Rainier School :

Forgotten Voices of the Valley

By: Steven McCook

The Washington rains feed the green landscape; shades of lush foliage cover the hills and deep valleys. Mount Rainier sits veiled in dew and dream-like cloud cover. A darker veil shrouds the town of Buckley . Wrapped in secrecy and moments of terror, the truth lies sleeping. Unspoken screams wait to be heard; unseen faces cry to be seen. Here in this tiny rural community, a story waits to be told.

  In 1939, Washington State opened the Western State Custodial School in the small town of Buckley . The site provided 1,265 acres, ample land for the housing and self-sufficient dairy farm to come. Promise of spacious grounds drew many needy families to the new facility. The public image of the institution was a departure from large-scale hospital ward life, promising outdoor activities, exercises and classes. Sadly, this move from hospital to school proved to be nothing more than semantics. The curriculum proved a disappointment. Children were not expected to be literate and many fell by the wayside. The potential for these people to learn was stripped from them before they had any chance to try. Classes lacked academic focus. Instead, the inmates were trained to work the dairy farm and operate its equipment. These would-be students effectively became state-owned slave labor.   

The exploitation of the Western State population became a major component of institutional operations in Buckley. The inmates lived together and in many cases ate, learned and worked together. Such close quarters made for various living experiences. These experiences were also tempered by the intermingling of the school's population. The grounds were equipped to house children with varying conditions, ranging from cerebral palsy to pyromania and habitual violence. It was thus dubbed a “school for defective youth”. Under this umbrella, hundreds of children came to live and coexist, lumped together regardless of the drastic differences in their individual diagnosis.

At its inception, the facility housed reasonable numbers of children. The average “Colony House” dormitory was home to twenty individuals, including the caretaker and his wife (“School is Expanded”, Tacoma News Tribune, 9). In the early years at Western State Custodial School the population grew steadily each month. The waiting list remained full and the state opened additional facilities in others parts of Washington in an effort to meet the demand. The new institutions could not absorb the entire population in wait, and by 1949 Western State Custodial School , newly renamed Rainier State School was terribly overcrowded. The effects of a post WWII baby boom flooded the facility with disabled or otherwise unmanageable children. Beds flowed out of the “Colony Houses” and into hallways, sunrooms and basements (“Crowding and Hardships…” Times). The idyllic image of Western State Custodial School set forth by the state shattered quickly under the influx of qualifying children.

During the World War II era, the town of Buckley drew its attention toward their disabled population. Newspaper articles reflect community concerns; police columns report fires, vandalism and various instances of assault. Searching through such documents leaves a sense of a menace upon the citizens. But what of the menace within the sleepy town of Buckley , within the grey walls of Western State Custodial School , Rainier State School , The Rainier School? How are these incarnations of the same beast accounted for and reconciled? Where is the outcry from that group of citizens, the more-than-other-half of the population?

The first decade after the institution opened its doors was wrought with tension within the community, as well as with external sources. In March of 1941, a Dr. Chisholm was called before a hearing committee in Olympia , the state's capitol city and seat of government. During his hearing, Dr. Chisholm testified that “conditions were wrong” at Western State Custodial School . Shortly after making this appearance, Dr. Chisholm was fired from his position at the school. In a press interview following his dismissal, the doctor stated that he “refused to do anything unethical” and thus, was fired (“ Buckley School Firing…” Times).

Due to the apparent void of information about the school at the time of the doctor's hearing, I have been charged with the task of rebuilding the past using nothing more than crumbling newspaper clippings and disjointed facts. The result is a vague but telling framework with conspicuous holes and suspicious omissions. The doctor's testimony is accessible only through reporters' fragmented accounts. More in depth analysis reveals that answers and complete facts are difficult to find. This absence of concrete truths leaves only conjecture.

Within the confines of an institution such as Western State Custodial School , what undocumented truths existed? What conditions drove staff and inmates to flee; regardless of their route, method or circumstance? Using my found scraps to construct a bigger picture of life at the school, I face the terrible reality of the void. In the face of which Dr. Chisholm's idea of “wrong” sparks horrendous possibilities in my find; possibilities neither wholly confirmed nor refuted by the limited evidence available. The inevitable danger lurking in a mixed community like that of the school is unsettling. Violent offenders, pyromaniacs and the criminally insane lived side by side with invalids, paraplegics, mentally retarded, deaf, mute and blind. These vulnerable children undoubtedly served as easy targets for the aforementioned aggressors, particularly as overcrowding and understaffing took hold.

Following Dr. Chisholm's case, Senator Percival launched a government inquiry into operations at Western State Custodial School . His reports based on this investigation reflected intolerable conditions in Buckley. The private citizens of Buckley agreed. During those same years the townspeople had faced cases of arson by escaped inmates from the school as well as other unpleasant dealings with that population. Administrators handled such instances with reminders to the public of the economic force the school represented. The opening of the facility in 1939 brought with it jobs and a working dairy farm. The new school expanded Buckley town limits and became a major player in the community's economy. Workers moved to Buckley for work and in turn spent their earnings on area homes and in local stores and businesses. Over fifty percent of Buckley's population resided at the school, and most of the remaining population depended upon it as a source of income (“ Rainier State School …” Tacoma News Tribune).

The forgotten voices of The Rainier School echo through the decades, demanding to be heard. Local word of mouth as well as my personal encounters within the disabled community leads me to believe their existence was not “hundreds of people living in the sunshine of perpetual childhood sitting idly along walls or sprawled on floors… with absolutely nothing to do!” (“Crowding and Hardship…” Times 23 Jan. 1949 ). These accounts and memories indicate something much more sinister. If my assertions are well informed and correct, if I have not been mislead by my peers, where is the evidence? Where are the abuse cases? Who enforced the human rights of the so called inmates of The Rainier School.

In 1950 Attorney General Smith Troy headed an investigation into mass resignations and firings of Rainier School employees (“Mass Resignations” TNT). Nearly ten years after Dr. Chisholm's case was in the forefront of the public consciousness, Troy 's inquiries began. This lag time remains unaccounted for and in that space exists a vacuum of information. How can that be? Newspaper articles discuss fairs and family events at the school, but barely touch upon the community issues that arose.

Instances of runaways and community outrage over inmate access to matches resulting in fires litter weekly issues of the Tacoma News Tribune. These events surface and are quickly dismissed and swept aside by follow up articles written by school administrators. They appeal to the public, assuring them that measures are being taken to prevent future instances. The public is soothed, its feathers smoothed back, but what of those offending inmates ? What measures did they face? What were these intolerable and wrong conditions that drove doctors, nurses and staff members away in large numbers? What were those lost souls trying to escape from?

A lack of objective material calls questions to mind. The most readily available materials on the subject of The Rainier School are internal documents. These state and institution-generated resources present a one sided account of school operations. Judging by such documentation, the ideas of people enjoying a childlike bliss might seem true. These papers are sterile, impersonal sources of information that paint the facility in a wonderful light. This perspective is inconsistent with the reports of former staff like Dr. Chisholm, residents like my peers and investigators like Attorney General Smith Troy and Senator Percival. How can this difference be reconciled? Where is the hard evidence to support the numerous inferences and allegations.

Vacuous rifts, absent of names, void of details haunt the town of Buckley Washington ; they haunt me. As an autistic man and veteran of the obscure, corrupt institutional system, I am haunted. My research has left me heartbroken, holding more questions than answers. I have failed them, my brothers and sisters. When will they be heard? When will they be named; those anonymous 1,918 residing behind Rainier 's grey walls by the end of WWII, a staggering number in relation to the 373 of present day? Their story is waiting for me in boxes of moldy records and archives.