Shameful Past Institutions

The Fernald School is the oldest institution of its kind in the country. At its peak, some 2,500 people were confined here at a time, most of them children. All of them called feeble-minded, whether they were or not.

The people who ran Fernald back in the bad old days are no longer alive. But many of the victims still are, victims like Fred Boyce, who was locked up here for 11 years. He came back to Fernald with us.

We thought for a long time that we belonged there, that we were not part of this species. It was like we were some kind of people that wasn't supposed to be born.

And that was precisely the idea. The Fernald School and others like it were part of a popular American movement in the early 20th century. It was called the eugenics movement. The idea was to separate people considered to be genetically inferior from the rest of society to prevent them from reproducing.

Eugenics is usually associated with Nazi Germany. But in fact, it started here in America. Not only that, it continued here long after Hitler's Germany was in ruins.

At the height of the movement in the 1920s and '30s, exhibits were set up at fairs to teach people about eugenics. It was good for America, good for the human race. That was the message.

I would estimate that at least 50% would function in today's world well.

Take Fred Boyce. He was just eight years old in 1949 when his foster mother died. And the State of Massachusetts committed him to Fernald. Fred's records from Fernald show they labeled him as a moron, even though tests showed his intelligence was within the normal range, not bad for a boy with no education at all.

Do you know why the state recommended that you come here?

It was easy way out. They didn't have to look for homes for you. So they could just dump you off in these human warehouses and just let your rot. And that's what they did. They let us rot.

They said you were feeble-minded.

Yeah.

You weren't feeble-minded. They kept you here 11 years.

Of the most precious time that you have as a child.

Most of the school is closed now, including Fred Boyce's old dorms. They'll be torn down soon, the relics of a childhood without joy. About 36 children slept in each room with the beds jammed together. The children received little education and less affection.

And how long would they stay at Fernald? The kids were told they could be here for life.

I kind of thought for a while, maybe there was something wrong with me. Or why would I be here?

There was, in fact, nothing wrong with Joe Almeida. But that didn't prevent him from getting swept up in the system. He was an abused child. And when he was eight, his father took him for a drive to the Fernald School and told him to wait in the hallway.

I just went to my dad, where are you going? He goes, oh, you wait right there. He goes, I've got to go get the car. And he went. And that was the last I seen of him.

Joe had no idea where he was, no idea that he now wore an invisible label which read moron. The school made sure at least 30% of the kids admitted had normal or near-normal intelligence. The school needed those kids to work.

They had to have somebody with a certain level of intelligence in order to run this place.

In effect, you were very cheap labor.

Definitely. And I can remember like being out in the gardens from morning til night in the sun.

Didn't have any unions, did you?

Didn't have much of anything, you know?

Joe Almeida had an unusual job. And the fruits of his labor are still there 50 years later.

My job was to cut these up.

What he cut up were the brains of severely retarded people who had died at Fernald. He cut them into thin slices, so that they could be studied by scientists. Nothing ever came of the research. But the bits of brains are still there.

They're still sitting here years later. I mean, what was it all for?

Worse than the work, he says, was the abuse he suffered from the attendants who staffed the place.

They had what they call red cherry day. OK? What red cherry day was, they'd sit us all in a circle. And they'd call you up alphabetically. And lucky me, my name is what? Almeida.

You'd get up in front of all these kids. And you'd pull down your pants. And you'd pull down your underpants. They'd make you turn around. And they'd whack your ass with this branch until it was red like a cherry.

Few of the attendants showed any kindness, he says. But some of them should have been institutionalized themselves.

This Miss DeRosia used to have three or four kids urinate in a bucket. And she'd have them throw it in your face. I mean these people were sick that worked here.

Sexual abuse? Of course, there was sexual abuse. The place was too tailor made for it.

As the boys grew older, many rebelled often by running away. They always got caught. Fred Boyce showed us what happened then. The kids were taken here to the infamous Ward 22-- the school's detention center.

You couldn't escape. This was the prison.

Fred was locked up in solitary confinement here.

And they had a little mattress on the floor there.

As a further humiliation, kids were stripped naked. Back then, the windows had bars.

You were just this child. And your were just in this cell because you ran away. But you ran away for the reasons of abuse and thinking that you don't belong here. You want to have a life outside.

They took away my childhood and my education. The two things that you need to make it in life, they took from me.

And that's not all. More than 30 years after Fred and Joe were released, they found out that the school had allowed them to be used as human Guinea pigs.

The nation was shocked to learn that the federal government sponsored radiation experiments on human subjects without their consent.

In Senate hearings in 1994, it came out that scientists from MIT had been giving radioactive oatmeal to the boys, men now, in a nutrition study for Quaker Oats.

We were never told anything.

All they knew is that they'd been asked to join a science club. One of those who attended the hearing was Joe Almeida, a member of the club. He says the boys were recruited with special treats.

We were getting special treatment, extra dessert. We got to eat away from the other boys. We were getting extra oatmeal, getting extra milk.

Fred, also in the science club, got a group of the other members together. And they sued. Each received about $60,000 in compensation from MIT, Quaker Oats, and the government. But Fred and Joe never got what they really wanted, an apology for sending them to Fernald and calling them morons, the label that remains on their state records to this day.

You are 63 years old.

63, yeah.

You have never received from the State of Massachusetts or from any agency at all a statement saying that you are not feeble-minded, that they made a mistake?

Absolutely not.

It stays with you. Sorry.

What stays with you the most?

Being a moron. Never getting to know what I could have been.