EWHER MiflGLEWOOD:
ADULT EDUCATOR AND
A‘MEASSADQR FOR MENTAL HEALTH

“rests Ear {"Ew Degree of DH. D.
MICHiGAN STATE UNWERSITY

.13 ohm W. Hanks
1965

THESIS

 

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thesis entitled

ESTHER MIDDLEWOOD: ADULT EDUCATOR
AND AMBASSADOR FOR MENTAL HEALTH

presented by

John w. Hanks

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph.D. Education

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ABSTRACT

ESTHER MIDDLEWOOD: ADULT EDUCATOR

AND AMBASSADOR FOR MENTAL HEALTH
by John W. Hanks

This biographical study traces the career of Esther
Louise Middlewood and includes an historical-descriptive
account of the Mental Health Education Section, Michigan
State Department of Mental Health. Miss Middlewood was
born in Detroit, Michigan, on May 23, 1908. She attended
Michigan public schools and in 1929 received her bachelor
of arts degree from the University of Michigan, where she
also received her master of arts degree in 1937.. She has
headed the Michigan mental health education program since
its inception in 1947, and in nearly forty years as an edu-
cator, has also served as a secondary school teacher, coun-
selor, and guidance director.

The biographical profile develops the history of
personality attributes from Miss Middlewood's childhood
and family background which suggest significant connections
with her educational career. Her relationships to her fam-
ily, friends, and neighbors are explored, showing the con-

sistency of her personal, religious, and educational values

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John W. Hanks

as these are expressed in both her non-professional and
professional activities.

The Michigan program is known nationally for its
direct teaching of positive mental health concepts to key
groups, especially parents, but also to other significant
groups such as teachers, public health nurses, workers in
children's institutions, and the clergy. Miss Middlewood
has been widely recognized for her leadership in the use
of mental health films as an integral part of adult educa-
tional efforts on a state-wide basis. She also has had a
major responsibility in the production of five mental health
documentary films. Several of her pamphlets have been ex-
tensively reprinted, and she is widely recognized for her
outstanding capacity to articulate mental health concepts
for laymen through her numerous articles and extensive pub-
lic addresses and discussion leadership.

An outstanding Michigan project has been the Parent
Education Associates' three-year lay leadership training
program in mental health education. As local leadership
has been stimulated and become effective, the direct teach-
ing role of the state staff has diminished. Consultation
for long-range program planning and community organization
with local and state groups has become increasingly impor-
tant.

The Michigan program is reviewed in terms of cri-

teria for adult education and is judged to be within the

John W. Hanks

mainstream of this movement. An appendix also surveys his-
torical and sociological aspects which are relevant for
mental health education.

Sources for the study include: Miss Middlewood's
speeches, professional writings, and special taped inter-
views for this study; personal papers; time logs of her
professional activities; official reports and office rec-
ords; interviews with twenty-one selected informants, and
letters from twenty-two correspondents, primarily having

professional backgrounds.

ESTHER MIDDLEWOOD: ADULT EDUCATOR

AND AMBASSADOR FOR MENTAL HEALTH

f‘

((

John W? Hanks

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

College of Education

1965

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To Dr. Harold J. Dillon, Guidance Committee Chair—
man, sincere appreciation is expressed for his leadership,
supervision, and encouragement. To the remaining Committee
members—-Dr. James McKee, Dr. George Myers, and Dr. Max
Smith-—gratitude is tendered for their interest and assist-
ance.

To Esther Louise Middlewood, whose biographical
profile forms a central part of this study, very deep and
special appreciation is felt for her patience, understand—
ing, and generous gift of her time and interest during many
hours of conversation.

To forty-three individuals1 who contributed through
interviews or by letters, often long and detailed, and to
Mr. Solan Weeks, Michigan Historical Commission Museum
Director, and the Michigan State Library staff, for as-
sistance with historical background-~much thanks is due.

To my wife, Marion C. Hanks, and our sons-~John E.
and Gardner C. Hanks--for their steady patience, forbear-
ance, and unfailing encouragement, deepest gratitude is

acknowledged. Finally, to my parents, Mr. and Mrs. J. Earl

 

lIndividual names of those individuals who were
interviewed or who provided letters will be found in the
Bibliography.

Hanks, and a long and honored succession of educators, very
warm thankfulness is expressed. They provided a heritage
of intellectual curiosity and stimulation, as well as per-

sonal concern, which helped make this endeavor possible.

CHAPTER

I.

II.

III.

Iv.

V.

.VI.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
SOUNDINGS O O O O O O O O O O 0 O O O O O O 0

LIFE TIME LINES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Relationships with Grandparents
Relationship to Father. . . . .
Father's Enlistment and Death .
A Family Without a Father . . .
Mother Becomes a "Lady Postman" . .
Esther's Relationship to her Mother
Relationships with Sisters. . . . . .
Problems of Adolescence and Maturity.
“We Middlewoods"...The Close-knit Family. .

