Ed classrooms were in the basement and that
was...mine was in the basement, but it was a very nice classroom. It was more like a garden
apartment. Resources for me in that place, which was Beaver County, were unlimited; I got
more things than I really knew how to use effectively, and that was not necessarily the case in
Pittsburg city schools for example.
09:51:58:01 – 09:52:40:13
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Q. Did you have the opportunity to pursue more education in terms of Special Ed?
A. I did and one of the ways I did that, the Beaver County Association for Retarded Children
gave me several scholarships and one of the most significant ones from my point of view was
two weeks at Penn State where we worked six and a half days a week, we worked 10 hours a
day learning to do parental counseling, particularly group counseling; that was probably the
most significant thing.
Probably the most useless thing was the statistic courses I had to take.
CHAPTER TWO: EARLY INVOLVEMENT WITH THE ARC, WAR ON POVERTY, MH/MR ACT
09:52:43:21 – 09:52:58:14
Q. You taught until when, Chuck?
A. I taught from a... ’59 to ‘61 and then I became the director of Beaver County Retarded
Children Association.
09:53:45:00 – 09:54:28:23
Q. Chuck, can you tell me a little bit about the parents who were members of the Beaver
County ARC?
A. Ah, my observation again and for Allegheny in Fayette County, which are the ones we had
experience with, although later I had experience in New Hampshire with it, but anyway, most of
them tended to have women who were parents of the mentally retarded who really drove the
organizations, later men got involved in a big way. They differed from the Mental Health
Movement for example which was driven by the professionals not the families.
09:55:22:17 – 09:56:20:28
Q. When you were serving as the director at the Beaver County ARC, the families who were
members of ARC were the children primarily at home with them, or where some of their
children in residential centers?
A. Ah...president of the board who was a man, which is exception to what I was just saying,
daughter was at Polk, but everybody else had their child at home.
You only had two choices in those days you’re either at home or the institution, so most of
them were at home, and I got to know many of the women because I did this group counseling,
which at that time was built around primarily around preschool moms. And it seemed to me
that the decisions were made somewhere, somehow that either the mother was going to be
involved or the father was going to be involved, both couldn’t and it makes no sense because
somebody had to stay home and take care of the child.
09:56:22:21 – 09:57:08:11
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Q. So, were you able to observe the impact the disability had on family relationships in your
role of Beaver County ARC?
A. Yeah...it a seemed to me and it was later brought out when I took that course a...that
parents a...who had a handicapped child did not get divorced. If was like nobody wanted to
leave the other one with the heavy burden, but if the child got placed in Polk or in Western
Center a...very quickly and often, not always, divorce followed.
09:57:09:04 – 09:57:40:16
Q. Why do you think that was?
A. I...I think that the handicapped mentally challenged child put such a strain on the
relationship, it’s not a perfect analogy, but a...my father-in-law had Alzheimer and keeping him
with us for five years... My wife and I...my late wife we were very happily married, but at the
end of those five years, which seemed like fifty, there was a lot of strain, so I can relate to that.
Q. Were there any community supports or services available to support parents in caring for
their child with a disability at that time?
A. The only...the only supports were the Association for Retarded Children ah...they were
a...primarily at that point interested in preschools because kids couldn’t go to school until they
were eight if they were really involved.
And whether they were really involved or not a...they were squeezed out when they were
sixteen.
So, the ARC was the...was the only support that they a...that they had.
09:58:27:25 – 09:59:33:14
Q. In 1965 I believe you became the director on the War on Poverty for Erie?
A. Yes.
Q. What was the focus of your work there?
A. Poor people...the a...the War on Poverty, Erie had the third biggest program in the state after
Philadelphia and Pittsburg, so I said I was at least a colonel in the War on Poverty.
Ah...it involved the whole gamut, dropout rates, prenatal deaths, the whole...but,
unemployment was a big issue because primarily in the Afro-American districts unemployment
was three times what it was in the...in the rest of the city.
So, that was a...a lot of community organizations, I learned a lot from that community work
thing that later on served me good-stead when I came to Pittsburg.
09:59:34:00 – 10:00:08:25
Q. I was also going to ask if the work you’ve done through the Beaver County ARC Special
Education informed the work you were doing on the War on Poverty?
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A. The work I did in Special Ed informed the War on Poverty and also, when I was hired as the
northwest coordinator for originally mental health community and mental retardation study, I
was the only person on the staff, Harrisburg or in the field who had any background in mental
retardation, which proved to be pretty valuable, I think.
10:00:21:28 - 10:01:19:15
Q. When did you finish your work with War on Poverty, and what post did you moved to next,
Chuck?
Q. Ah...I had the job on the War on Poverty from July ’65 to almost July ’67, and then a...moved
to New Hampshire where I was the Director of the Governors Rehabilitation Study, which
included services for the mentally retarded.
One of the things I saw there was they had a rubella...a measles epidemic about five or six years
before I got there, and all of New England not just New Hampshire, and there was a
tremendous spike in the number of kids who had hearing, sight, and brain damage as a result of
having the rubella; there was no inoculation at that point.
10:01:21:03 – 10:03:04:28
Q. So, while you were doing this a piece of legislation passed, the 1966 Mental Health/Mental
Retardation Act.
A. Right.
Q. Why was it significant?
A. Well, that legislation grew out of the study that we all did, and the study did tremendous
emphasis on community participation a...and it pulled people in who had never been interested
in mental health, or mental retardation, or drug and alcohol.
But, this was major social legislation driven by the Federal Government they would give you a
grant, and if you did, they had certain things they expected you to do with that grant.
We had to keep data on how many people where at each meeting, that sort of thing, which was
positive.
But it was a major piece of social legislation, up until that time the government funding
particularly in mental retardation was practically nil.
The rumor and the belief was at that time only reason MR was included in this study was
because Jack Kennedy, the President had a...a had a retarded sister, I don’t know if that’s true
or not, but that was true that MR was not in the forefront of that study, we had to fight to put
that up front or get a duel recognition.
