Week 18, Institutions: The Pownal State School

Week 18 of the 2025's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks covers institutions.

Ralph Owen Turner’s obituary wasn’t remarkable in any obvious way.  He was my grandfather’s youngest Turner cousin, the son of Harry Turner and Josephine (Elliott) Turner Spear.  On July 22, 1967, the Kennebec Journal reported that the 42-year-old died at Reddington Memorial Hospital in Skowhegan, Maine, and left behind his mother, two sisters, and a brother.  On the surface it paints the picture of a bachelor who died relatively young.  If it wasn’t for census records, we’d think nothing of this part of the obituary, “He lived in Readfield before moving to Pownal where he resided for 31 years.”  Census records reveal a darker truth.  Ralph didn’t reside in Pownal, Maine for most of his life – he lived in New Gloucester, Maine at the Pownal State School.  Ralph spent the majority of his life in an institution.

The boy's dormitory at the Pownal State School around 1937. The dormitory housed about 150 boys. Picture from the Maine Memory Network used with permission from the New Gloucester Historical Society. Used for educational purposes in compliance with copyright law.

Pownal was originally founded in 1908 as the Maine School for the Feeble-Minded.  The name changed over the years, but the purpose didn’t.  Pownal wasn’t just a place for the intellectually disabled, although that was the official narrative.  In reality, people – often children -- were institutionalized for a wide range of reasons: poverty, being born out of wedlock, having epilepsy or autism (long before either term was understood), or simply because they were slow to learn in school.  Sometimes it was parents who brought them in, overwhelmed and unsure what else to do.  Other times, it was the state that decided a child or adult was better off out of sight.  Judges and social workers had the power to commit someone with very little oversight.  Once inside, there wasn’t much hope of coming back out.

We don’t know why Ralph was sent there, but it may be because he had some type of mental disability.  Ralph was the youngest child in his family.  His father, Harry, died when he was four, and though his siblings were mentioned in the local newspaper for their sporting or academic achievements, Ralph was conspicuously absent.  By 1940, Ralph, aged 14, was listed as an inmate at the Pownal State School.  The census also revealed that in 1935 he was living in rural Kennebec County.  Based on the information in his obituary, he was most likely committed in 1936 when he was 11 years old.     

What was life like for Ralph at the Pownal School?  Based on first-hand accounts from former inmates, Ralph would have been separated from his family and put to work almost immediately.  The school operated like a self-contained world.  It had a farm, a laundry, a kitchen, and fields to tend.  Residents worked all day—not as part of some enriching activity plan, but because the institution relied on their labor to run.  Inmates weren’t paid and most were neither told nor understood why they were there.  At best, Ralph was probably confused, and at worst homesick. 

Privacy was almost nonexistent in the crowded dormitories.  Boys and girls were housed separately, but many shared beds and wore donated clothes.  The food was basic.  Medical care was minimal.  There were no TVs, no bookshelves, no cozy blankets or hobbies or home-cooked smells.  One day bled into another, broken only by chores and mealtimes. You might get a visit from your family now and then—if they could make the trip.  Without access to Ralph’s files, it’s impossible to know whether his family visited him.  Hopefully they did.

Abuse—physical, emotional, and even sexual—was not only common, but rarely reported. After all, who would believe a child or adult deemed unfit to speak for themselves Punishments could be harsh, including isolation, restraint, and forced compliance through medication.  One former staffer once remarked that discipline took precedence over care.

And then there were the sterilizations.  Maine passed a law in 1925 allowing for the forced sterilization of people in state institutions, and Pownal followed through.  Between the 1930s and 1960s when Ralph was there, dozens—likely more—were sterilized without their full understanding or any real consent.  It was part of a wider eugenics movement that aimed to “protect” society by preventing certain people from reproducing.

Still, life at Pownal wasn’t always cruel.  Some staff cared deeply and did their best with the resources they had.  Many residents formed friendships that lasted a lifetime.  There were dances, picnics, and holiday celebrations – they even had an active Boy Scout Troop. Unfortunately, those bright times existed in a system that was built, above all, on control.  During the years Ralph was there, the institution changed slowly.  It wasn’t until the late 1960s that conversations about deinstitutionalization began in earnest.

It’s easy to think of institutions like Pownal as relics from another time, but the echoes are still with us.  The stories of those who lived there, for the most part, were never told.  People like Ralph might have lived very different lives, if given a chance.  Ralph’s obituary gave only the barest outline of his life, but the details reveal a more complex story—one shared by many who spent time at Pownal.  His experience reminds us that behind institutional walls were real people with families, histories, and lives that mattered.

Sources:

Pownal Hall, Pownal State School, ca. 1937 [circa], 1937, New Gloucester, Cumberland County, Maine, photographic print, New Gloucester Historical Society, New Gloucester, Maine. https://www.mainememory.net/record/25642

Maine Historical Society, Institutional Care: From 'Feeble-Minded' to 'Disabled', Maine Memory Network, slideshow, https://www.mainememory.net/sitebuilder/site/2174/page/3621/display : accessed 30 April 2025.

Disability Rights Maine, “Pownal State School and Law on Sterilization,” Out of the Shadows, https://www.outoftheshadowsmaine.org/stories/pownal-state-school-and-law-on-sterilization : accessed 28 April 2025.

University of Vermont, “Maine Eugenics,” The Eugenics Survey of New England, https://www.uvm.edu/~eugenics/ME.html : accessed 30 April 2025.

Maine Historical Society, “Residents, Pownal State School, ca. 1937,” Maine Memory Network, item 101631, https://www.mainememory.net/artifact/101631 : accessed 1 May 2025.

“Pineland Farms,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineland_Farms: accessed 28 April 2025.

Disability Rights Maine, “Timeline,” Out of the Shadows, https://www.outoftheshadowsmaine.org/timeline : 30 April 2025.

Disability Rights Maine, “Trailer Transcript,” Out of the Shadows, https://www.outoftheshadowsmaine.org/trailer-transcript : accessed 30 April 2025.

Kennebec Journal (Augusta, Maine), 22 July 1967, p. 8, obituary for Ralph Owen Turner; digital image, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/article/kennebec-journal-obituary-for-ralph-owen/116055557 : accessed 3 May 2025).