SID SELZER'S TALES OF ELOISE

(Note: Look for the anecdote about two-thirds of the way into this article, involving my Grandpa Roscoe Hedger, an attendant who retired from Eloise Asylum. - Roscoe)

Mister Sid Selzer was an employee at Eloise from 1956 to 1966, and was gracious enough to share some stories that truely bring the place back to life....

"... I started out working as an Administrative Assistant in an office in Building N. It was located in a large red brick institutional building (WPA architecture and labor) called Kelly Hall. Kelly Hall had a nice ring to it. It sounded like a dormitory building covered with ivy on some fancy college campus. Rest assured it was nothing like that. The Infirmary housed a large fluctuating population of indigent homeless men and women housed in ambulatory or 'open' wards and nursing wards. The open wards were large and some had double-deck bunk beds. The population swelled to about 3,500 during winter months. The streets of Detroit and the out-county could be frightfully cold from November through March and sometimes early April. Our "snowbirds" would flock in then. Incidentally we did use that term. Now it is associated with more comfortable types who go to Florida during the harsh months.

We provided excellent medical care ( Eloise was an established and important medical training and this patient population had eager students anxious to learn and provide care for them under careful supervision of senior physicians.) We also provided for basic needs: food, clothing, and shelter. There was a systematic effort to find work details for those patients who could handle them. Maybe we pioneered in what is known now as 'workfare.' This memory lane trip will not go into the politics, the in-fighting, the clash of strong personalities, the power struggles. Those all existed but somehow even with those distractions and as a tribute to most of the employees, the facility operated humanely and provided decent treatment for a large helpless population.

My recollections will deal with personnel and patients who provided striking memories for me. I was fortunate when I started to have the assistance and loyalty of two extremely capable and experienced hospital attendant supervisors - a Mr. Lester Cooper and Mr. George Commire. Their names stayed with me. I'm indebted to both of them. They made me "welcome" and gave me insights into the 'real' world of the Infirmary. I still remember vividly making rounds with Mr. Commire whose favorite and warm greeting to an old timer struggling down the aisles of a crowded open ward... 'Ain't you dead yet, Pop?' he would mutter. The recipient thrilled that the Hospital Attendant Supervisor stopped to greet him sometimes would flash a toothless grin and reply: 'Not yet, George, but I'm working on it.' Messrs. Cooper and Commire were responsible for assigning thousands of patients on the open wards to work details all over the grounds - kitchens, laundry, maintenance, custodial services, wards, labs, etc. Directing this was a patient named Warren, a grizzled ex-top sergeant, whose services went back to the Spanish American War. Warren had the instincts for fitting the men to the jobs and generally was fair-minded. A problem with these work details was sometimes the duties and responsibilities of the paid employees and the more able-bodied patients tended to blur. A pack of cigarettes sometimes would relieve an employee for a bit of rest and recreation on duty hours.

A good example of this was the blurring of activities between a patient, whom I called ' Dr.' Sexton. The 'doctor' title seemed to go with his bearing. In earlier years he would have been on the tail gate of a medicine show wagon dispensing tonics to gullible farmers and their wives. The 'doctor' wore a shabby tweed suit with a vest and a straw hat on his head. He also wore a dried rose on his lapel. You can see, he made an impression on me. Sexton's assignment was to assist our Housekeeping Supervisor who often was hard to find. Sexton would cover up for this gentleman with great skill and diplomacy. Somehow whenever the Housekeeping Supervisor was not available Sexton would discover him supervising the clean up of a major leak. He would rush in accompanied by his loyal Dr. Sexton telling me breathlessly of the terrible mess which required his expert attention.

Another memorable patient was Mr. Ronrico. One day a man who described himself as a field supervisor for the Michigan Deparment of Employment came out of a large bus into my office. He had a list of about 50 names from the patient population in the Infirmary for cherry picking in the Traverse Bay area. He was ready to load them up into his bus for transportation. Seems un-beknown to us Mr. Ronrico, charging each patient $1.50 for this autumn employment opportunity, had lined up this crew. I thanked the State employee for his interest and pointed out that these patients were our wards and not available for this kind of labor off the grounds of the Institution. We arranged for Mr. Ronrico to return the money to each unsuspecting patient. We then discovered Mr. Ronrico had set up a burial service and was charging helpless patients $2.00 each to insure a proper burial. This too was a short-lived enterprise and Mr. Ronrico was instructed to return this money also. In addition, I sent Mr. Ronrico out of the Infirmary. I told him with his talents he could do much better outside. I hope for his sake he didn't meet up with a drifter who was shrewder than he and also was physically much stronger.