10:03:07:00 – 10:04:05:22
Q. You returned to Pennsylvania in, I believe, in 1969?
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A. 1969, correct.
Q. What brought you back?
A. Ah...actually, I was in New Hampshire I had been offered the job running the Governor’s law
enforcement assistance then, and might have stayed, but the Governor made a decision that
the biggest chunk of change was going to buy an armored personnel carrier for the state police,
which I didn’t think that was where we ought to be spending our money, so I was looking for a
job.
And one of my callings from the MH/MR study a woman by the name of Roz Mervis who was
active down here in school public health suggested my name to Jean Isherwood who was the
President at that point. And Jean called and said would like to come in for an interview, and the
answer was yes, and I did and the rest is history.
CHAPTER THREE: ALLEGHENY COUNTY ARC, PARENT PROTESTS, RIGHT TO EDUCATION
10:04:22:14 – 10:06:45:10
Q. What did you hope to accomplish at the Allegheny ARC?
A. By that time you got to remember when that was 1969 it was a lot of social unrest in the
whole country. When I came to ARC in those days they had four sheltered workshops, only one
of which was even remotely in a building that was acceptable. One was on a third floor, the
other was in a basement; anyways so, the obvious first thing was to get better facilities and that
was the first objective.
But, then it became very clean to me that the organization needed more than that, and what
emerged then was the idea that the local ACR, by the extension of all ACRs were a marginalized,
the retarded member anyways, was a marginalized member of society not unlike the AfroAmericans.
And so at some point, I would like to say that I looked forward and saw this and envisioned it,
but I didn’t ...just kind of stumbled into it and said, “This is a minority we have to adopt a lot of
the same tactics that the black folk are doing. And so, we started picketing, went to court a lot,
and a...and a the organization...the county director at that point was a guy by the name of
George Low, who had been a calling on the Mental Health/ Mental Retardation study at
Harrisburg and we were great friends, but we ended up having some stress and tension
because the money...the money was going to mental health and to a mental retardation. Later
on it was cauterized MH and MR, which probably didn’t help the situation any because than
you didn’t have any flexibility, but anyway that was the issue was to see this as an advocacy
organization unlike the NAACP.
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Q. When I think of the Civil Rights Movement and what African Americans were doing to claim
their civil rights. You said you were also developing some of the same tactics including
picketing...
A. Yes.
Q. So I’m wondering what those first pickets looked like, who was involved, where were you
picketing and for what reason?
A. We were picketing the state office building it was the day after Thanksgiving 1969, it was
very, very cold.
The thing I remember about the picketing, I use to have a picture I wish I still did, of a woman
by the name of Roseanne Graham who’s still in the field, walking carrying a sign saying “We’re
Not Wading, We’re Drowning” and we were picketing the state office. But, we picked that day
because that was a big downtown shopping day, there is no big shopping day anymore.
But anyway, picked that day it was very, very cold, there was another woman on the picket line
her whose husband was probably second tier in the United States Steel, she was picketing in a
mink coat, I remember that very, very fondly, but that was the first time we did it.
10:09:56:01 – 10:11:07:18
Q. Were people using the same tactics in other parts of the country or do you....
A. Far as I know... Far as I know we were the first, and as far as I know we may have been the
only that developed those tactics. We had...I hired a guy by the name of Wayne Hanson, and
Wayne was a trained community organizer had studied under a guy named of Saul Lindski, and
Saul Lindski was the guru of community organizing in those days. And Wayne had the job of
going out around to the...when the Mental Health/Mental Retardation Act was put into effect
the city, counties, city and counties together was divided into ten service districts. And his job
was to get a parent group going in each one of their service districts to assure that the metal
retarded districts got their due.
So, we did the community work thing, we did picket thing, the letter writing campaigns, the
whole shtick.
10:11:07:24 – 10:12:28:13
Q. What do you think was the result of all those efforts?
A. I think from our point of view it was very, very successful it made the organization much
more aggressive. From that grew out, I’d like to think, they fact that the local ARC took the lead
in going around the cit...state, I’m sorry not the city, the state closing...there were like auxiliary
private institutions call “PLF” (Private Licensed Facilities). Most of those PLF’s were pretty grim;
one exception was McGuire Home in Beaver County the nuns ran for very, very involved
children.
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Anyway, so the local ARC took the lead in closing them, I mean, in Wilkes-Barre, Grant area, all
over.
And again, it was the women who did that, as far as I remember the only male that was ever
involved was a staffer by the name of Bob Nelkin, who now runs United Way in Allegheny
County.
10:12:30:15 – 10:15:30:00
Q. You’re talking I think about all of these forces that conspired to sort of strengthen the parent
movement in Pennsylvania to add sort of fuel to that movement. The Pennsylvania Association
for Retarded Children, as I think it was called at the time, had a huge victory in Right to
Education.
A. Right.
Q. In 1972.
A. Right. That was really, really as you said a huge victory. It was a victory that then resonated
over to the mental health side and eventually to all handicapped. And what it did was
essentially say that the law, which said at that point, you the parent do not have to start your
child until age 8. And at the other end, you may leave school at 16, but you don’t have to leave
until 21.
So, it was all in the interpretation of the law, course the education administrators were
translating the law to the advantage of the school. They didn’t have to address the more
handicapped kids and it could force kids out at age 16; made a major, major difference.
At the vocal level when those kids started it enabled us to take the money that was going to the
5,6,7, 8 year old and move it down to a younger population and a...and a reduce the class size.
Now, the reality is that the people who stayed in after age 16 tended to be the more involved
kids.
When I got into Special Ed you had the trainable mentally retarded they were the most involved
kids, they were the ones that didn’t get into school until the age 8, and then we had what we
called the educate able retarded and they were the kids I worked with, but in large they were
squeezed out at age 16.
