More Tales From Fairfield Hills

By Nancy K. Crevier

This is the second in a series of Tales of Fairfield Hills, stories shared by local residents who worked and lived there when the property was a functioning psychiatric institution. Now owned by the Town of Newtown and being re-created, the property’s past has been the subject of stories, some of which may be tainted with truth, some which may be purely fabrication. These tales, though, come from the hearts of those who knew it best.

 

“People would say, ‘Oh, you work in a mental hospital,’ but it wasn’t a sad place. It was a busy place,” recalled Rose Marie Fattibene. Ms Fattibene worked for 12 years at Fairfield State Hospital as a medical records specialist, from 1967 until the birth of her son in 1969, and then again from 1985 to 1995.

As a medical records specialist, her job included providing specific information from patients’ records to outside agencies to determine disability qualifications, and transcribing for the doctors.

 “It was a great place to work. It was a nice, homey atmosphere. Lunch was free at the staff dining hall, and everything was cooked right there,” Ms Fattibene remembered of her employment at Fairfield Hills.

A farm tended by patients was still ongoing when Ms Fattibene worked at the state hospital in the 1960s, and produced fresh vegetables for the kitchen. “It was sad when the farm closed. The patients had taken a lot of pride in [the farm],” she said. Other patients had jobs delivering things to the office personnel, but any patients on the grounds or working the farm, were not a danger to anyone,” she said.

“There was a lot of staff and security was well-staffed, so I was not afraid, even on the wards,” Ms Fattibene said.

By the time she returned in the 1980s, her office was housed in Canaan House, rather than Cochran House, where she had worked in the 1960s. “There were still records kept on the wards, so I did have to be buzzed in to pick them up,” she said.

Going between the buildings to gather records did mean using the tunnels. “The tunnels were kind of dark, and a gully on each side had a little water that ran through it. They were just dreary. There was really nothing to be afraid of, but I still would never go through them alone,” she said.

“My son worked [at Fairfield Hills] when he was in high school. He drove one of the little trucks through the tunnels and delivered food to the wards. It was a great job and he made good money,” said Ms Fattibene. She was shocked, she said, to find out from her son that any of the food that had been delivered but not eaten — even still sealed in the trays — had to be destroyed. “They couldn’t even give it to the shelters. That seemed such a shame,” she said.

A New Experience

Every Day

Richard Goessinger started working at Fairfield Hills in late 1985, in the kitchen. His job also included driving the small battery-operated trucks through the tunnels.

In the basement, there were nurses’ stations, where the floor nurses would pick up the meals and deliver them to the patients. “I never brought the food to the patients,” he said.

At first, going through the poorly lit tunnels was “kind of scary,” said Mr Goessinger, but he got used to it. “I don’t believe there are any ghosts. I never saw any spooky things,” he said.

“Going to work was a new experience every day,” he laughed. “I used to drive my Harley to work and park it outside. I noticed there was a patient who used to watch my cycle, every day, so one day I asked him why. He said, ‘Oh, I’m a Hell’s Angel.’ He showed me his tattoos and his nickname tattooed in his lower lip. He really was a Hell’s Angels member. He said, ‘I’ll watch your motorcycle for you and make sure nothing happens to it.’ He was a real nice guy. I guess he got discharged. He just wasn’t there one day anymore,” Mr Goessinger said.

Working the early shift in the kitchen and later in the housekeeping department, Mr Goessinger was one of many employees who found it convenient to live on the grounds in dormitory-style housing.

“I loved that,” he said. “You had your own refrigerator, sink, and bed in your room. We all knew each other and had cookouts and stuff. When you told people you worked at the hospital, they would say, ‘Oh, if you work there long enough, you’ll get touched.’ But a lot of people from Newtown worked there,” he said.

Patients with grounds privileges were never a problem for the resident staff, he said. “There was a bowling alley there for the patients, and a gym [in Plymouth House]. The patients might walk over to the snack bar or be outside for a cigarette, but patients were never an issue for me,” Mr Goessinger said.

“I’ve been curious since it closed, what they’re going to do with it. I read so many things. That beautiful property is just going to waste,” he said.

Even sadder than the buildings still not designated for new business or that are waiting to be demolished, said Ms Fattibene, is what happened to the patients when the hospital was shut down by the state in 1995.

“[Being discharged] was especially disturbing for patients who had lived at Fairfield Hills for years, to go to a group home,” she said. She recalled one instance she heard of, in which a former patient who had done well on the ward, was moved into a group home.

“His elderly parents came to visit him in the home one day, and the patient threw both of them down the stairs. The father was killed. It was so sad, a real tragedy,” Ms Fattibene said. Why the patient had become so angered, she said, may never be known. Perhaps it was a staffing problem, perhaps he had not taken his medication as prescribed. “I’m not so sure,” she said “those group homes worked out so well.”

Still, said Ms Fattibene, her overall impression of being employed at Fairfield Hills Hospital is good. “It was,” she said, “a great place to work.”