Hello Followers!
It’s been a long time since this site has functioned. My apologies. I think the problems are well on the way to being fixed.
I want to ask those of you that were at Geneva if you’d be interested in being interviewed by a reporter doing investigative research on the institution. She’s keen to talk to people formerly incarcerated there. If interested, please comment on this post and I will contact you.
Thank you,
Cherie
Browsing Posts published by Cherie Bombell
Imagine living in this much space. A tiny cell. Other areas of your ‘home’ are shared with at least 20 other people. There is no where to ‘get away’ except to your room and you can’t necessarily escape to your own space without permission.
Room at Illinois State Training School for Girls, Geneva Illinois. Courtesy of Geneva History Center Archives Collection
Prior to the early ’70, all activities were strictly controlled and scheduled. Inmates had very little ‘free’ time other than being either in school, eating a meal or locked in their rooms. For example, on weekends, a time was set aside specifically to write letters in your room. About 1970 with the appointment of a new Superintendent, the rules changed. ‘Behavior modification’ practices and a token system were introduced. People were given more responsibility and opportunities to make decisions. And, the institution became coed – young men were incarcerated and attended school with the girls and young women. Dances were organized on site and became a big incentive to make decisions that would allow you to attend.
This room is small and barren. My memories of the girls’ rooms in the 70s include desks stacked with things bought from the commissary with ‘tokens’ earned through good behavior. There was great demand for these purchases as accumulation of items provided a certain prestige among their peers. A product to condition feet was high on the list of preferred items to decorate the room. Does anyone remember what it was called – maybe ‘Happy Feet’? I don’t remember the boys decorating their rooms, putting the same value on similar purchases nor it bringing them the same prestige.
How would you like to spend hours in this tiny space? I wonder what it was like….. can any of you tell us?
This is how I remember Illinois State Training School for Girls, Geneva, Illinois. I used to park my car in the lot just opposite the guard station then walk through the middle of the grounds to Geneva Cottage or to Oak and Wallace Cottage on the right (just out of the picture). The cemetery is in the wooded area to the right. Even though I know there are beautiful homes built on this site now, I can’t imagine anything other than the place as it was when I worked there and youngsters were attending school, working and living in these buildings.
Does anyone know what all the buildings are? This is what I remember – correct me if I’m wrong. The little building at the entrance opposite the parking lot is the guard station. The building to the right of the driveway going to the second parking lot is the Administration Building (pathway to the door) with an employee residential building just to its right. Behind the second parking lot is the dispensary and the school to the right – the one with the steeple. Behind those buildings are the laundry, kitchen and other maintenance type buildings. Surrounding the middle are the cottages that became ‘home’ to the juveniles incarcerated there. Also a chapel is to the right of the school. I’m not exactly sure where but on the left was where inmates could go rollerskating and swimming. I remember a scary incident at the pool when an excited young girl saw the pool for the first time. She had never been in a swimming pool and couldn’t wait top get in and get wet. She jumped in, landed near me but couldn’t swim. Without any fear and laughing the whole while, she ‘climbed’ up me to stay above the water. I was pushed under and almost drowned!
This photo is a real memory jogger for me. I’d forgotten how big the institution was and how many buildings there were. What stories does it bring back to you?
This picture is provided courtesy of Geneva History Center Archives Collection
The following information and photograph was kindly provided by the Geneva History Center.
“Beginning July 23, 2011, the Geneva History Center museum will host Who Was Sadie Cooksey?, a photographic traveling exhibition developed by Maine photographer Maggie Foskett. The genesis of this exhibition reaches back to 1979, when Foskett stumbled onto an isolated cemetery on the former grounds of the Illinois State Training School for Delinquent Girls in Geneva. The “Girl’s School,” as it is known by locals, was located south of the railroad tracks on Route 25, where the Fox Run subdivision is today.
“The exhibition’s narrative concentrates on a single figure – Sadie Cooksey (1904-1924) – whose tombstone caught the photographer’s attention. Foskett explains that the exhibition’s title, Who Was Sadie Cooksey?, is a question with no answer. Sadie was one of hundreds of girls committed year after year for immorality or incorrigibility. The dates on her tombstone are all we know of her. Nevertheless, intensive historical research on Foskett’s part allows her to share with her audience a likely semblance of what Cooksey’s life was like on the school’s self-sufficient state run farm during the early years from 1894 to 1930.
“Foskett is celebrated for her cliché verre magnified and colorful photographic impressions of natural life taken without a camera or film. However, she changes course with this exhibition to present a documentary construction of adapted photographs from the Geneva History Center archives. She also includes original photographs of headstones from the Girl’s School cemetery developed in her signature X-ray style. The headstone photographs are incorporated into three-dimensional multimedia installations that reflect the environment of her memorable day photographing the cemetery in 1979. Although Foskett photographed many headstones in the cemetery choked with weeds and fallen branches on a gray afternoon thirty two years ago, it was not until 2002 that she developed the negatives and subsequently, the exhibition. Who Was Sadie Cooksey? was exhibited at the University of Maine at Presque Isle Reed Art Gallery in 2005 and at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in 2004.”
from Maggie Foskett's exhibition 'Who was Sadie Cooksey' courtesy of Maggie Foskett via Geneva History Center