And by-the-by just as in the institutions were people that didn’t belong there; my class of 12, 4
or 5 of them were not mentally retarded they had sever hearing losses, sight losses, speech and
had been labeled mentally retarded, but they were relatively high functioning, they were in
Special Ed.
I had...I remember this one little girl who was 14 or 15 and told all the students in the parochial
school that she went to public high school and the kids in the public high school she went to a
parochial in diverging to avoid that stigma.
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10:15:38:25 – 10:18:00:00
Q. I’m wondering if you can tell me a little bit about your professional relationship with Bob
[Nelkin], and about what...what he was doing to help the parents, empower parents to further
investigate the conditions of institutions, ICF/MRs, etc.?
A. Bob... I hired Bob in 1971 or ’72... I mentioned earlier a guy by the name of Wayne Hanson;
Bob worked directly under Wayne, and when Wayne left, Bob became the community
organizer. Bob, then and now, has a very high sense of morality, what is right and what is
wrong.
But, to answer your question what did he do?
He was the staffer who worked with the mothers, who went around the state closing the
private licensed facilities. And he won’t acknowledge this, but at least on one occasion he got a
death threat.
Now remember, if you’re closing the place where people are working they take that with some
umbrage at that, and this was in the coal mine region and jobs were not plentiful.
And I remember there was one guy that ran IC...the PLF there who literally if you had to invent
a villain, he looked like “Damn Yankees” Lucifer and drove a pink Cadillac, so he fit the bill.
But, Bob was the guy that did the staff work for the mothers...primarily mothers, who did
that...went to the institutions, went to the PLF’s.
And by-the-by and locally too I mentioned how he tried to put together a parents group in each
of the 10 Catchment areas, that fell to him too after Wayne left; he did an excellent job.
10:18:00:08 – 10:19:23:22
Q. Why was it important that parents be part of this investigation?
A. Well first of all, it gave them some credibility that nobody else would have.
Why did Bob go with them? You needed staff support very often and somebody that could go
around and take a look and say, here’s a place we ought to look at. But, I don’t want to
minimize Bob’s role, but I have to emphasize how important it was that the parents were there.
I...there was a woman her name was Barbara Sysistic, whose daughter, I think it was daughter,
was not in any of those institutions, but there was a confrontation with under deputy, secretary
or something-or-another from the Department of Welfare, and he leaned across the table and
said, “You’re not playing fair.” And Barbara’s response was, “We’re not playing at all.”
So, that was the energy level among the a...among the moms and woman.
Bob did not having to motivate them, he had to facilitate, but he did not have to motivate.
CHAPTER FOUR: POLK STATE SCHOOL AND HOSPITAL, CONTROVERSIAL TREATMENTS, FIRING
OF SUPERINTENDANT
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10:19:26:08 – 10:20:40:02
Q. Had you visited Polk personally?
A. The answers yes. Polk... go back to when I was at Beaver County, Polk was not seen as a bad
place. They had the annual “Harvest Days” at the County Fair, which were a great fun, the
a...after we did the MH/MR study one of the places we had meeting for the whole northwest
corner of the state was Polk Center and the other place was Ward State Hospital, which was
further north.
And in fact when I was leading the War of Poverty, Dr. McCollum offered me a job as his
assistant there and I asked for clarification of what the job was, and he said, “You’re going to
insure that nobody here gets hurt badly.” I remember that very, very vividly.
10:20:48:28 – 10:22:17:26
Q. When you had visited Polk what did you observe there?
A. The first time - I got a whole list of Polk antidotes. The first time I ever went there I was an
undergraduate at Thiel [College] in Greenville, and taken Phsyc 101 and that was the fieldtrip
and a...that was one of the field trips.
Anyway, went to Polk; and I got this bad habit use to drive my family crazy when we were
touring any place, to go off on my own or lag behind or, if I got bored, speed up.
So, on this occasion I fell behind and I noticed this big door and it had a slide on it like you might
see in a prison. And I slid this door open and one of the residents had been confined there and
he was looking out and he screamed at me. Well, I levitated, and it was years before I lagged
behind or looked where I wasn’t suppose to, but that was my first experience at Polk.
Later, when I was Commissioner of Mental Retardation one of my jobs was supervision of Polk.
Joe Kotaba made that very easy in Western Center, so I spent a lot of time at Polk.
10:22:22:10 – 10:24:25:22
Q. A lot has been made public...or was certainly made public in the late ‘60s early ‘70s
particularly of the use of cages of a way to modify behavior at Polk.
A. Yes.
Q. Had you observed that or any other kinds of restraints used?
A. I think we have to backup a little bit.
I don’t remember observing any of those, but if I had of, when I was a Special Ed teacher or an
undergraduate or teaching in Beaver County or working for the ARC in Beaver County, I would
have not been shocked or surprised because that was kind of the norm, that was an accepted
treatment modality; I’m using treatment very advisedly, but that was a modality a more
common.
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The fact that the Legislature allocated something like $8 a day per resident speaks to that.
Related to that, I think that people tend to forget this.
Polk could not have operated without the working residence. Every severely involved resident
had a higher functioning “educable” resident who was like the nurse’s aide, or whatever.
Later when the federal a...federal a...law was passed that you couldn’t have these working
residents called “peons” - you couldn’t have the peons any longer there was a really dearth of
enough help of staff. So, what I’m saying is Polk and all the other state institutions were
tremendously understaffed in those days.
10:24:27:25 – 10:25:52:06
Q. Do you think that parents were aware of the conditions that their children were living in at
the Polk center?
A. I think...aware... Go back to what I said about the norm. But beyond that, if you were a
parent and went through the very painful process of placing your child in the institution, even if
you were aware the tendency - not in all cases - the tendency was, “Oh, that’s not so bad”. I
guess - so the answer to that that question is... First of all, if you accept the fact that the
institutions were the “norm” and you accept the fact that many of these people were very high
functioning, and they weren’t in the cages. It was the people with behavior problems and so
on; should they have been in cages? No. No. But, if the state was going to spend $8 a day the
options for the management was pretty limited - not totally vacant, but pretty limited.