While typing this so many other things come to mind which I'd like to share. I had a visit from a chagrined representative of the Michigan Humane Society. He had a letter written from a patient on one of our nursing wards. It read: 'Since they treat me like a goddamn dog here I might as well write you.' we visited the patient on his ward. His complaint? Lack of a variety in his breakfast meals. Everyday he was served 'rolled oats' or oatmeal. How about pancakes, french toast, or poached eggs? I tried to explain the difficulty of varying the menus for such large numbers but did promise to provide some variation. Our Food Service Supervisors, Mr. Elmer Gifford and Mr. Mike Barna, were top-knotch and whenever they could would make every effort to respond to individual preferences. I checked later with the patient and he seemed more satisfied with some slight changes. He assured me he no longer felt as if he were treated in a 'dog-like' fashion. I shared that good news with the representative of the Michigan Humane Society who admitted he and his staff had a good chuckle over that request for their investigation.
 

Some of the patients never lost the tartness of their previous lives. I recall a frail old woman going through the food line in the basement replying to our Mr. Roscoe Hedger, a warm garrulous attendant, who was supervising the cafeteria line. He smiled at her and said to her: 'Come on granny - keep the line moving and don't swing your hips at me that a way!' She stopped short and pointed to the thatch of totally white hair on her thinning scalp: 'Look here, young feller, just because there is snow on the roof, don't mean there ain't a fire in the furnace.' Mr. Hedger almost fell off the stool he was sitting on.

Since we had women in open wards on the second floor, sometimes romantic interludes would take place on the stairwells. The problem would develop when two of the male patients were vying for the affection of one lady. Often fist fights would develop or loud shoving and yelling. I would try my best to play an Ann Landers role without much success. I would suggest weekend passes with one beau and then the other or try to get the lady to find another friend for one of the male suitors. The irony was that none of the participants were exactly Hollywood leading star types. Usually they would all tire of each other and things would become normal on the stairwells for a while. I mentioned Mr. Gifford and Mr. Barna before. Both were people I admired and respected. Running a huge kitchen with huge urns requiring cooks and food service workers to mount small step ladders and stir soups, cereals, stews, puddings, etc, with large wooden pallets made food preperation not an easy task. Yet with that they would prepare small cupcakes with candles for every patient on his or her birthday. They would also arrange picnics during the summer months when all the patients who were somewhat ambulatory or could be pushed out on wheel chairs would have lunch outdoors on picnic tables. I remember on one occasion when a patient munching on a hot dog with great pleasure called me over. He asked me to lend an ear. I bent down and he whispered: ' Thanks, today is my birthday. You didn't have to go to all this trouble to celebrate my birthday.' I didn't have the heart to tell him it was a picnic for the entire Bldg. N patient population and not a party just for him.

Before I leave this memory lane I'd like to pay tribute to a fellow employee. He was Mr. Dudley Randall, a County Librarian, stationed in Building N, with responsibilities for running a County field library for patients and employees. I can see him now winding his way through crowded aisles of the wards with his loaded book cart encouraging the patients to find escape through reading. He was even good enough to go alone with a scheme that only a naive 'do-gooder' like myself could conceive. Why not have a 'Great Books Session' to give our patients a chance to expand their mental horizons. He made a list of suggested reading and posted it on the wards. Our kitchen again came through and supplied us with plenty of coffee and large trays of doughnuts. As any street savvy Salvation Army worker could have told us: 'Hold off on the refreshments until you've finished the purpose of your get-together.' Well, we reversed that order thinking the coffee and doughnuts would not just nourish their bodies but would encourage their thinking of more lofty matters. Wrong! They rushed in to drink the coffee and eat the doughnuts. Word got out and the library was a mob scene. So much for our efforts to improve minds ..."