Calendar, June 1979

Motts, where those more magazine clippings or actual family pics ?

i wonder if they had anything planned durring that month, and if it was of dreadful interest

I went in Danvers for the 1st time and it was amazing it was around 10pm and there was music playing in the auditorium really freaky

i remember as a young kid visiting my grandmother at danvers state -- i know she had a lobotomy of some kind and at times she was restrained. i don't know why she was there but eventually i know my dad got her out. i would love to conect with others who might hav e som e connectiom. i remember such an eirey feeling going into danvers state hospital

I stayed there...not because I was insane...the developed later..but because of family stuff...I was only there when I was really little, but it changed me.

I was there for most of my childhood. My mother worked there and my brother lived there. Until I found this site, I had blocked most of the memories I had of this place. The site has braught back things to me that I thaught I would have never remembered again

Even though I was in a hospital here in south georgia, it still makes me remember things I had hidden deep in the recesses of my mind. Looking at these photos of Motts, it is good therapy in itself! Thanks Motts.

Oh, the reason why I was committed, my beloved husband hot killed in 2001 and this sent me into a spiral downard into deep depression and anxiety. I developed self-injury and this was what caused me to be committed, and these photos makes me think of the hospital I was in for a month.

I'm very sorry to hear about your husband...<333

jFlorida, the Auditorium was above the Kitchen. Early on they used to have shows but with budget costs that all stopped. I remember the day Govenor Michael Dukakis was there looking things over, that was in 1974. Brad I may have known your mother and brother. Contact me at: Danvers88@aol.com if you want to talk. deafangel these pics would definately bring back memories, it has for me today. I was not a patients, but an employee who loved the patients, I would do anything for them. I wanted to give them all an "E" key which was a skeleton key, it opened the wards doors. It was only a dream but if they could get out and be helped, it would stop the degeneration. When I quit in '75 to start college, the SAME patients were there with the SAME illnesses. They were no better and it really amazed me how they could just rot there for dozens of years and get no better. This also makes me think of how many empoyees started acting like patients. The longer you worked there, the more they acted like patients; like it was rubbnig off on them. I would have bought the place off the State and had it restored if money was no object. It's a true shame it's getting torn down. They better keep the center Kirkbride Building as promised. I think once they start tearing down, then they'll tell the State and Town of Danvers it's too dangerous and should really remove the Kirkbride building too! What do you think, will that happen or not? Time will tell...

Makes you wonder who owned the calander and if they would stare at it knowing that they couldn't get out

I was born in 1979, feb 05

Ah yes, June 18th, 1979. I remember it well. I, a boy of but 13 years, virgin and innocent. It was a warm, lazy monday and the Red Sox had just beaten the Tigers, 9-8. The Yankees had hired Billy Martin as their manager, for the second time around. The US and the Soviets signed the SALT II treaty, which limited each side's nuclear weapons. But I was too young to know what that meant. All I knew was that Louann Fernald was named Playmate of the Year, according to my fathers poorly hidden Playboy. Also on that day, tragically, I could not find my Van Halen album, the really good one with Running with the Devil. It wasn't until June 25th that I had learned that my sister had borrowed it, without permission, and that someone had sat on it in the back seat of her brand new Pacer. The day, poetically blackened on the calendar above, still invokes angst and pain. Damn you Motts for making me relive June 18, 1979!

wow june 1978 it says alot

After all these years to have the calendar still on the wall! That is something else.

Wow I'm looking at this calendar and thinking on June 28, 1979 it was my husband's 4th birthday...I wasn't even born yet. That's just amazing and also a tad unsettling! =)

omfg that is the most amazing picture ive ever seen....it is soooo sad...i love it!

thats a couple of months b4 i was born, lol

i was born in june '79.i hope i age better than the paper.

As long as your not mildewed and peeling, your doing good!

Wow..it"s so surreal....I had a cousin who was committed there with paranoid schizophrenia and later released. He finally ended up killing himself by jumping off a bridge into the Merrimack River :(

THE GHOSTS AREN'T THE ONLY THING TO BE AFRAID OF AT DANVERS. THE LAST TIME I WENT THERE THERE WAS THIS BIG DUDE CHACING SOMEONE. I REMEMBER THE PERSON RUNNING IN THE BUILDING WITH A FLASHLIGHT SCREAMING AND THE PERSON RIPPING THE WOOD OFF THE BUILDING ON THE OUTSIDE TO GET IN AFTER THE PERSON. THEN LATER ON PROBABLY LIKE 15 MIN LATER ME AND MY FRIENDS HEARD A GUN SHOT AND A WEID SOUND LIKE A GOOSE JUST GOT SHOT BUT REALLY LOUD. AFTER THAT WE GOT THE FUCK OUT OF THERE CAUSE I WASNT GONNA GET SHOT TOO! THIS WAS LIKE 6 YEARS AGO WHEN I WAS 17

Carrie, love you sweetie, but for the love of god please take your caps lock off. Thank you sugar.

i agree carrie the really scary people left a long time ago.

i mean to say the scary people came after it closed.

Creepy... I was born in June of 1979 :P

Creepy for me too. I was 8 years old on June 11, 1979 which is one of the few very clear days left showing on the calendar.

When i came to this world a month later, this was still a new calendar hung on a nice, clean wall... funny how time slips away...

This is a sad but yet calming photo

No comment needed

Gosh, this makes me feel bad

Hey I wonder if they had people Magazine or Allure

To me, it seems kinda pointless to have a calendar in a mental hospital, unless it was for the benefit of the staff. I mean, I'm sure most of the patients were too "out of it" most of the time, if not all of the time, to know, or even care, what day, month, or year it was, anyway, and in a place like that, I'm sure each day was pretty much the same as the day before.

Anyway, thanks, Mr. Motts, for this site which has to be one of THE most fascinating on the Web. You can actually spend HOURS on here! There is no question that you are a MASTER photographer!

This weirds me out, my boyfriend was born in 1979 (myself 1985).. and it doesnt seem that long ago.
But this picture makes it seem a LOT longer ago than it really is.

June 1979, Indeed a good month.
I was living happy in the midwest, where a good days work, meant a good living for the family. Now, something different...indeed.

As others have said - 1979 doesn't seem like that long ago. And to see such extreme deterioration in that time makes me take a better look at my 62-y.o. face in the mirror. Or, maybe I should refrain.

Where were we all in June, 1979?

was in North Carolina at the time

wasn't born yet :(

not even planned ; (

June 1979? I was working as a paramedic/firefighter in Charleston West Virginia. Disco, polyester, big hair, and ugly cars were all the rage.

In my short stay at a hospital, there were no clocks or calendars anywhere. We weren't allowed watches either and the things brought in by family members had to be thoroughly examined. I wasn't allowed a date book (due to spiral binding.) It was as if they erased the days and time. It did work. I walked out of there having no idea what month it was.

June 1979...

I was 8 years and 4 months old and I remember spending the Summers up in Canada with my mom, brother, and step-IDIOT (I mean father) and having all day to explore, fish off of our private dock of the cabin we'd rented or swim.

That was one heck of a Summer for me, even though shortly after that, my step-father beat my mom and us and got taken out of the house by the PoPo. :( I was so glad he was gone though. It was still a great year because now we didn't have to live in fear anymore and I didn't have to hear my mom crying all the time.

June 1979....the summer of my 17th birthday (6/29, no mold on it!)
Working designing chenille varsity letters and bowling shirt embroidery, cycling after work to the pool, chasing girls, not catching them, Hanging with friends at the drive-in theater...
weighed 145 lbs. at 6'
Summers seemed to stretch out forever in those days.
Ah, those halcyon days of yore...Golly where has the time gone?
NOW I'm depressed! LOL!