10:25:53:23 – 10:28:00:02
Q. Thanks to the efforts of Allegheny ACR parents and other parents, Bob Nelkin, the conditions
that were in existence at Polk were exposed very publicly in 1973.
A. Yes.
Q. How was it that Polk was able to persuade Secretary Wohlgemuth to visit Polk, and what was
the result of her visit?
A. Helene Wohlgemuth, I knew her before she was Secretary from Beaver County; first of all
was an excellent Secretary of Welfare. Avery, very caring woman, very charismatic, a...when
Hurricane Katrina hit...a she...her leadership around Harrisburg was outstanding.
Was it Katrina?
Agnes; I’m sorry, Agnes...different hurricane, Agnes.
So, how did they persuade her? I don’t think it was difficult to persuade, the Department of
Welfare had responsibility for the institutions and they said they’d take her up and show her
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what’s going on. And the fact that they already knew what was going on meant that they
shouldered the things that they’d see.
You know, in the military there’s an expression when you’re inspecting, “Notice the things
you’re suppose to notice and ignore the things you’re not supposed to”.
Well, that’s not confined to the military and so, she noticed things that she was not suppose to
notice because Barbara Systic, Jean Isherwood, Pat Clapp, I don’t remember who was all on
that trip, pointed them out to her.
10:28:01:20 – 10:28:58:13
Q. And, what was the result of that?
A. As I recall and I’m not sure that I recall this correctly, she said to the Superintendent Jim
McClelland...Dr. Jim McClelland…get those people out of the cribs, out of the cages, and he
refused and she summarily fired him.
That was a big brouhaha... When we talk about how supportive the media was, that’s true of
the Pittsburg media. But the media in Venango County where Polk is, and around and even up
in Erie, it was less than enthusiastic about all this. And in fact, he had a lot of support so that
took really a lot of internal fortitude for her to do that.
10:29:00:04 – 10:29:41:12
Q. Some of the people that the superintendent had support from I believe were Polk parents
and even residents.
A. Absolutely! Absolutely! In the local ARC Pittsburg there was always some level of strain
between parents who had placed their child and between parents who had not placed their
child. And that certainly acerbated that situation, but we got by that, general that was the split
among parents statewide if you were in the ARC or not, people who had placed, people who
had not placed.
10:29:43:10 – 10:31:35:16
Q. You had referenced this a bit earlier, but certainly the superintendent claimed the conditions
at Polk were due to the underfunding and understaffing.
A. I think that was a major, major piece of it, but also like every institution, large institution
anyway, some very bad habits had evolved. Polk had been open at that point probably 80
years, maybe 90; I forget, it was 1880 or 1890 that it opened.
So like, any institution at some point whatever...and when it opened it was... as Mayview [State
Hospital] for the Mentally Ill here in Allegheny County, it was considered a great thing, it was
part of the Victorian social conscious thing, so it was considered a good thing. But, 50 – 60 years
on...it became a way of life and people follow the path of least residence, and it was easier to
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put people in cages and roof on it than to really modify the behavior or staff, so that the person
didn’t have to in.
The Legislature was really niggardly in supporting all the institutions, but we’re talking real
support the Senator from that area his name was Frye, Republican, was all over Helene
Wohlgemuth - why? Because that was a major employer of his constituents worked in that
institution.
10:31:37:20 – 10:32:34:01
Q McClelland claimed that the cages that had been used since, I believe, 1958 were used with
the full knowledge of his superiors?
A. I would believe that I have no trouble believing that, it brings you back around to the whole
thing of about habit and a...practice, best practice and a... McClelland in his own right was a
very competent humanitarian administrator running an institution; that I think at that point
was 3,200 people with 1,200 staff plus peons. So, he by his own right and by the rank and file
of the troops said, “Well, why wouldn’t we have cages, we’ve always had cages.”
10:32:34:25 – 10:33:46:24
Q. Should the State have acted sooner?
A. Oh, of course, but of course they should have, but the a...but who...what was going to
provide the enthuses for them to act?
When I became Commissioner of Mental Retardation, I had the blessing of the Secretary
Helene Wohlgemuth, and a guy who was the Deputy Secretary of Mental Retardation, I can’t
think of his name at the moment. But anyway, they anointed me and I thought I was going to
be the magic reformer and really, really tried to make changes cut through the red tape. And
one of the old-line bureaucrats said, “The Secretary will be gone in few years, so will the Deputy
Secretary, and so will you; why would we change?” And I’m not talking about major changes I’m just talking about things like having access to mattresses over here more than we need
there, and having go through paperwork in order to move the mattresses, that sort of thing.
CHAPTER FIVE: PETERS BECOMES PA COMMISSIONER FOR MENTAL RETARDATION, OPENS
MARCY CENTER, MOVES PEOPLE TO COMMUNITY
10:35:29:17 – 10:39:47:24
Q. Chuck, in 1973 you became the Commissioner of Mental Retardation for the Western Region
of Pennsylvania?
A. Correct.
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Q. And how many counties were in your jurisdiction?
A. There were twenty-three counties plus Western Center and Polk Center, and then somebody
discovered that you can get ICF money and there were a lot of mentally retarded in state
institutions - I’m sorry, in state mental hospitals, so one of the additional things was to open
MR [mental retardation] units on the grounds of every state hospital. That was primarily,
obviously, a money-making thing for the state and not a bad thing, but anyway, that was... My
primary [responsibility] as far as I was concerned was to get people out of Polk, and at that
point it was a cliché because the only way out of Polk was through the cemetery.
I remember being up there really early one morning and seeing a truck go by with a casket on
the back. I was commissioner than, and I decided I was going to follow the truck and see where
it went with the casket. And we went down from the Administration Building, it was a foggy
morning, very appropriate, we went down and went into the Polk graveyard. Which I didn’t
even know there was a Polk graveyard, and I’m the Commissioner of Mental Retardation.
