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 | Reprinted, with permission of the author and publisher, from THE GHOST IN THE MIRROR (pages 49-52) © 2008 Leslie Rule
Published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this article shall be copied in any way (both electronic and in print) without direct permission of the author and publisher.
Willowbrook
Jennifer Vinciguerra does not mind working alone in the one-story U-shaped building that sits on a sprawling campus in Staten Island, New York. As a social worker, she has seen the living do all sorts of strange things, and she is not fazed by the behavior of the dead.
Although others are frightened by the sounds and sights seen and heard after hours, Jennifer isn't. "I'm not afraid, but my coworker doesn't want to be there alone. If she sees that I am leaving, she leaves too."
Today, the state agency that occupies Jennifer's building serves the developmentally disabled, and she and the others are trained to treat all clients with respect - but this was not always so.
At one time, the entire campus was the size of Willowbrook State School, where challenged children and adults lived and sometimes died. "We are required to watch documentaries about Willowbrook as part of our training," said Jennifer, explaining that administrators hope to prevent future cruelty in institutions by teaching social workers about the atrocities of the past.
Jennifer was horrified to learn that the staff at the overcrowded institution forced people to take group showers. "They rounded them up and hosed them down." she said. She was more shocked by the Willowbrook Hospital Hepatitis Study, where children at the facility were purposefully infected with the disease. The controversial program begin in the mid-1950s and ended in the early 1970s,
When the public eventually learned of the pratice, they were outraged, charging that the children were guinea pigs and that the doctors used them to study the progression of hepatitis and test unproven and harmful vaccinations. The institutions director, however, claimed that the children were doomed to become infected by living in an unsanitary environment and that they were better off contracting the disease under the doctor's control.
The children, of course, had no voice in the matter. Maybe that is why some of them still linger today.
The Willowbrook State School once inhabited the numerous buildings on the land and today those structures are used for a variety of purposes. While many of the buildings have been absorbed by a college campus, Jennifer's agency occupies one building. "It was once the children's ward," she said.
During the day, the place is filled with clients and staff. "I often stay late, but usually everyone else is gone by 4:30 p.m."
Everyone but the ghosts.
Sometimes as the sun slides behind the horizon and the shadows deepen, footsteps echo in the corridor outside of Jennifer's office. She and her co-worker quickly open the door, when they peer out, they see only an empty hallway.
"I was in the restroom when I heard what sounded like two children giggling." said Jennifer, adding that the toilets often flush by themselves when there is no one near the motion detector.
Employees have also heard disembodied voices calling their names. Once, as Jennifer was walking through the lunchroom after hours, she was startled to hear a female voice clearly speak her name. At first, she thought that someone else had stayed late so she quickly searched the building only to discover she was all alone.
Jennifer, who is fascinated by the paranormal, confided, "I don't scare very easily but sometimes I get creeped out."
Those who haunt the former ward seem to be benign yet mischievous spirits.
A fellow emloyee once told Jennifer that she had seen the ghosts of two children in the building. "She saw a boy and a girl in dated clothing."
The woman was puzzled because their offices serviced adults. She could not figure out what the children were doing there so she followed them and watched as they turned the corner, disappearing from sight. When she peeked around the corner and saw the empty hallway, she realized she had just seen two ghosts.
When Jennifer heard the story, she was envious for she had always wanted to see the ghosts. When she finally did encournter one, she did not realize it until months later.
One day as she steered her car into campus, she noticed a man standing in a clearing on the large sylvan lawn. She figured that the fellow must be one of the agency's developmentally disabled clients. Outsiders rarely venture onto the property, though joggers favor the mile-long road that loops around the campuses. But this man was definetly not a jogger. "It was very, very odd to see him out of context," she said.
The spot was isolated and some distance from the offices. And oddly, the man looked as if he had stepped right out of the 1970s. He was middle-aged and disheveled, with shaggy, gray hair and he wore a button-down shirt with an oversized collar.
Jennifer, who had worked in the building since 2004, had never seen anyone in that area so she studied the man carefully as she drove slowly by.
"He was so still," she remembered. "He did not move at all." He seemed to stare right through her and she had the sense that he did not see her.
"I decided to keep an eye out for him," she said, explaining that she was so curious that she vowed to find out more about him.
Though hundreds of clients are serviced at this agency, Jennifer has a sense of who comes and goes and she is sure if he was a client there that she would have seen him again. But six months have gone by and there has been no sign of this man.
Was he a ghost left over from an inhumane era?
We will never know the full extent of the indignities suffered by the residents of the Willowbrook State School. Advocates for humane treatment do not want the mean times to be forgotten.
And apparantly, neither do the ghosts.
To read more great stories from the book Ghost in the Mirror please click here to purchase.
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