State Hospital Celebrates Bittersweet 60th Birthday

The mission-style facades and red-tiled roofs sparkled as spectators gathered in their Sunday best.

In the courtyard outside California’s newest landmark, Gov. Frank Merriam posed with rancher Adolfo Camarillo and other dignitaries in front of scores of observers seated nearby in folded chairs.

Throughout the morning, speeches were delivered, backs were slapped and photographers documented the moment.

The auspicious occasion that unfolded on a sunny autumn day 60 years ago this week was the grand opening of Camarillo State Hospital, a tribute to the state’s commitment to the mentally ill.

Wednesday afternoon, it was chocolate cake and fruit punch to celebrate the anniversary.

More than 500 hospital workers attended the celebration, a party haunted by the current governor’s plans to shut down the facility next summer.

“It’s really nice that they’re doing this in remembrance of the hospital’s birthday,” said Ed Tripp, a psychiatric technician who has worked at the facility for nearly 19 years.

“I was here at the 50th anniversary,” Tripp said. “But this one is more special because the hospital is closing.”

Gov. Pete Wilson recommended in January that the institution be closed because of a dropping patient load and the increasing cost of treating the 800 or so patients that are left.

A Wilson-appointed task force will meet Friday--in the same room that hosted the birthday celebration--to discuss plans to convert the hospital to a state university.

*

Throughout the staff conference room Wednesday, however, were reminders of what the hospital has seen and provided over the past six decades.

On one wall hung portraits of the dedication speeches. Nearby, a baseball jersey from years past hung neatly, once worn by hospital workers in contests against rival state facilities.

Another wall was decorated with portraits of psychiatric technicians newly graduated from Ventura College. On a table close by was a quilt handcrafted by nurse Ellie Ignacio, who had stitched together scraps of gowns worn by hospital patients in the 1970s.

The original register of patients, who were transported to the hospital by train in November 1936, was displayed on another table, its pages yellow with age.

Many of the exhibits stirred memories for Howard “Buster” Smith, who worked his way up from a ward attendant in 1951 to hospital management by the time he retired in 1993.

“I’m enjoying seeing people I haven’t seen for a long time,” said Smith, a Ventura County native whose mother also worked for decades at Camarillo State.

“This place was a big part of my life,” he said, shaking hands with old acquaintances and swapping career stories. “It should be a big part of other people’s lives, but it’s going to close.”

*

Smith, who began his Camarillo State career at a time when the facility treated more than 6,000 patients, said much has changed since he was first hired out of high school.

“The primary focus here now is patient care,” he said. “It probably wasn’t always that way.”

Cathie Wright, the Republican state senator from Simi Valley who is trying to keep the hospital open, spent a few minutes congratulating workers for treating so many people over the decades.

“Today is a very bittersweet day,” she said. “To have a facility for 60 years and then suddenly to be considered not worthy, that bothers me.

“I want you to know I haven’t given up,” Wright added. “I feel like a lone wolf, but I’m used to that.”

Moments later, she presented administrators with a proclamation honoring the hospital’s anniversary.

In a quiet corner of the party, executive secretary Betty Lee-Badgett was studying hospital blueprints, which laid out in a timeline the years that each of the facility’s buildings was constructed.

“I work right there under the bell tower,” she said, referring to the hospital’s oldest and most-recognized structure.

“This was the first job I had that lasted longer than a year,” said Lee-Badgett, a 23-year employee. “I thought I was set for life. Now I’m out looking for a new job.”