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FSB, aka B.I.S.
RALPH C. STARKEY, Last Superintendent of Ohio's Fairfield School for Boys, died January 24, 2010.
September 26, 2007 I had the privilege to sit in the home of Ralph C. Starkey as he sat reminiscing about the years he spent at the Fairfield School for Boys in the hills and ravines six miles south of Lancaster, Ohio. If anyone ever talked to Ralph Starkey and did not catch his excitement about trying to get boys back on track, they were not paying attention. January 24, 2010, Ralph Starkey passed away and his passing presented an opportunity to write "one more chapter" about the most successful Boys Industrial School in the United States, bar none. The B.I.S. Started in 1856 under the name, Ohio Reform School (Reform School & Farm); 1884 was renamed the Boys Industrial School; 1964 it became Fairfield School for Boys. The school closed in 1979 with Mr. Starkey being the last superintendent. The various name changes were merely semantics in action involving nuances about the principles and purposes of the school as viewed by various administrations and societal input.
Ralph Starkey was born in Circleville, Ohio, in the same town he was living when I interviewed him in the early days of our preparation and research to write a history of the Boys Industrial School (later known as Fairfield School for Boys, and most recently known as Southern Correctional Institution).
The small town of Circleville, nestled in the fields of Pickaway County, has some claims to fame but Ralph C. Starkey's name might just glow a tad brighter than entertainer Ted Lewis who, while holding his clarinet, would ask, "Is Everybody Happy?" Strange as it may seem this could have easily been one of Starkey's queries to those delinquent boys of the State of Ohio when they were sent to The Hill in a genuine detainment from the streets of crime.
After leaving Circleville, Ralph C. Starkey became known as #74, Tackle, with the New York Giants -- unique with his abilities, he was recruited to come to Lancaster and tackle major problems at FSB. "Something was going on" at FSB in Lancaster and it needed fixed. Ralph did not come right from the locker room or football field because he had been working with the State of Ohio Youth Commission for several years and was in Zanesville when he was asked to come to Lancaster.
There were many icons who sat in the chair of superintendency of that state institution that began in the 19th century by Charles Gustave Reemelin and a few others who saw the need to make a place where delinquent or truant boys could be rehabilitated and sent back home with new goals in life. Ralph Starkey may not have really asked the boys, "Is Everybody Happy?" but many feel he came to that school to try to make every boy leave there with a better outlook on life. Happiness may have been a by-product after all.
Ralph Starkey told me about being involved with Rotary and other organizations, and knowing some very influential people and when it was announced that the school was being shut down the whole town was up in arms. They were ready to take this to the governor. Representative Don Maddux even got involved. Central Office (of the state's machinery) called Starkey into the office and informed him that this was a done deal and to back off. Only a short time later it was made public the future of FSB would become history and The Hill would no longer vibrate with youthful boys but become a prison for hardened criminals. (A long way from its founder's dreams or hopes.)
Supt. Starkey had twenty vocational programs going on as well as a full academic high school. No one had time to "lay around on their bunks" as prisoners do in the SCI - they were programmed for those boys. All the kids were involved in either a vocational program or an academic program. The BIS was turning out sixteen hundred and we put almost two thousand kids through the program a year which was half of what the other eight institutions in Ohio did in a year. Mohican Youth Center, Cuyahoga school for boys, and other related "schools".The BIS, and later, FSB, had an outstanding work ethic.
There were five unions on the campus of Fairfield School for Boys. Each major labor force was represented and the teachers had a union. Starkey did not have any problems with unions--he was always willing to listen to them. All the vocational trades people for carpentry, masonry and horticulture, etc., were unionized as well.
The livestock program had ceased when he got there. Superintendent Starkey knew that if he kept the kids sharp looking, gave them three good meals and a snack at night he had 75% of his problems covered. He was in his office every morning at 6:00. He knew that former superintendents were never in their office until 9:00 in the morning. He would eat with the staff or the kids instead of living in the official superintendent's mansion (which had not be used as such for some time). Former superintendents seemed reluctant to go out where the students were and he got to know the students as well as the staff. On one occasion Superintendent Starkey went to a dormitory one night around 2:00 a.m.. He wanted to get in touch with the staff and become acquainted - it was the first time they had seen a superintendent in the middle of the night.
Every Friday morning at 8:00 he had an appointment with all the new kids in FSB. There would be as high as 50-60 new boys come in every Friday. He told them what he would tolerate: "no hands on anyone, don't even think about putting your hands on anyone or starting a fight". He expected them to keep themselves absolutely neat and clean at all times and he said, "We will provide clean clothes for you to make sure this happens.". Then he told them, "If you want to go home then this is what you will have to do." He wanted them to know FSB was going to do everything they could to make it possible for them to go home as soon as they could, and said, "I don't want to see you again." He would then approach each and every boy asking him if they would make the same commitment to him. He even assured them that he would not allow any parole officer to interfere with any boy's schedule to go home as soon as he could. Starkey even had a recording made of these meetings and it was given to the staff so they would know what he had told the boys. Every staff member knew exactly what the Superintendent had told these boys.
As a professional who had worked with delinquent boys, Mr. Starkey knew that most of these kids had never been a winner. The power of positive thinking has always worked and these boys needed to feel good about themselves. The Fairfield School for Boys had a program with four levels. Starkey worked up a system of cards that were punched to keep track of the individual boys - the conduct, cooperation, or whatever and the boys turned in their punched cards regularly. The cards became a part of the permanent record. If the kids got to certain levels they got to wear a different shirt with colored borders signifying what level they were on. The boys were proud of those shirts and would holler across the yard telling Mr. Starkey about their new shirts. The boys had "TIGER TOUGH" buckles, in the background of that logo was the level color they had achieved. "How you boys doing?" Starkey would ask, and they replied, "Mr. Starkey, we're Tiger Tough."
He gave the boys something to work for. If the kids felt good about themselves it would help them behave with one another. In our interview Starkey told about the boys' involvement with the city, the police and the county. He had boys he sent to work at the police department. The cops would even take the boys out to lunch with them. When the Hall of Justice was built, Starkey took the boys into town and they moved all the furniture into the new Hall of Justice.
They used the Olympic swimming pool so they could find out what level of proficiency the boys could swim. They had several skill levels from "tadpoles" on up classifying their level of proficiency. They held special swimming training to prepare boys to become lifeguards. They would then offer these boys services to Miller Park Swimming Pool to be life guards at no charge. Miller Pool said they were better lifeguards than the ones they had to pay.
Former tackle #74 for the New York Giants has ambled off the field of service to his state and fellow citizens. Those who worked with Ralph C. Starkey admired him and he will be missed. More stories are in the works about this institution that was a model for the entire United States.
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Historical Sketches of the B.I.S.
by Bill & Jean Venrick
Lancaster, Ohio - Copyrighted 2009
LIFE - and words to help deal with it whatever your gender...
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us farther than to-day.
Trust no Future, however pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, act, in the living Present!
Heart within, and God overhead!
-- Longfellow.
+++
Our acts make or mar us,--we are the children of our own deeds.-- Victor Hugo.
Of all earthly music, that which reaches the farthest into heaven is the beating of a loving heart.-- Beecher.
If there is anything that keeps the mind open to angel visits, and repels the ministry of ill, it is human love.--Willis.
God sometimes washes the eyes of his children with tears in order that they may read aright His providence and His commandments.-- T. L.Cuyler.
The truest help we can render an afflicted man is not to take his burden from him, but to call out his best energy, that he may be able to bear the burden.-- Phillips Brooks.
Lamentation is the only musician that always, like a screech-owl, alights and sits on the roof of an angry man.-- Plutarch.
He is a fool who cannot be angry; but he is a wise man who will not.--Seneca.
Men in rage strike those that wish them best.-- Shakespeare.
Men often make up in wrath what they want in reason.-- W.R. Alger.
A man is known to his dog by the smell, to his tailor by the coat, to his friend by the smile; each of these know him, but how little or how much depends on the dignity of the intelligence. That which is truly and indeed characteristic of the man is known only to God.-- Ruskin
A man who is proud of small things shows that small things are great to him. -- Madame de Girardin
He who believes in nobody knows that he himself is not to be trusted.-- Auerbach.
Who escapes a duty avoids a gain.--Theodore Parker.
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Sometimes quotes are about all we can handle...
THE WORDWRIGHT
A couple essays ago I wrote about a small lard oil miner's lamp. Customarily some wrote stating they had never heard of such a lamp but they had known about the carbide lights (or lamps). My little lamp was popular before World War One, so that is a generalized authentication that my old miner's lamp is easily 100 years old. Big deal. There is a ten foot long bookcase (golden oak with walnut trim) behind me, with six doors on it (half of them still have the antique glass in them) that was most likely built on the premises of the Fairfield County Children's School 127 years ago or 27 years before my little lard oil lamp was manufactured in What Cheer, Iowa. This bookcase is filled with books, as are over a dozen other bookcases because we are "book people".
When I was twelve years old my Grandfather Harry E. Keadle told me stories about a long stick having been made from a school house where one of our presidents taught school. He told me that story many times and as I grew older he promised that one day that stick would be mine. Really it wasn't just a stick, it was a pointer like school teachers of years gone by used to point out places on a map or in drills of the letters and ciphers (as reading and arithmetic were "taught to the tune of the hickory stick" as the old song goes.).