And the grave had already been excavated, and six guys got off the truck and put the casket in
the ground, shoveled the dirt in on top of it, and “holy-moly!” I didn’t even know about this.
10:42:47:00 – 10:44:09:29
Q. You didn’t describe any kind of burial services or...
A. No as a matter of fact, I waited. I thought somebody might say a few words or sprinkle some
holy water, or something; no there was no it was just... A there’s a hole in the ground there’s a
casket, as I remember it, it was a pretty good casket and into the ground, shoveled the dirt in,
got in the truck and drive away; that’s all there was.
Later, Ginny Thornburgh did a lot of...all of the tombstones had a number on it, “69”; and
somewhere there was a roster that matched the number with a... “Chuck Peters is in #88”, and
Ginny went through a lot of trouble getting gravestones with the person who was in on it.
10:44:11:12 – 10:44:36:15
Q. Did that feel like an important thing to do to you?
A. Yeah. I spent a lot of time in the Marine Corp and we take a lot of pride in making sure that
our people are properly buried...it’s to say I was never shot at...properly buried and have some
honor and are remembered; and yeah, that was a very important thing.
But in that year, I got somewhere around 550 people...two years I was with the state...about
555 people out of Polk, which I think was probably a record.
But, everybody did not go to a group home - three-person or six-person or whatever- in the
community because if we would have waited for the group homes to come on line…literally,
some people were dying. So, I captured two vacant but brand new nursing homes; the reason
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they were vacant was because some Medicare bill that Nixon had passed were...had not
resolved in enough elder; so, captured these two.
One of them, Norm Mulgrave, who later was president of ARC - I asked him to start a
corporation to run it, and he did and that organization is still going, although now all those
people...that’s now an administration building for that corporation.
The other thing I did was take Marcy TB [tuberculosis] Hospital; when we were talking about
the PLF’s [Private Liscensed Facilities] and the institutions and trying to find alternative
placements, this is before the mental health and retardation. A lot of TB hospitals got
converted to alternative use; I think Crescent was one of the TB hospitals that became a mental
retardation facility.
My friends at ARC, and they were my friends, [were] really, really irritated with me because I
opened another “institution”, but I had to get people out of Polk. It was like - the analogy I useit was like Dunkirk. Do I want to wait ‘till everybody has a lifeboat, or do I want to get them out
now?
I think that probably one of the mistakes in my career was supporting the closing of Marcy few
years later, but at that point I was very, very proud of it and the reason it may not have been as
successful as I had envisioned was I had left the state by that time was again the state
bureaucracy, which was very difficult.
10:39:58:23 – 10:41:44:03
Q. Can you tell me a little bit about your efforts to transition people from life at Polk to the
community?
A. Well, Marcy was uniquely qualified architecturally to do this. First of all, you had kind of a
ward setup where the people who had had TB came in originally, and they moved to one or two
person rooms and then, they moved out into cottages on the campus. So, that was ideal we
brought folks down to the ward setup put them in individual rooms as they progressed, out into
the cottages and then into the community. And because Marcy was in Pittsburg, unlike Polk or
even Western, to get the community providers and get the people to leave the campus and go
to jobs in the city, or even to sheltered workshops, it loaned itself architecturally to that.
Getting the staff to get medical model out of their head was another issue, but we got the
nursing staff to wear civilian clothes and we were successful with everybody except for the
superintendent and the chief nurse who insisted on coming around in lab coats, no matter what
we did.
10:41:45:10 – 10:42:45:00
Q. You said that Marcy closed a few years later.
A. Yeah.
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Q. And you regretted that closure, or supporting that closure; why did it close and why did you
regret it?
A. Well, why did it close?
It closed because understandably the Movement, and I think people forget, in those days
retardation, mental retardation, was a Movement. The Movement did not want more
institutions, here’s the newest one, so that’s why it closed.
Why did I regret supporting it? Two levels...
The first and most important level was later as far as I was concerned it can became clear if the
facility had been properly managed and there was some vigor in the leadership it would have
served the purpose we envisioned originally.
The other reason was by that time I was county director and didn’t get enough money from the
state to do it.
10:44:47:08 – 10:46:16:05
Q. You were talking about moving people from Polk and other centers to the community and
was sort of rapid nature of that process, you moved a lot of people out, or a lot of people
moved out during your tenure of commissioner in a fairly short period of time.
Was the concept of community life still relatively new? Or was it relatively new in
Pennsylvania?
A. Yeah: when I got in the business, when I was teaching Special Ed, it was practically unheard
of. And now, back up on the mental retardation side, to the best of my knowledge it was
unheard of.
Mental health side - what they called it - was just getting started [with] what they called “halfway houses”. The idea being they had people in the state hospitals, the institutions, that didn’t
belong there and if they brought them out and they half way into the community, hence “halfway house”.
But, it was almost unheard of in Pennsylvania and certainly was unheard of in Allegheny
County. And I think the earlier starts were in New England and Connecticut, and maybe
Massachusetts, I could be wrong about that, but, it was not until after the MH/MR study that
anybody started talking about community living. Community living in those days was staying
with your parents.
10:46:17:15 – 10:48:27:08
Q. But you mention parents, and certainly many parents who had placed their children in
centers were fearful about their move to community; is that...did you understand those fears?
A. Oh yeah.
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Go back to what I said originally, you place your child in this facility that was...gut-tearing to do
that. And now you’re going to tear your guts out again to move the child out?
There was a really remarkable woman very active in the ARC here by the name of Sarah Saltier,
and Sarah’s son was at Polk. And she use to organize, this had nothing to do with the ARC,
Sarah did it on her own, used to organize bus trips, l think, once a month or once every two
months so parents could go up and visit and that sort of thing.
She was an advocate in the ARC later when I was hired to run the...Director of ARC Allegheny
County. I cheated on the civil service [application] and got her hired just so we would have
somebody in the office who was a parent who understood the parent point of view. After she
retired she would go to Israel on fieldtrips and teach them how to run orphanages and
institutions.
