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Archive of Former Insane Asylums in Staunton, Virginia
There's been such great response to my August 2005 column about my home of Staunton, Virginia that in March 2006 some special correspondents out to explore the former Western Lunatic Asylum a/k/a Western State Hospital (abandoned) and the DeJarnette Center, a former children's asylum (also abandoned). Also see Will Ludwigsen's gallery of Staunton insane asylums. Although these pictures don't show the inside of Western State, the local Staunton News Leader posted a gallery at this link. You can also read about Western State's 19th-century history in a book by Alice Wood. DeJarnette and Western State are only spoken of in hushed tones here in Staunton, mainly because Western State's superintendant, Joseph S. DeJarnette, was a public advocate of eugenics and forced sterilizations of the insane. Thanks to the efforts of idiots like him, Virginia's eugenics law was upheld in the U.S. Supreme Court and strongly influenced the development of Nazi Germany's law about sterlization. You can read DeJarnette's ode to eugenics, "Mendel's Law," at this link. ("Oh, you wise men take up the burden, / And make this you [sic] loudest creed, / Sterilize the misfits promptly- / All not fit to breed!") A good writeup about Dr. DeJarnette and Virginia's eugenics movement is at this link. Understandably, the City of Staunton is anxious to proceed with plans to pave over the DeJarnette Center with a shopping mall and parking lot, while continuing with plans to renovate the former Western State campus into condominiums and businesses that preserve the old architecture. What I find ironic in all this is that, to my knowledge, Dr. DeJarnette worked at the former Western State campus and not in the mouldering ruins bearing his infamous name. Family & Friends Owen Warner
Leonard Garment, former counsel to President Richard Nixon |
