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Cresson TB Sanatorium Remembered
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Chuck 5
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"Time On My Hands"
The medical activities soon became
a standard routine. Pills with your meals every day, two shots of streptomycin and a refill of air each week and an x-ray
and sputum test each month. The daily routine in the ward, shown below, was fixed and never varied.
Ward Daily Routine
6 am Wake
up
7:30 -8
am
Breakfast
8 – 9 am
Free time
9-10 am
Rest period in bed
10-11:30
Free time and doctor’s rounds
11:30-12 am
Lunch
12-1:00
pm Free
time
1-3 pm
Rest period in bed
3-4:30 pm
Free time
4:30-5 pm
Dinner
5-6 pm
Free time
6-7 pm
Rest period in bed
7-9 pm
Free time
9 pm
Bedtime and lights out
10 pm
Radio turned off
During rest periods, patients were expected to lie down flat and rest.
Even sedentary activities such as reading or writing letters were not allowed. Patients were expected
to be in bed from 9 pm at night to 6 am in the morning. Combining this with the 4 hours of rest periods
during the day meant that patients were in bed resting a minimum of 13 hours a day. Another 3 hours
were spent sitting by your bed eating meals, which brought the total rest time (in-bed and sitting) to 16 hours.
That still left 8 hours of free time a day to fill, so there was still
a lot of "Time On My Hands" as the old song said. To its credit, the san did its best to provide entertainment and
recreation for the patients, which included the following activities.
Games: Of course, the men patients could spend lots of
time playing cards, with bridge, pinochle and hearts being the favorites. They always played for fun, never for money.
What would be the point, with nowhere to spend it? They only board games I ever saw men play were checkers and chess.
TV:
It was 1955 when I was there and we did have TV to watch, black & white, of
course. The TV was located in a large sunlit solarium between the two wards. The solarium was furnished
with comfortable leather chairs and couches which made for enjoyable viewing. It's been so long ago that I can't
remember what specific programs I watched. In fact, I don't remember watching TV very much while at the san.
TV was still in its infancy and hadn't yet become a part of our DNA. There were only a few channels to watch and
not that many shows worth watching.
Radio: Radio was available
to each patient, even though the selection was rather limited. As shown in Photo 1 at the right, each bed had a small
white metal box strapped to the bed frame near the patients head. The box had a headphone jack port, a volume control and
a two position toggle switch, up or down. Each patient had a headphone set which could be plugged into the jack to listen
to radio stations. This was better than nothing, but the toggle switch meant you had your choice of only
two radio stations. The choice of stations available for listening during the day was controlled by an employee in the
administration building. I remember they played a lot of music during the day, both popular and classical. During
the evening in summer one radio channel had the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball games for the men. I have no idea what
the other channel had on for the women. (Yes, I probably was a sexist male pig, but this was 1955 and I had lots of
company). The radio was much more important to me than TV since it could be enjoyed while sitting or lying
in bed relaxing.
It was during my 12 months in the ward that I developed an appreciation for classical music.
I would lie on my bed with my eyes closed and the headphones on listening to a classical selection. With the sights
and sounds of the san temporarily blocked out, it was just the music and my mind, which I let relax and envision mental pictures
which went along with the music. It was my way of mentally escaping the ward for an hour or two a day. Now that
I think of it, it wasn't much different than listening to a Walkman now, except I wasn't walking.
The san also had a small radio station located in the basement. It consisted basically
of a turntable, microphone and a stack of records. Twice a week in the evenings a patient who was on meals acted as
the DJ and did a musical request show. The requests were along the line of, "Here's Moonlight Serenade from John in
Ward L to Betty in Ward A". I always wondered what John and Betty had going on, but never found out. Ron Nowicki
had the DJ job for several months in 1954 when he was on meals and I had it for three months in 1956. Small world!
Go to "Nowicki 2" page to see a photo of Ron behind the golden WSAN microphone.
I witnessed a cultural change in music in 1955 when I was in the ward.
The popular songs of the day were by recording artists such as Eddie Fisher, Perry Como and Patti Page. But one day
that summer I heard a song that was so strange that I thought it must be a joke. The singer wasn't enunciating
the words clearly like I was used to hearing, but was slurring them so it was hard to understand the lyrics. There were
loud, discordant guitars playing and the words and music were echoing back on each other. Even before the song was over,
I was thinking that this singer better find another line of work, because this noise would never sell. As the song concluded,
the DJ announced that the title was "Heartbreak Hotel" by a new singer named Elvis Presley. Never did I imagine
that just one year later in 1956 when I was doing the WSAN request radio program that Elvis Presley, Pat Boone, Fats Domino
and Chuck Berry would be the rage and that Rock 'N Roll would be here to stay!
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Books: My favorite pastime of
all in the ward was reading. It was my lifeline as it passed the hours in the day and kept my mind active. I had
always been an avid reader. One of the reasons I looked forward to summer vacation so much in high school was that I
would finally have time to read some good books of my choosing. Even today, one of the greatest pleasures of retirement is having
uninterrupted time to read a book and become thoroughly engrossed in it. It was no different
at the san, where I could devour a book in just a couple of days. I read stories of all genres including adventure,
detective, historical, autobiographies and scientific. Thank goodness the san had a library or my folks would have
gone broke supplying me with books. The san library was quite extensive, much like any small town library. I believe
many of the books were donated by local schools and libraries and covered a wide range of topics. For
those too sick to make it to the library, the san provided a mobile library cart which came through the wards about twice
a week. Magazines such as Saturday Evening Post and Life were available to keep us up to date on the latest world
news. Photo 2 shows the mobile book cart. I believe the gentleman shown on the right in the photo was a former
patient who stayed on to run the library.
School: The
san provided several school teachers so that patients could continue the learning process. Patients whose high school work was interrupted because of illness and who are unable to attend
the Sanatorium school received bedside instruction. This included me. I knew it would be some time, several years
probably, before I would start college so I wanted to keep my mind active and not forget what I had learned in high school.
The teacher who taught me was Miss Mary Mackereth. She was a one-woman show and was capable of teaching all subjects
from first grade through senior high school. That's her at the right in Photo 3 teaching an unidentified TB patient
in the ward in 1958. She taught children in the preventorium and adults in the men's and women's wards.
She sat by my beside several times a week for the twelve month I was in the ward and tutored me in math , science and
English. She would assign me homework which we would go over the following week. Helping people to learn was her
passion and she continually encouraged me in my goal to go to college. After I made meals, I continued my studies
with Miss Mackereth at the schoolhouse.
OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY: An Occupational Therapy Department was established in February 1951, with the appointment of a trained occupational
therapist. Occupational therapy is a treatment used in conjunction with medical therapy and rehabilitation. Patients
at the san had always done some occupational therapy on their own such as fancy work, leather wallets
and handbags and costume jewelry. The ward patient in Photo 4 at the right is making dolls for sale to visitors at the
san General Store.
| Photo 5. |
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| REACH FOR THE SKY, PARTNER! |
I made one leather item during my time in the ward, but it was quite an
involved project. It was a black leather 2-gun holster set, all hand tooled with whip stitched edging. I made it for my twelve year old brother Tom to show him that I was still alive and
thinking of him. Because of his young age, he was not allowed to visit me in the ward during the year I was there and
only had reports from my folks as to how I was progressing. This was my way of telling him I was doing OK. That's
Tom on the left in Photo 5 wearing his one-of-a-kind gun belt set on our front porch.
I had lots of help and guidance from some of my fellow patients who had been making leather crafted
items for years in the san. They showed me how each step in the process was done, from designing a pattern,
cutting out the leather, tooling it with leather punches and hand stitching it together and then let me actually make
it. It took about four months from start to finish. I sent away to a mail order firm that made non-firing replica
guns and ordered two full-sized civil war type revolvers made of metal, approximately the same weight as the real guns.
I think the finished holster and guns together weighed almost as much as my brother. I had the whole rig fumigated
and gave it to my folks to give to Tom. To this day, I still take greater pride in having made that gun belt set
for my brother than almost anything else I have ever made.
I also made a gift for my mom while I was in the ward.
It consisted of several doilies made by repeatedly looping string around the pegs of a hexagonal frame and tying knots at
all the intersections. The color choices of yarn were very limited and I chose green and gray, as shown in Photo 6.
They were very simple and not very pretty, but my mother treated them like the crown jewels. She always had them
out on display during the next twenty-five years until her death in 1980. They were handed down to me and I have
them today.
Many patients enjoyed making hand crafted items while in the wards.
While it's true that it was a way to keep busy and pass the time, it was primarily a tangible way we could
express our love to family and friends, so it was a real labor of love. And I'm sure these gifts were treasured
and handed down as family heirlooms.
Click on the following link to see occupational therapy photos:
The Perfect Patient
The doctor who made the rounds in my ward and gave us updates on our medical
condition was Khairi Boustani, who was from India and doing a short residency at the sanatorium. He was tall, had classic
Indian features and was movie star handsome. I think the younger nurses all had crushes on him. Maybe some
of the older ones, too.