And as I said, she was very, very a...where I’m going with this a...finally came an opportunity to
bring her son out. She agonized over that even though by that time she’d seen a lot of
successful group home placements and so on; she really, really agonized over that, but
ultimately she did it.
10:48:28:05 – 10:49:06:04
Q. What were parents’ fears, do you think, about community?
A. Oh, I think they thought that a...being in the institution you were perfectly safe, which was
totally ironies. There were rapes in the institutions; there was certainly a lot of stealing, in fact
one of the things when I use to speak to a group of parents I use to say, “You’re absolutely
right, there are dangers in the community and anything that can happen to your child in a
group community can happen to him or her in the institution”; and I really believe that and I
still believe it.
10:49:31:19 – 10:52:24:29
Q. Did you think that the system struggled to support people with significant disabilities in the
community?
A. Absolutely! When we started bringing people out my philosophy was taking the highest
functioning folks out first, which again irritated my friends at ARC. But, the thought behind that
was number one; the community doesn’t know how to take care of these people, so let’s start
with the least difficult people. The second thing was, it costs less to bring those folks out, so we
can get more folks out. If we start right away dealing with profound mentally retarded we’re
not going to very successful and we’re not going to move very, very many people. So yeah, we
started with the easiest people first, which I said irritated ARC.
And I think the other part to that question you asked was; do I think everybody can be cared for
in the community?
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If you were to ask me that in 1995 I would have replied... I would have responded definitely
affirmatively. But since then, I’ve been doing work for one of the local foundations that
specializes in money for the mentally retarded, and have come to the conclusion, no.
Everybody can... Well, back that up, everybody can... If you want to do brain surgery in your
kitchen you can modify your kitchen to do it. If you want to take the most difficult in the
community you can do that, but I’m hearing stories now of very, very involved people in group
homes that have one staff person around the clock and providers won’t touch them.
Which take us back to the issue of bringing the less handicapped out first, so-much-so that in
Allegheny County they’re starting to 4 or 6 recommit people to Polk, which is where I came in.
So, my answer would have to be, only if you want to pay a very, very big price financially, and
the reality is the political climate and financial climate now is not what it was in the ‘70s or even
the ‘80s. I don’t know that it is...that you can do that and I don’t know if it is sustainable if you
do.
CHAPTER SIX: PETERS BECOMES DIRECTOR OF ALLEGHENY COUNTY MH/MR AND DRUG AND
ALCOHOL AND HOMELESSNESS
10:52:43:03 – 10:53:18:22
Q. Chuck, in 1975, I believe, you took a position and tell me if I have your title correct because
it’s a long title, Director of Allegheny County MH/MR and Drug and Alcohol and Homelessness.
A. That’s true; I often said it’s like being a colonel in the Mexican Army - you get a very big title
and very little authority. Actually, I did have a lot of authority and that job I held for the last 20
years ’75 to ’95 and had fun doing it.
Q. Could you please tell me what your position entailed, particularly as it relates to the mental
retardation side of your work?
A. Sure. By that time - I spoke earlier, I think, about how the money came down from the
Department of Welfare and it was not categorized, so now money is categorized, Mental
Retardation, Mental Health, Drug and Alcohol and later Homelessness. And the decision
essentially was made on where the money when we got it was going to go and how it was going
to be spent.
As one of my brags, unlike other counties I treated the Mental Health and Retardation Board
here as a governing board and of course the commissioners could veto anything they wanted
to. But, I ran every major decision past the board, sometimes they’d agree with me sometimes
they didn’t, a but...in those 20 years I only had the commissioners block two things that the
MH/MR Board had approved because obviously we went to great deal of pain to make sure it
was represented to the board, and it was tastily understood that the president of the board, for
one term would be mental health oriented, the president next time would be mental
retardation oriented, and I went to a great deal of trouble to make sure that the MH guys, now
that they were president of all and the MR guys were president of MH.
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So, it was essentially running this program was like eighteen million when I started and I think
we were somewhere around one hundred and seventy-five million when I left. Primarily
because of really assertive legislative political and lawsuits; we sued the Department of Welfare
all the time and we never lost.
And staying there, as I said, I remember a...the state came up with this formula to dividing the
number across the counties, and I’m not going to tell you I can’t balance my checkbook, I had
people that could balance their checkbook, and mine. And I said, “Run the formula, tweak it
see...” Well, the formula gave Philadelphia special consideration, which of course was not well
known.
So we said, “Come on guys using your formula we should get another million-four”; “We don’t
have it and you shouldn’t get it” and so we went to court. And we had a hearing and I don’t
remember why that was, but it was in Chester County and the departments attorney said,
“Well, we just don’t have it.”
We had prepared a list of places where they had money in like a, Miss Pennsylvania Contest,
the Cattle Show, whatever and the judge said, “Get real, you’re talking about a million-four
that’s coffee money in the state today, they’ve already showed you where you have it; give it to
them.”
And we were so confident we were going to win it we already had badges printed that said,
“County 1.4 - State Zip”, but I couldn’t have done that without the support of the Chairman of
the Commissioners Tom Forester, who was one of the last New Deal Democrats, and I’m not so
sure he would have been so supportive if it wouldn’t have been for Bob Nelken who we’ve
talked about. He was...they were a good team - we made a good team.
The other thing that we did - this was under Governor Casey - the state, we thought, was shortchanging us, so we right before Easter had an egg dyeing thing and we dyed, if I remember
correctly, 6,000 eggs and every egg had the first name and last initial of somebody on the
Waiting List. And we then packed all the eggs up and took them down to Harrisburg, and the
guy who took the eggs down - it wasn’t me - pulled up to the gate and the governor was
entertaining a Delegation from China. And the state troopers from Alabama thought because
he was driving a van with 6,000 eggs he was a caterer and he opened the door, and unloaded
6,000 eggs in the kitchen. We made the point - it got lots of media, some media statewide.
