Theresa McConnell San Experience
In the early spring (May) of 2011, I was continuing my research while helping on the model and came across mention
of a book entitled Bargaining for Life: A Social History of Tuberculosis, 1876-1938 by Barbara Bates. This book included
some information on the Cresson san and I found that the Carnegie Mellon Library in Pittsburgh had a copy. I asked my daughter-in-law,
who works in the science department at CM, if she would check the book out for me.
Coincidentally, my husband Mark and I were attending a Pirates baseball game shortly afterward so
we stopped to pick up the book that evening before the game. Late in the game my husband received a call from work. He's
a Physician Assistant at SCI Cresson and the call was asking him to come in to suture a patient. Mark explained that it would
be roughly two hours before he could be there since we were in Pittsburgh. He was told it wasn't an emergency situation.
We left the stadium and headed home.
It was almost midnight when we finally turned onto the winding drive that leads to SCI at Cresson. My husband parked
the car in the parking lot near the prison gatehouse. A misty fog was hanging over everything but the streetlights provided
scattered illumination over the parking area. I admit it was a bit unnerving sitting alone in the car near midnight in the
parking lot of a maximum security prison. But that feeling soon was replaced with an almost eerie feeling when I thought about
how uncanny it was that I was actually sitting in the midst of the very place mentioned in the book I was holding in my hands!
What were the odds?
While I waited
for my husband to finish suturing, I opened the book and by the light of the street lights, began perusing through sections
relating to theTB sanatorium at Cresson. There I was, sitting in the very place in which these historical accounts took place!
I looked out across the razor wire fencing that now surrounds
the prison and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness beyond, I could just make out the spire of Grace Chapel through the foggy
mist behind and a bit to the left of the prison gatehouse. To the right, a glimpse of the east end of Children's Home
could be seen vaguely through the shadowy darkness. I couldn't help but think about the stories I had read on your website
detailing the experiences of the patients and staff. Looking at the shadowy form of Children's Home, I thought of all
the children in preventorium care dwelling within those walls, often afraid and lonely, not understanding why suddenly their
lives had been turned upside-down.
It was an almost surreal experience. For months, dad and I had been working feverishly to make a model of the facility
in order to have a 3-D visual representation for those attending the upcoming reunion. Some of the people, whose stories I
had read and shared with dad, would be attending the reunion. They were people who had actually experienced and dealt with
the many harsh realities of tuberculosis, including the death of some in their midst. These people and many others, walked
through these very grounds! I tried to imagine it.
The old photos on your website depicted a beautiful background of evergreen and deciduous trees. I thought
of those beautiful scenes in the winter months. Tree limbs weighted down by heavy snowfall and ice typical on Cresson's
summit. In summer, flowering shrubs dotting the landscape...snowball bushes and mountain laurel among them. Wild flowers and
annuals adding splashes of color throughout the complex. Wildlife in abundance including the local deer population that wandered
about; squirrels, rabbits, and the many colorful, native song birds making their homes in the surrounding trees. In a word,
peaceful. In such contrast was the fact that it was a place where despair, fear, loneliness and even death was an everyday
fact of life. All of these thoughts filled my mind as I sat there enveloped in the misty darkness.
One of the things that really seemed strange to me as I sat in the car in this historical setting
that night, was that I actually heard some birds singing. Although it was a lovely, comforting sound, it is unusual
to hear birds singing at night. It really made me wonder! Again, I thought of all those who walked the difficult path of tuberculosis
here at Cresson and other such facilities. I like to think that maybe it was the whisper of voices from long ago in reassurance
that hope had prevailed and peace had been restored. It was a very unique experience to say the least.
|