The other men in my ward had already been there for some time and were anxious to get home,
many to their wives and children. So they would all bombard Dr Boustani with questions like when would they
make meals and how long before they were discharged. I, on the other hand, had just gotten there and knew it was pointless
at this early stage of my treatment to even ask such questions. I would listen politely to Dr. Boustani's
update on my condition and thank him at the end.
In short order, Dr. Boustani began touting me as the perfect patient to the other men
in my ward. He would say,"Why can't you be like Mr. Felton? He doesn't worry about when he will make meals or
be discharged. He follows doctor's orders and relaxes both his mind and body in order to get well faster." To
prove to the other men just how perfect I was, I would be resting in bed like Saint Charles with a halo over my head, soaking
up all this praise, while the rest of the men just glared at me. Fortunately, their frustration with me was soon
forgotten over a game of pinochle.
Men Will Be Men
Even in a TB sanatorium, there were some things men couldn't live without: alcohol and tobacco.
The official policy of the medical staff was that both substances were banned. But they basically turned a blind
eye to both because they just couldn't put a stop to it. Smoking in the ward was not tolerated, but was allowed in the
locker room or out on the porch
It may seem incredible to realize that men and women with TB still smoked cigarettes.
But this was in 1955, before the link between smoking and diseases of the lungs had been established. It
was also a time when cigarettes were advertised on TV and in magazines. Most ads even claimed that smoking was somehow
good for you by reducing stress or having a soothing effect on your throat. If you felt like overeating, just light
up and take a few drags until it took the edge off your food craving (I think this is one reason that people smoke today,
appetite suppression). And if that wasn't enough, how could you doubt Santa Claus and Doctors, as in the ads below?
Santa was always jolly because he was puffing on a Lucky Strike
cigarette. And when it was claimed that 9 out of 10 doctors smoked Camels, why that should be all the proof anyone
needed that they were healthy. It was a standard joke at the san that the cigarette smoke was probably killing more TB germs than the drugs we ingested.
Alcohol was available
as well, but it was never low alcohol content drinks like beer or wine. All the men preferred the hard stuff like whiskey,
gin, scotch and vodka. When you've only got time for a quick nip from the bottle, you wanted to make it count.
You might think that men being
cooped up in a hospital would become raging drunks. But in the twelve months I was in the ward, I only saw one patient
get really drunk. I distinctly remember the occasion because during the night Jim fell out of bed and knocked over
his night stand, making a hell of a noise as his sputum cup, water glass and personal items went crashing to the floor.
The nurses and orderlies rushed in and turned the light on. I looked over at Jim to see him lying on the floor with
blood all over his face. We all thought he was hemorrhaging. But it turned out that he had banged his head on
the corner of his night stand on his way to the floor, opening up a long gash in his scalp, which was the source of all the
blood. The next morning he had a neat row of stitches in his scalp and was properly abashed for making such a spectacle
of himself. After all, who wants to be known as a guy who can't hold his liquor?
The alcohol seemed to flow a little more freely at Christmas
time, just as it did outside the san. Dick Spriggs, the san barber, came up with an idea to deliver an alcoholic treat
to the patients at Christmas which was hidden right in plain sight. He took a syringe, filled it with vodka
and injected it into an orange, making a perfect undetectable non-spill screwdriver. The men really looked
forward to Dick's tasty Christmas treats as he passed them out to the ward patients. All you had to do was peel
the orange, separate the sections and enjoy a little holiday cheer.
I, of course, was young and innocent and didn't indulge in either cigarettes or alcohol. (That
came later when I was in college. Like I said at the beginning, there are some things men can't do without.)
SEX
While patients couldn't give up alcohol and cigarettes, almost all the patients in the wards
were forced to give up having sex. There were some exceptions though. For instance, there were several married
couples who both had TB and were both patients at the san. They would occasionally meet in the basement tunnels at night
for a conjugal visit. There was no real attempt to hide this, so the rest of the patients and nurses knew this was going
on, but since they were married it seemed perfectly natural. In fact, using some perverse kind of reasoning, the
other married men envied these couples and almost wished their wives had TB so they could have sex! It
was rumored that other non-married couples were also meeting for sex, but if they were, it was kept strictly secret (this
was 1955 after all) and I never knew who they were.
It was a slightly different situation once you made meals and were meeting women in the dining
room. Some patients became a "couple' while on meals. There probably was some hanky-panky going on, but I
really don't know for sure. Most of these romances ended when one of them was discharged from the san.
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