Another thing we did was a letter writing campaign to Habitat for Humanity, all ten Catchment
areas, all service areas had to pull in their consumers and staff members on given night, we
called it “write-night”; I said Habitat for Humanity, but it’s Amnesty International. And we
wrote, gee I don’t know, probably 100,000 letters to legislatures. Unfortunately those thing
don’t happen anymore.
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10:59:11:20 – 10:59:58:12
Q. Why don’t those things happen anymore?
A. The whole political climate has changed either the - I don’t want to generalize too much. For
example the Mental Retardation Movement, not unlike unions that won everything, and quit
being that aggressive like the unions did. Or maybe, it’s just that the ballgame has changed so
dramatically that there’s other ways to go at it.
But, I don’t hear that much about court cases, and I don’t hear much about in-your-face about
the Department of Welfare.
11:00:01:13 – 11:02:49:07
Q. I wonder if you could give me some context for Western Center, I think and you might have
implied this earlier, that when it first opened it wasn’t initially seen as a bad place.
A. Oh no, no, no.
I was working for the ARC in Beaver County and when Western Center opened everybody said,
“Oh, thank God we’re so delighted” and we’re talking about a...employment in Washington
County, it had been a reformed school and somehow they had phased out that was no longer
the popular way to treat juvenile delinquents, so they converted it into a facility for mental
retarded.
We were absolutely delighted when it opened because we didn’t know about CLA’s
(Community Living Arrangements) so we were absolutely delighted.
And I mentioned I was doing parental counseling, there was this mother who had a very, very,
very challenging son, very hyperactive. And her husband was a long distance trucker, so she
had this kid 24/7 and I called the department and I said, “Look, it’s like this, you either have to
take the mom to Dixmont, which was a mental health facility, “or the son to Western Center.”
And had the commissioner write...Commissioner from Beaver County write letters and persons
and so on.
And so, we got the young boy into a...into a Western Center; and, three weeks later, he was
dead. So now, all the parents in the parent-counseling thing are looking at me, like “false
prophet” and I ask a social worker - old-line social worker from Western Center- to come up
and explain what happened... I’ll never forget this.
Because again, I was counseling to place kids if they need to be placed; I’ll never forget this.
The old social worker came and she said, “Take those hyperactive kids you place them in a
place like that, and zing, zing, zing and then their dead.” So, it was a long time before anybody
from Beaver County went to Western Center, or any institution.
But the point was anyway, it was hard to get people in, even after Western opened.
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11:02:50:08 – 11:04:42:16
Q. So, when did the perceptions of Western Center as a good place change?
I’m going to say probably... When I was commissioner is was under my supervision and the guy
who was the superintendent at that time was a guy named Bob Heltner, a very, very nice man,
a Quaker, who had worked for the county and went down there. And a... As we were talking
about Polk earlier, it may have opened as a reform movement, but like most reform
movements it ran out of steam. The people got very use to following the path of least
resistance in taking care of these people; and so I’m going to say probably from the early ‘70s
on the whole perception of it started going downhill. I spent almost as much time out there as I
did at Polk.
Finally, got a wonderful woman by the name of Ruth Scott who had been the mental
retardation Special Ed person for the city schools to go out as the superintendent...assistant
superintendent for programs, and she was a very gutsy, very, very aggressive; appropriately
aggressive woman and she eventually...Bob resigned, and Ruth took over. But, the harder she
tried- and she did everything- and she couldn’t turn the place around.
11:11:14:24 – 11:13:58:26
Q. Chuck, you stopped working as director in 1995, can you tell a little bit about the
circumstances around that?
A. Yeah. I didn’t stop, I got fired.
You know, as a matter of fact, as I think about it, I got fired and that’s how I got into the field. I
got fired as a salesman and got into the field; I got fired and got out of the field.
The commissioners took over the... The Republicans took the House for the first time in 60
years, if I wanted to be philosophical I would say, “You live by the political sword, you die by the
political sword” and that’s probably true.
But anyway, the Republicans took the House and then fired probably, two dozen, top
management in county government. And I was very philosophical about it, and it happened on
Christmas Eve. We all got registered letters. They said that the Post Office messed up we were
not suppose to get the letters ‘till the next day. “Oh” I said, “Oh, good mess up [Christmas]
dinner and not Christmas Eve”.
But, what irritated me more than anything…I had gone out of my way to brief the new
Commissioner’s staff that all of my people had civil service protection, except me, and they
should leave them alone. And my staff people started getting these letters, where they started
calling me on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and I was so irate I went into the office and
sent all my senior staff an e-mail, and if they didn’t have e-mail, I called them. And said, “Do
not resign under any circumstance” they were asking for resignations. “Do not resign for any
21
reason because you lose your civil service protection if you do”. So, nobody resigned and I was
told later that if I had any chance of remaining that ball of static, and I was delighted, because I
said, “Why would I want to work for two court jesters when I’ve worked for the Prince of
Services, Tom Forrester?”
So I had a good time, traveled a lot and was in Spain a...lot of sunbathers without the tops of
their bathing suits on, and was so moved that I wrote the commissioners a letter and thanked
them for firing me. Postcard actually, which appeared in the paper, which said, “Director sent
postcard from the edge”. “Director thanks Commissioner for purge.”
11:14:03:00 – 11:15:36:10
Q. Chuck, can you tell me who took the position over from you?
A. Yeah; when I got fired a guy by the name of Dan Tureski, who I had worked closely with in
the past, from the time I came to town as a matter of fact, and Dan was put in the position.
There was a lot of outcry because Dan had been party to court suits and other actions trying to
stop the deinstitutionalization process. In other words, the whole policy was reversed...the
local paper the PG [Post Gazette] editorialized saying they didn’t understand why the
commissioners got themselves in such a mess with Dan, who was a very vocal advocate, but
had absolutely no administrative experience. And the local ARC- and I applaud this - really got
on the advocacy soapbox and every commissioner’s meeting; at the end of the meeting there’s
a three minute opportunity for people to address the commissioners, and the ARC lined up for
every Thursdays, and I have no idea the number, 12 different parents to come in and say that
Dan doesn’t belong in the job of their retardation thing. The mental health people were a little
more relaxed about it.
