Looking back at Lakeland Village's first century

Few things that are 100 years old have a fresh look to them. But Lakeland Village, which turned 100 years old in 2015, might just be an exception.

Because the place that has been known over its century of existence by names like Washington State Feeble Minded School, Washington State Custodial School or the Eastern State Hospital Annex at Medical Lake, has if nothing else, a mission that has evolved significantly, and continues to do so. The facility was named Lakeland Village in 1947.

When it opened, the new institution served approximately 300 residents, a number that hit 1,450 with about 330 staff members according to longtime employee Leroy Lemaster who began his career there in 1961.

"That meant the carpenters, the cooks, everybody, to take care of all our people," Lemaster, who still works part time at Lakeland, said.

Jim Dormaier came to Lakeland in 1957. "I started mowing lawns and retired as superintendent, 16 different jobs along the way," Dormaier said, who served in the top job from 1991-93. He performed many duties in a complex that included 2,700 acres of agricultural production land that most of the clients who had any "ambulation abilities" worked in some fashion.

"There were cobblers, there were fireman, we were self-contained facilities," Dormaier said. "We could have moved them to an island and everything would have continued to function."

The present administration building is part of the original structures at the facility but was not the first, Dormaier said. Many older buildings were constructed beginning in 1904 to about 1911.

At one time the current administration building also housed a theater, which also doubled as a sewing room containing 100 sewing machines.

Wendy Gilbert arrived at Lakeland in 1972 as a college resident volunteer.

"I was in the program the second year it was developed and only females were allowed at the time," Gilbert said. "What I remember the most were the huge buildings that these people lived in - and that we had a girl's side and a boy's side - and the two did not cross except for Friday dances."

The Friday dances here were amazing, Gilbert said. "We had bands that were constantly trying to play for our clientele." The hallways are filled with the photos of entertainers who volunteered their time.

Lakeland had a waiting list because it was the event of the week, Gilbert said of the events that actually began in the 1960s. "It was very much fun for everybody, staff included," Gilbert said.

Current Lakeland superintendent Tony DiBartolo attended Medical Lake High School after his father, who was in the U.S. Air Force, relocated to the area.

DiBartolo recalled Darrell Cox, now 76, and playing basketball against one another in grade school. Cox later coached the Lakeland team DiBartolo said, "Beat the tar out of us."

"This was my first job as a high school graduate," DiBartolo said of the position he had as a tenant counselor in 1979.

He recalled the large dormitory style living quarters that was prevalent at Lakeland at the time with upwards of 60 people in each one.

"I actually got to watch the transformation from the large dormitory–style to the more cottage setting," DiBartolo said.

With Lakeland's declining population there was a shift to having no more than 16 people living under one roof, usually a population with mild intellectual disabilities. Today there is not any single cottage that has even that many residents. "Our combined population now is 191," DiBartolo said.

These are just some of the signs of how the mission at Lakeland has changed. "It started with the group homes being built in the communities," Lemaster explained.

"In the late 50s and early 60s, custodial care in mental health was the way to go," Dormaier said. Institutions were built and enlarged prior to that.

Institutions nationally were at the largest capacity in history in the 1960s. The Medical Lake complex, which included Eastern State Hospital, had a combined population of some 4,000.

Facilities became large warehouses, Dormaier said. "That's what we had here." But in the mid to late 60s there was a forced movement away from custodial care.

It was based on what was going on at Partlow State School and Hospital in Alabama. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling called Partlow conditions inhumane, and justifiably so. Upwards of 125 people were housed per building at the institution, many having never seen daylight.

The Medical Lake complex also saw changes with the introduction of those deemed "criminally insane," from the state penitentiary in Walla Walla.

There was a state-of-the-art jail built in the complex at Eastern State. "They were cells with electric doors, the whole works," Dormaier said. "It was escape-proof," or so they thought.

The Medical Lake complex accepted its first residents - a "chain" as the initial busload of prisoners was called - about 2:30 on a Friday afternoon, Dormaier recounted.

"Everyone got locked in, squared away in their rooms, meals came, everything went really well until the police at Medical Lake showed up with two escapees," Dormaier said.

The pair left, walked downtown and turned themselves in. "They just wanted to show the bureaucrats could not build a cell 'we would not get out of,'" Dormaier said.

(Next week we look at innovative programs of the past and how Lakeland is adjusting to the future of care for its citizens.)

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.