My Grandfather Keadle's father, John R. Keadle, taught school and to my obvious dismay I never either knew or had wondered if my great grandfather had once used this pointer. But what I do know, my Great Grandfather John R. Keadle did teach school in Missouri when his son, my Grandfather Harry E. Keadle was born in Trenton, Missouri, in 1880. This old pointer is 41-1/8" long and the most narrow diameter is 5/8" at its point and 1-1/8" diameter at the end held by the teacher. It is obvious the pointer had been carved or shaped using a draw knife with the "hickory stick" held in a shaving horse. What is most impressive to me is the hand-cut (carved with a penknife no doubt) 1/4" high lettering on this antique school master's pointer:: "MADE FROM OLD SCHOOL HOUSE IN HARRISON TP, MUKINGUM CO., O. WHERE PRESIDENT JAMES A. GARFIELD TOT SCHOOL IN 1848." (With such a hand-carving job one has to allow the carver some license in not spelling out "taught" but carving "TOT" instead and he also left the "S" out of "Muskingum".)
Today, I now wonder if my Great Grandfather Keadle might have been the one who had used a draw knife to carve that pointer before his son was born in Missouri. Perhaps the words carved in the pointer were simply authentication of the pointer, where the hickory lumber came from and became part of his teaching aids. All this is conjecture obviously, but it sure makes a good story that I can now say I have shared about my interesting ancestors. Oh yes, I almost forgot. I also have an Autograph album he had passed around to his students (scholars as they were called) in Hooksburg, Ohio (Morgan County, just south of Muskingum County). On October 21, 1883, Lillie Fisher wrote:
To my teacher --
Tis sweet to be remembered
By those we trust are true,
Please think of me sometime
And I'll often think of you.
Apparently my great grandfather only taught in Missouri for a while and after their son was born he returned to Ohio where he continued teaching. There are only faded notes here and there so how long he taught cannot be determined. It is my understanding he was a student at Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, about the time the school became co-educational.
Do you get the idea that I enjoy old stuff?
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After I wrote "This Little Light of Mine" a good friend of mine, James Saddler in Huntsville, Alabama, sent me another lard oil lamp to add to my collection. The oil lamp Jim sent me was made by J. Anton & Son of Monongahela, PA., and has a patent date of 1904. MANY THANKS, JIM!
THE WORDWRIGHT
By T. J. Ray, Oxford, Mississippi
In those days I thought image was important, and I liked the image presented by several colleagues who smoked pipes. Despite the desire and the money I wasted, I never got the hang of smoking. Couple that with my distaste for cigarette smoke and my gagging at the whiff of cigar smoke, I played the fool for a while.
All that is another way of saying that I don't like smoking. I often asked my dad not to smoke, but I'm not sure his emphysema killed him, though it surely contributed to it. He never considered suing a tobacco company, just as he didn't join the group lawsuit against the asbestos companies. During the Big War, he worked in a shipyard where asbestos was used a lot. His argument was that the asbestos producers didn't set out to harm him.
And all that leads me to the announcement that a Florida jury has awarded three hundred million dollars to a lady who sued a tobacco company. "Cindy admitted her fault to the jury," her attorney, Robert W. Kelley, said in a statement. "But Philip Morris refused to accept any responsibility for her emphysema, even though she was an addicted customer for 25 years."
A jillion dollars for continuing to do something voluntarily for decades? I've stood in tobacco stores and convenience stores and watched folks purchase packs of smoke. Never have I seen a gun pointed at their heads. And year after year after year they do the same thing, often in the face of advice from their doctors to stop smoking. Even after their lung X-rays show the cloud gathering in their body.
From 1938 till 1974, subsidies were as integral to tobacco farming as rich soil and a damp climate. By 1977 tobacco production was growing without subsidies to farmers, mainly for export. Given the illogic of the woman in Florida getting three hundred million, one wonders if the day will come when a U.S. Company is sued by someone in another country for getting lung cancer.
The topic here is rather smoky; when does the individual accept personal responsibility for risking his or her own life? For instance, if a man takes a handful of aspirin each day because he heard it helps prevent heart attacks, should he be able to sue Bayer Aspirin when the pills eat a hole in his stomach? Or, if a person chooses to drink heavily, is it acceptable to file a lawsuit against the whiskey manufacturer when he becomes an alcoholic? Or, will the kid in San Francisco who uses marijuana excessively from free clinics be able to sue the city for his drug addiction? Just one more: why should McDonald's be liable for someone spilling hot coffee in a lap after they leave the store?
I wonder how many ashtrays were on the table in that Florida jury room.
