“If we don’t acknowledge the truth, we cannot reconcile the hurt – or prevent its repeat.”
Gather with us to mourn people with disabilities throughout history who lost their lives at the hands of caregivers to commemorate Disability Day of Mourning.
In Cincinnati, we will travel to the cemetery of the former Longview State Hospital, now operated as Summit Behavioral Healthcare. Hundreds of patients from 1865-1967 are buried here, marked only with numbers, as shared in this 1931 video, Love & Outrage, of the cemetery dedication.
And, for the fourth consecutive year, we will travel from Cincinnati to Orient, south of Columbus, Ohio to mark Disability Day of Mourning by meeting at the Orient Cemetery, which is on the former grounds of the now-closed “Orient Institution for the Feeble-Minded” near Pickaway Correctional Facility. Hundreds of people with disabilities died at this institution, too, and are buried in graves there, most marked only with numbers.
Locations:
The former Longview Cemetery is near the grounds of Summit Behavioral Healthcare
7076 Glenmeadow Lane, Cincinnati, OH 45237
The Orient Cemetery sits on the grounds of the Orient/Pickaway Prison
11271 State Rte 762, Orient, OH 43146
We are planning to gather for circles at both locations at 10 a.m., pray, walk the gravesites, and reflect.
If you go to Summit: Travel time from downtown Cincinnati is 15 minutes. We will meet at 7076 Glenmeadow Lane (street parking) and enter the cemetery together. If you wish, bring flowers for the service.
If you go to Orient: Travel time from downtown Cincinnati is 1 hour, 33 minutes. The cemetery is located at 11271 SR 762 in Orient, Ohio between two prison complexes. We will meet in the parking lot near the cemetery. From there, the cemetery is just a short walk. If you wish, bring flowers for the service and a garden spade to clear vegetation.
Directions to Orient from downtown Cincy:
1-71 North
Exit 94 Stahl Road
Left onto High St.
Left onto SR 762/Fairfield Rd
TAKE A QUICK RIGHT onto the long driveway - you will pass the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation on the left and see a water tower in the distance on the left
Continue past the water tower on the left. You will see and pass a parking lot on the right.
Continue straight, across the street, into the parking lot next to the Pickaway Correctional Facility.
We'll gather there and then walk around to the unmarked grave area and numbered grave area.
If you cannot attend, but still wish to remember the lives of so many who the world has lost, post your thoughts on one of our social channels, or make a donation for our work at starfirecincy.org/donate
We will livestream the Summit circle on Facebook @starfirecincy
Images from Longview State Hospital Cemetery:
Images from Orient Cemetery:
Be known & named
During our visits, our group reads a prayer written and illustrated by Nancy Fuller and her son, Steve:
Images from Orient Cemetery:
Learn more:
Listen to our podcast, More, for our “Unnamed & Unknown Series” with Tim Vogt, Nancy Fuller, and Cassandra & Nestor Melnyk.
Watch From Numbers to Names, to learn what others around the country are doing in their journey of healing and reconciliation.
During our visits, our group reads a prayer written and illustrated by Nancy Fuller and her son, Steve:
May the God in me, honor the dignity & divine in you. May your spirit soar and be KNOWN & NAMED forever more.
Amen.
Check out the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) resource page.
Study Christmas in Purgatory, by Burton Blatt & Fred Kaplan, a writer and photographer who gained access to state institutions for men, women, and children with developmental disabilities in New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. The men went with a spy camera on a belt and took pictures of the deplorable and yet legally sanctioned abusive human living conditions.
Watch Willowbrook, a 1972 documentary by Geraldo Rivera; watch the 2022 retrospect: 50 Years Later
Apple Creek was a state mental institution southwest of Akron with 3,000 residents. Parents, staff and volunteers filed a law suit to improve conditions and produced a movie called Off the Cement Floor; watch Parts 1-3: