Haven for Hope— Hattie Larlham Foundation

Haven for Hope

THE HATTIE LARLHAM FOUNDATION BY ERIN ESMONT

Above: Hattie Larlham (left) opened her Portage County home to children with profound intellectual and developmental disabilities starting with one child in 1961.

Left, clockwise from top left: Hattie Larlham on an Indian Motorcycle in a photo taken about 1935; Hattie as a young nurse about 1937; detail of a Gadd family photo about 1945, with Hattie (front row left) and her mother (center); Hattie Larlham about 1990.

All photographs courtesy of the Hattie Larlham Foundation Hattie Gadd Larlham had witnessed countless births in her 25 years as a nurse. Most were joyous occasions, producing healthy, thriving babies. But others were not.

At that time—1961—babies with profound intellectual and developmental disabilities were considered “non-salvageable.” Doctors had few answers for heartbroken parents. No facilities or services existed for those younger than six. Some families hid their children in attics and basements, out of view.

It was against this backdrop that Hattie Larlham answered her farmhouse door in Mantua, Portage County, to find her friend and neighbor, Jennie, had just delivered her fourth baby, Alice, and there were complications. Alice was born with no vocal cords and inoperable hydrocephalus that enlarged her head and destroyed body function. After months in the hospital, she was no better. Insurance benefits had run out, and the family was days away from depleting its finances. OVERWHELMED AND ILL-EQUIPPED

The hospital had no choice but to send Alice home with her overwhelmed, ill-equipped parents. Now what? Jennie wondered.

Hattie Larlham prayed on it, consulted others and fretted to her husband, Dick, and their three children: “Why doesn’t someone do something?” Son Charles, a high school senior, replied: “Aren’t we someone?” That was the nudge she needed. She quit her good-paying nursing job and took the baby in. Baby Alice was the first. Next came Larry, Jamie, Cocoa, Becky, Roberta, Charity... . In all, 10 children with severe medical needs crowded into the three-bedroom farmhouse with the five Larlhams. As word spread in the community, the waiting list grew to 100. In her memoir, Dear Children, Hattie wrote of those early days and included photographs. In one, she is in her starched white nurse’s uniform and cap, smiling, and cradling Alice in her arms. “In the evening, I pulled Alice’s bed close to mine,” she wrote. “Every night for the next two years, I slept with my hand against her body.” Alice passed away before her third birthday.

Without fully realizing it, Mrs. Larlham was charting a course that would help reshape attitudes and treatment for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In a few short years, she would establish the Hattie Larlham Foundation, develop a namesake residential facility for children and advocate for basic rights, laws and funding. She would advise three U.S. presidents on policy. “She helped write the book on how to care for individuals with disabilities,” says Stephen Colecchi, chief executive officer at Hattie Larlham, the organization that today carries on Mrs. Larlham’s legacy. It provides care and services to more than 1,600 children and adults in the state.

A BUSY TIME

It’s been 60 years since Charles “Chuck” Larlham put that fateful question to his mother. He remembers that period in his family’s life as busy, disruptive at times and requiring sacrifices of everyone. He did odd jobs and worked as a night aide, always attentive to whether a child’s breathing became irregular or stopped. Then, he’d wake his mother to check.

“I don’t think she ever got a full night’s sleep as long as they were in the house,” he says. His mother was a force, constantly “go, go, go.” “Envision this,” he says. “The woman is 5-foot-10, she wears 2-inch heels, sensible heels, now she’s 6 feet. Then she piles up her hair in a ‘40s and ’50s ‘do and sticks a nurse’s cap on top. Now she’s about 6-foot-4 when she walks through the door. She’s straight as a pine tree. She walked like a queen.” His father, who stood 5 feet 8 inches, was an operating engineer originally from New York. He’d been toughened by the union wars there and cut an imposing figure himself. He came to dote on the children under their care. Louise, known as “Weedgie,” captured his heart. Dick Larlham would

She was an absolute warrior for the kids, and she absolutely loved every one of them. I don’t know how she survived all those years. She was brokenhearted when they died, when they left, when they were adopted.

come home from work, pick her up, put her feet on his and dance her around the room.

Hattie Larlham had hoped Chuck, the eldest, would major in hospital administration and run things one day, but he became an environmental engineer. “I just, frankly, I couldn’t deal with all the pain those families went through,” he says. He watched families grieve from the loss of a child, or the realization their child would never get better. He’s proud of the work his family did, and the partnership his parents forged to better the lives of those with disabilities.

PEACEFUL, HOPEFUL AND FANCIFUL

His mother’s motivation to help children, especially the most vulnerable, had roots in her upbringing. “Because my childhood was peaceful, hopeful, fanciful, I came to believe that it should be so for all children,” Hattie Larlham wrote in her memoir, Dear Children. “Even at an early age, I had a deep sense of wanting to do something worthwhile for God and humanity.” Hattie Lena Gadd was born May 13, 1914, in Reader, West Virginia, the youngest of 11 children, to parents she described as “humble mountain people.” Her father was a lay minister who rode the circuit handing out welfare supplies and preaching the gospel. Her mother ran the farm, raised the kids and tended to sick neighbors. When a diphtheria outbreak gripped the area, Hattie went on rounds with her mother, providing care. She was valedictorian of her high school class, but that joy was cut short when her 73-year-old father died suddenly days before the ceremony. She delivered her speech in a grief-stricken state. HEADED TO OHIO

The loss unleashed in her a desire to move, get far away and seek adventure. She headed to Ohio for work in a wool factory, followed by nursing school in Youngstown. A short time later, she met and married Dick.

She suffered three miscarriages in five years, a painful period that caused her to reaffirm her faith. The couple, who’d spent five years on the road for Dick’s work, put down roots at the farmhouse in Mantua, where soon the sound of their three young children filled the air.

Before long, Baby Alice would arrive, followed by the others. With each child she cared for, Hattie was picking up valuable insights that would one day evolve into standard practice in the field. From Jamie, an infant with hydrocephalus so severe he couldn’t be held or turned in his crib, she learned the importance of early intervention, stimulation and socialization. Charles and his siblings Giles and Lyndella talked to the children, gave them love and attention and held their tiny hands. Aides and doctors were brought in to help—and to observe. Doctors would send families to the farmhouse to have their questions answered. Soon, neighbors, church friends, her husband’s union brethren, families she had helped and wealthy benefactors—including the great-grandson of President Garfield—stepped in, providing money, resources and helping hands. When it came time to expand and build a facility, the Larlhams’ homestead made the perfect spot. Today, the Hattie Larlham Center for Children with Disabilities is a 122,000-square-foot facility tucked among the hills and farms of Mantua. Husband Dick picked the name to honor his wife. Here, 124 children and adults, all in wheelchairs, receive constant care. They live in one- to fourbedroom suites decorated to suit their preferences. Residential pods have names like Cascade Falls and Whispering Meadows. There is a theatre room, a warm-water pool, a multisensory room and a wheelchair-accessible outdoor playground and indoor play space. THE REALIZATION OF A DREAM

The Center is the realization of Mrs. Larlham’s dream that children with disabilities could live in a homelike setting with round-the-clock medical care, therapeutic services and family support. Mrs. Larlham, who died in 1996, could not have foreseen all the directions her dream would go. The Hattie Larlham organization now extends throughout northeast and central Ohio with group homes, supported living homes, adult day services, the Dahlberg Gibson Learning Center in Columbus and a home-care program.

Top: Hattie Larlham helped reshape attitudes and treatment for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Bottom: The Larlhams welcomed new commercial washing machines about 1965.

Dick and Hattie Larlham celebrate an anniversary, probably about 1962

Then there’s Hattie’s Doggie Day Care and Boarding business, with locations in Twinsburg and North Canton. It’s run by adults with disabilities who also enjoy the therapeutic benefit of working with animals. For nearly 17 years, Mrs. Larlham was the administrator of the children’s center in Mantua, a role she held until 1977, when she and Dick, who served as development director and chief fundraiser, retired. Her advocacy work continued, although the couple enjoyed more time with their own children and grandchildren. Hattie Larlham’s final resting place is where it all began—on the land where the farmhouse once stood and where she first took in Baby Alice. Her husband is buried next to her.

The day after her death, he told the Akron Beacon Journal: “My sentiment is that Ohio and the rest of the world lost a great woman. I've never met a person who just went after things, as long as it was good, like she did.”

Dick and Hattie Larlham at their 1977 retirement from the Hattie Larlham Foundation

Erin Esmont is a freelance writer and editor. An Ohio native, she worked at newspapers in Ohio and Pennsylvania. She lives in Columbus with her family.

LEARN MORE LEARN MORE

In his admittedly “biased” review of Hattie Larlham’s memoir, Dear Children, her son, R.C. Larlham, wrote that his mother and father “created the definitive, and still the world’s benchmark treatment center for profoundly damaged children.”

Visit the Hattie Larlham Foundation website at hattielarlham.org.

I’ve never met a person who just went after things, as long as it was good, like she did.