Date: Fri 11-Dec-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: JAN

Quick Words:

Fairfield-Hills-Arsenault

Full Text:

Retired Cook Remembers When Fairfield Hills Flourished

BY JAN HOWARD

Alfred Arsenault found his niche in the kitchen of Fairfield Hills Hospital,

and he owes it all to shrunken blankets.

Hired originally for the hospital's laundry room in July 1957, he was

transferred to the kitchen six months later where he started out as an

institutional aide. When he retired 30 years later in August of 1987, he had

been a head cook for 15 years.

"That was the best hospital there was," Mr Arsenault said recently. "I was

lucky to get the job when I went over there. It saved my life. I didn't have

much of an education.

"It was a good job for me. I loved it. I miss the place. I go up and look

around the yard. It looks terrible now," he said.

"They [the state] shouldn't have closed it," he said. "They should have closed

Middletown because it was older."

Mr Arsenault, who has lived in Newtown for 41 years, worked in Westport at a

private club doing maintenance prior to working at the state hospital.

He started out in the laundry room at Fairfield Hills but obtained the

transfer to the kitchen because, he said, "I shrunk some blankets."

Five years after joining the kitchen staff, Mr Arsenault was designated a

cook. He had no prior experience except what he had learned from his mother,

he said.

"I learned from three chefs," he said proudly. "Everywhere you go, you have to

learn their style.

"To me it was the best food around. No one was going to starve," he said.

The hospital kitchen served 3,200 patients and about 800 employees a day in

its peak years. In 1987, when Mr Arsenault retired, there were 900 patients.

There were three dining rooms, one each for male and female patients and

another for employees. Meals were served cafeteria style over an

hour-and-a-half period.

Underground Deliveries

The patient buildings were connected to the kitchen in Bridgeport Hall by six-

or eight-foot wide tunnels. Small battery-operated carts, similar to golf

carts, used those tunnels to take food to the wards for patients who couldn't

go to the cafeteria. Sometimes Mr Arsenault would be the driver, with six

trucks hitched together behind him with 80 trays on each truck .

Mr Arsenault said his main duties were to make sure food was prepared, cooked,

and served. His shift started at 3 am, and he got off work at 11:30 am.

There were 10 to 12 cooks for two shifts. About four or five, including head

cooks, would arrive about 3 am. They wore white jackets, checkered pants and

white chef hats, he said.

"We had a pretty good staff," Mr Arsenault said. There were about 40 kitchen

employees in total, including dish and pot washers. Dishwashers would either

come in early or stay late, he remembers.

The kitchen staff was also responsible for cleaning the huge kitchen and the

appliances, including 18 grills and four deep fryers, and the cafeterias.

Mr Arsenault remembers that once a deep fryer caught fire and the Sandy Hook

Fire Department had to come put it out.

The kitchen had four refrigerators that were as big as a medium size room, he

said, in addition to a separate freezer, and a storeroom for canned goods and

staples.

"There were two big dishwashers between the employee and patient cafeterias,"

he said. Employees would put the dishes in the machine, they would go through

a conveyor belt and come out clean and sterilized.

"We used 100,000 gallons of water a day for dish and pot cleaning," he said.

The floors were washed with electric floor cleaners later in his work career,

but Mr Arsenault remembers "mopping the floors the Navy way."

Mega Meals

Breakfast preparations would consist of 120 gallons of oatmeal, 170 gallons of

coffee and 60 gallons of orange juice. Either ham and eggs or pancakes,

amounting to 40 gallons of batter, were also served.

"Everything had to be fried well-done so there was no bacteria," Mr Arsenault

said.

The cooks started preparing hot meals for lunch early in the morning. In the

evening, sandwiches, such as Reubens, or corned beef hash, and 120 gallons of

soup were served.

The patients ate heartily, he noted. "We didn't throw much away."

"We did everything ourselves. Vegetables were cut by hand," he said.

The main meal of the day would consist of pork chops, roast beef, or pot

roast, among other choices, he said. "Meat loaf was my specialty," he said,

explaining it took 120 pounds of ground beef to make it.

Mr Arsenault remembers receiving corned beef that had spoiled. The cooks threw

it out and served hamburgers instead.

"We would never have served bad food," he said.

For Thanksgiving, the kitchen staff would bake 165 turkeys. The stuffing would

be cooked separately.

Early in his work career, the turkeys would be sliced by hand; later they were

done by machine, Mr Arsenault said.

The cooks used milk from the hospital's farm and fresh vegetables from its

gardens.

He remembers how clean the hospital was. "The wards were beautiful. The floors

were always so clean," he said.

He also remembers how some of the patients would volunteer to work in the

kitchen. There were never any incidents, he added. "Most of the patients, if

you asked them, they'd help out. There would be no problems. We would cook

them breakfast, then they would help out in the kitchen by opening cans, or

help wash the pots and pans," he said.

"They enjoyed it. It got them away from the wards," he noted.

For five years Mr Arsenault lived on the grounds in Norwalk Hall, the male

employees' dorm. After he and his wife, Mavis, were married, they resided in

the married couples' dorm, Watertown Hall, for about 10 months. When they were

expecting their first child, they had to move off the grounds.

Mr Arsenault and his wife have three children, Walter, who lives in Monroe,

and Diane and Bruce, who live in Thomaston.

Mr Arsenault was involved in civil defense in Newtown as a volunteer for eight

years and is a member of the responders emergency radio team.

Mr Arsenault said he experienced a "big letdown" when he heard about the

closing of Fairfield Hills Hospital.

"You couldn't beat this hospital," he said. "Those buildings are good for

another 100 years. They should have kept Fairfield Hills Hospital."