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THANKS, T.J. I grew up smelling smoke on dad's clothes and never thought anything about it - and today no one seems to think much about it either. My father lived to nearly 93 and smoked a pipe, cigars, even chewed tobacco. Finally he went to cigarettes until one day his wife said, as she pulled out the last cigarette from the pack, "This is the last one for me." That's all it took, dad quit too. That was probably close to twenty years before he died - of old age. Personally I am glad I never started the habit of smoking. I wonder if today's tobacco might be more potent than it used to be or were smokers back then more potent than what they were smoking?
THE WORDWRIGHT
An historical essay by Bill Venrick.
The little miner's lamp above has been in my possession since I was about 13 or 14. On a rare visit, my Great Uncle John White, was telling the usual tall tales at our house when visiting my mother. My mother's family made quite an impression on my life which probably contributes to the reason I have had this little lard oil lamp for over sixty years.
In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, this incident was probably the first among assorted promises about which I had my doubts. My mother's Uncle John White was the kind of relative you weren't really sure what to believe or how much to count on. I can't recall ever having seen him except this one brief time as a young teenager. As he wove his yarn about this miner's lard oil lamp hanging on the wall of his cabin in Pine, Colorado, he saw my excitement and said he would send it to me when he got back home. I suppose the incidental comments by my parents tainted my expectations a bit and was I surprised to receive that promised miner's lamp a few weeks later. It came through the mail in a little cloth bag, with a drawstring tightly tied and a card-label attached. I doubt if anything comes through the mail like that anymore.
The "lard oil lamp" as he called it, was the predecessor to carbide lights (or lamps). The fuel for this lamp was melted lard and some entwined cord was fed down through the spout into that reservoir of lard. Once the entwined cord had become soaked with lard (oil) it acted as a wick and when lit would produce a large flame. I can still remember the rancid smell of that old lamp wick. Not only did the lamp have an unpleasant odor the smoke was another issue. It was easy to figure out why a different light was invented and carbide lights quickly became the better way to see in a coal mine.
I remember playing with carbide lamps. Once I recall play became rather serious when I didn't get the bottom screwed on tight enough. When I rubbed the flint wheel on the lamp face with the palm of my hand the whole thing became a big flame for just a second until I decided I was done messing with it and threw it to the ground. (Let's face it, that was over half a century ago and the details escape my memory) The mechanism in those carbide lamps was a little valve opening to allow water to drip into the lower part of the lamp where chunks of carbide were placed. This process produced acetylene gas which was forced out of a little orifice in the center of polished concave reflective surface. Igniting the lamp was simple, a little knurled wheel rubbed against flint making a spark to ignite the gas. It was a boy-thing toy at the time and I recall something about the "popping" sound of the flame being regulated by how long you kept your palm across the front of the lamp before igniting the gas.
I suppose I had that lard oil lamp forty years before I became a curious adult wondering where it was made. The identification on the lamp was brief: "What Cheer Tool Company, What Cheer, Iowa " There was a logo on the spout of this lamp with two letters: GB. I wrote to the town of What Cheer, Iowas and hoped for the best. Sure enough, some weeks later I received a letter from the mayor of What Cheer, Iowa, and in that letter he gave me a brief history of the company that made my little lamp. One fact I uncovered in my Internet search in Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia was the explanation of how the town got its name, What Cheer. It was not local Indian name as I had supposed but an American Indian name from New Jersey!
Only recently when I came across this old lamp in a box of antiques was my curiosity aroused even more. It was easy to find something on the Internet and Dave Johnson, a collector in Minnesota wrote, "It is a driver's lamp - a lamp used by mule drivers underground, as opposed to the smaller face lamp - a lamp used at the working face of the mine." Early lamps like mine and later carbide lamps were attached to the miner's cap. Technology changed of course and batteries became the energy (or fuel) to provide light simpler and perhaps a little safer as well. Mr. Johnson also wrote, saying, "Colorado had a large number of hard rock mines and many coal mines as well."
The What Cheer Tool Co. was a manufacturer of mining and other tools in What Cheer, Iowa. The lamps with their name were actually made by Grier Bros. Mfg. Co. of Ottumwa, Iowa, which is why the GB appears on the spout. "I have 5 different What Cheer oil wick cap lamps in my collection of more than 1200 different mine lamps," collector Dave Johnson wrote.
Dave Johnson's website of antique mining artifacts and pictures may be of interest to you if you would like to see dozens of such miner's lamps mentioned above:
http://miningartifacts.homestead.com/
OR -- http://miningartifactsii.homestead.com/MiscLamps.html
Now what from the maze of my memories can I dig out of some dusty box to write about next?
THE WORDWRIGHT --- Thanks for visiting!
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