11:18:02:07 – 11:18:54:13
Q. What did you do next in your career; what did you after 1995?
A. I did some consulting for various foundations primarily for Edith Trees, which specializes in
grants for the mental retardation fields. I appeared as an expert witness as few times, wrote a
lot of letters to the editor, and a...was on the citizens...was a founding member of the Citizens
Police Review Board and became elected Tuisech of the appointed, I guess, of the Southside
Celtic Society. And that was the only thing I do... Oh, I’m sorry, I was on neighborhood boards,
but the only thing I do now is on the Southside Celtic Society.
CHAPTER SEVEN: REFELCTIONS ON CAREER, INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
11:18:56:18 – 11:20:18:13
Q. Now, looking back many institutions closed, and segregated centers closed in Pennsylvania,
but Pennsylvania still has five institutions, Polk being one of them. Hum, why is Polk still open,
do you think?
22
A. Well, I hate to say this, but thank God it is, because the county cannot care for everybody on
waiting list and is recommitting people to Polk. I mean, not recommitting, but bring new people
into Polk. That’s tremendously regrettable, it’s almost like if you live long enough your life will
come around and kick you in the tail because that’s where I came in.
Ebensburg is still open; I go to Penn State from time to time and pass Ebensburg. Why is it still
open? Well, I think probably because there is a community waiting list which is horrendous and
people there are going... Certainly if I were still running county HM/HR I would say I’m not
bringing anybody out of Polk until you take care of somebody on my waiting list.
That’s not what’s happening, but that’s what should happen.
11:20:19:08 – 11:21:05:14
Q. Can you envision a time where we have no institutions in our state?
A. Yeah, I can envision that, I saw that happen on the mental health side. Woodville, Mayville,
Dixmont all closed and today the jail... I have friends that still work there; it’s the biggest
institution in the county.
So, can I see all the institutions closing and no place for the mentally retarded? Yeah; that will
take us back to 1875 when they started opening institutions, it would horrible, but yeah, I can
envision it. I never envisioned having no state mental hospitals, so why can’t I envision there
being no state centers for the retarded?
11:21:08:20 – 11:22:26:15
Q. Earlier in our conversation you talked about this fight to improve the lives of people with
disabilities as a Movement.
A. Yes.
Q. And, I’m wondering if you see this as a parallel to the Civil Rights Movement or any other
rights consciousness movements?
A. I’m sure, absolutely; I think there’s a lot of similarities for example, I think ...
Well, I heard this story on TV the other night about an Afro-American woman talking about
mentioning to her daughter the troubles in Birmingham, and the daughter saying, “Well, I
wouldn’t have gotten up and given up my seat either.” Having absolutely no concept of what...
Well, its same thing on the MR side. I don’t see people recognizing what genius of Pat Clapp
and Barbara Systic went through to get good services in the community, and which have been
steadily eroded for at least the last 10 maybe 15 years.
11:22:27:10 – 11:24:07:03
Q. So, where do you think the Disability Rights Movement is today?
23
A. I’m really not qualified to talk about that because as I said I haven’t been involved, but as I
said also I think, did work for foundations last spring and right, where is the Movement? And I
interviewed a lot of people, and I think the Movement is in real of trouble. If the act was
written in the mid ‘60s than the Movement is in 1959 in terms of having services come on line
to address the need.
And I also have to say this…I’m not sure that the system, if I say “envision”… we never quite
knew where the system was going to go, so that’s excessive. But anyway, the system that
evolved… I’m not sure that the system that evolved is sustainable in the current political and
financial environment.
We use to say if you could get the financial imperative and moral imperative to cross there’s
nothing you can’t get the legislatures to do. And the reality is the more imperative to take care
of people is not there anymore, at least not in Harrisburg, or Washington.
11:24:09:10 – 11:25:33:06
Q. So, who or what do you think will shift the movement forward, will keep it going forward?
A. I think the only thing that will keep it going forward... I think that families at some point are
going to be where families were in 1955 or so, and if they get angry enough, which is what they
need to do is get angry, they’ll start reacting. And when that happens I hope they have good
staff like Wayne Hanson, Bob Nelkin to support that. If they don’t get angry...
I think there’s another factor too, I think the other factor is maybe its new social media, which
could be an asset, but I also think people tend to be isolated from each other and those days
you had parents of mentally retarded coming together in clicks and taking strength from each
other. I don’t know that still happens in any way or if it happens does it happen among people
that don’t have their son or daughter in service?
11:25:36:20 – 11:26:45:25
Q. When you reflect on your career what is it that gives you the most sense of
accomplishment?
A. Boy, that’s a good one.
Ah... Probably... Probably what we succeeded in doing in terms of not only
deinstitutionalization, bring people out of the institutions, but what we succeeded in doing in
terms of getting money into the system for Polk school programs, for the vocational programs; I
was very pleased to be a part of the Rights to Education thing.
I have two of my offspring now that are in the Right for Education, they are... They curse me
sometimes for the paperwork that is associated with it, but it wouldn’t be there, there would
not be the education for the 5, 6, 7, 8 year olds and the 16 year olds would still be forced out.
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11:27:19:00 – 11:28:07:06
Q. Who or what, served as inspiration for you in your work.
A. Inspiration?
Q. Uh-huh.
A. I think more than anything else was the Civil Rights Movement; I thought of the mentally
retarded as a marginalized minority, they’re only 3% of the population.
When I was teaching at the Special Ed the conventional was at 2% educable, the 1% was
trainable, but whether they were educable or trainable they were marginalized.
So, probably the Civil Rights DNI War Movements (inaudible).
If those hadn’t come along I’m not sure the... I know if those hadn’t come along there would
have been no Mental Health Mental Retardation Act.
END
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