Talk:Austin State Hospital

message: I worked at the Austin State Hospital in 1966 - 1968 while attending the University of Texas, a common experience for generations of students. I can't cite any references for my own experiences so I'm adding them here.
It was a common thing for students to work at the Hospital, usually on the graveyard shift. At that time, at least, there were three eight hour shifts: 7AM to 3PM, 3PM to 11PM, and 11PM to 7AM. Many students preferred 3 to 11. During the summer of 1966 I started on the day shift and changed to the graveyard when classes began. My day shift was on a three story rectangular building holding wards 21, 22, and 23. I was usually on 22. When we changed to graveyards there was usually a stint on the Medical and Surgical ward in the hospital...the fourth or fifth floor, I forget which, where people were dying. My permanent graveyard shift was ward 7 in a building holding wards 6, 7, and 8. This was an L shaped building.
The two ward buildings seem to have been demolished; they were stone and concrete structures with barred windows and heavy wooden doors, built in the early 1900s. Both had restrooms, showers and laundry rooms, seclusion rooms in which to put agitated patients, offices, and caged porches. Garbage cans, usually the type people had in their yards, were on every ward. The building with 21-23 had large dormlike rooms for the patients' cheap metal framed beds, the other had a series of smaller rooms. There were TV rooms or TVs in dayrooms. The furniture was heavy, made of wood, too heavy to be picked up and thrown. The TV would usually be bolted down. The attendants carried rings of almost theatrically large keys which they passed to the next shift; the head attendant would count the narcotic type drugs to which only he had the key at the beginning of his shift. At night the attendant had to call the Hospital switchboard and give his name and ward number every hour.
There were separate wards for male and female patients, with only female personnel on the female wards except when some real muscle was needed. Patients who were allowed to be outside on the grounds could mingle, of course. A few incidents were recorded between retarded patients who weren't clever enough to hide.
Usually the patients would get up at about 7AM. They swept and mopped, jobs sometimes performed by those who preferred to. They would line up at the dutch doored office to get medications. Three times per day they lined up and were led to a lunch room and back. A couple of times per week they would get shaves, maybe haircuts. Around 10PM they went to bed.
When I started attendants wore white pants and shirts with black ties, and white oxford shoes. While I was there policy changed to street clothes. The hospital had an arrangement with some store or other -- I forget which one -- to sell them. More than, as I recall, two sick days required a doctor's excuse. A Dr. Hamer, across Guadalupe from the Hospital, would hand them out for a fee.
I remember a few of the other employees. As I recall, in the first building there was a Mr. Jordan, nurse technician, a Mr. Walton and Mr. Butler, who were in their 50s and were in charge of their shifts; they seemed to have some kind of rivalry dating from elementary school and lived in Georgetown. Walton's son also worked at the Hospital. Others I can picture mentally but no longer identify. In the second building a Mr. Barrett was the day shift head. A man named McAtee was on the 3-11 shift. A young personable fellow named Radley worked on ward 22. I recall another attendant named Koenig; the night supervisors were a man named Larvin and a female supervisor named, I think, Marzek. 
Of the psychiatrists I recall only Dr. Denny in the first building where I worked. It was said that doctors who couldn't pass state exams to practice medicine could be certified if they worked there a couple of years. The same supposedly applied to foreign doctors, at that time mainly from Cuba.
Most of the career attendants seemed to have been country boys -- who were actually in their 50s and older. Some may have started during the Great Depression when jobs were scarce, but it's likely the Hospital wanted to hire physically strong men with black and white morals to handle patients in the days before powerful anti-psychotic drugs were developed.
One person at least was pointed out to me as having worked at the Hospital for about 40 years and then committed himself when he retired.
Calypsoparakeet 14:22, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some Personal Recollections 

message: 150 Years at the Austin State Hospital: 
http://www.jsbankston.com/site/archives/97
--Calypsoparakeet 01:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blog About Hospital 

message: According to the 1940 Census for Howard County the Hospital was named: West Texas State Hospital for Insane.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.80.235.228 (talk) 21:30, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name of the Hospital in 1940 

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thread_title:  External links modified