O
O

O O O O O O
O O O O

O

O O O O O C

so GROWS THE TREE O O O O 0 O O O 0 0 O O O 0

Early Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
High School Education . . . . . . . . . . .
Esther Attends the University of Michigan .
A Teaching Career Is Started. . . . . . . .
Esther Specializes in Counseling and
Guidance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Esther's Work in Child Guidance Clinics . .
Department of Mental Health Background. . .
The Early Years of Mental Health Education.
The Early 1950's. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

THE TREE GROWS TO MATURITY, 1953—1965 . . . .

Services to Caretaker Groups. . . . . . . .
Auxiliary Services. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Professional Relationships with Outstanding

Leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Administration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Liaison and Leadership Functions. . . . . .
Esther's Educational PhilOSOphy . . . . . .
Mental Health Education as Adult Education.
Issues in Mental Health Education—~A

National Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I—THOU o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Page

20

25
27
34
36
42
44
48
49
54

59

59
61
64
67

71
75
81
86
97

104

113
116

118
123
128
129
131

136

140

CHAPTER

VII. THE SECOND COMMANDMENT: THY NEIGHBOR7. . . .

VIII 0 CONCLUSION O O O I O 0 O O O O O 0 O 0 O O 0 0

APPENDIX.

The Contribution of the Unique Individual .
Mental Health Education as Adult Education.
The Influences of Social Backgrounds. . . .

O O O O O O 0 O O O O O O O O O O O 0 O O 0

History of Psychiatry . . . . . . . . . . .
History of Mental Health Movement . . . . .
History of Family Life and Parent Education
Sociological Aspects of Mental Health
Education . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Social Change and Disorganization
Role Concepts and Mental Health .
Value Systems--American and Class
Sociological Studies of the Family.
Definition of Mental Health . . . .
Mental Health Movement as a Secular
Religion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

O O O O
O O O O O O

O O 0 O O O

BIBLIOGRAPHY O 0 O O 0 O O O 0 O 0 O 0 O 0 O O 0 O O 0

Page
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167

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172

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185

188
189
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191
192
193

195
196

197

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This study has two inter-related purposes: (1) to
trace the career of Esther Louise Middlewood, mental health
adult educator, and (2) to give an historical-descriptive
account of the Mental Health Education Section, Michigan
State Department of Mental Health, which she has headed
since its inception in 1947. One assumption implicit in
this study is that there is a significant interaction be-
tween the personality of an influential individual in an
adult educational project and the larger sociological forces
present in the culture in which the project operates. A
second assumption is that the work of the mental health
educator, as represented by Miss Middlewood and the Mental
Health Education Section, is basically a part of the larger
adult education movement. Hopefully, this study may serve,
then, to emphasize and strengthen this assumption.

The biographical material regarding Miss Middlewood
appropriately might be labelled as a biographical "profile,"
a name in keeping with the modest purposes which are in-
volved. Limited resources in terms of time, money, and
literary skill precluded writing a complete biography in

depth, although an attempt has been made to incorporate

material of psychological importance and of human interest.
However, the primary objective has been to highlight in an
impressionistic way some of the personality variables which
contribute to the social psychological background of the
Mental Health Education Section.

Obviously, these personality variables--either as
to their selection or interpretation-~are not presently
verifiable by rigorous scientific research; rather, they
reflect not only the biographical personality--Miss Middle-
wood--but the background of the biographer, especially as
a psychiatric social worker with additional perspectives
from both sociology and psychology. It should be added
quickly, however, that this biographical sketch was in no
sense approached as a clinical study.

In dealing with a living subject and informants
who were currently involved in a network of relationships
to Miss Middlewood, there were necessarily certain con-
straints. Clearly, informants tend to volunteer favorable
information and to omit less favorable observations. In
addition, certain self-imposed limitations were exercised
out of respect for the privacy of either Miss Middlewood
or of the informants. At the same time, however, it should
be pointed out emphatically that Miss Middlewood herself
was entirely cooperative. If anything, she bent over back-
ward to suggest either documentary materials or informants

who might give balanced, including negative, accounts.

Within the limitation of his own perspectives, each
informant was cooperative and helpful. Many informants were
apologetic for their incapacity to recall materials in more
detail or with more significance or relevance. Some inform—
ants were known personally, and from interviewing skills
developed over twenty years in social casework, some mate-
rial of depth and intimacy was developed. Discretion was
necessary in the use of such information.

Occasionally there were conflicting comments. These
conflicts were resolved either by accepting what was the
more unanimous interpretation, or lacking that basis, in
favor of the informant who appeared to be more competent
through being closer to a first-hand knowledge of the facts.
Where the conflict seemed important, the reader has been
presented with varying interpretations. In no instance
did it appear that informants were consciously or deliber-
ately distorting facts. However, the process of the entire
study was a fairly constant confirmation of the fact that
psychologically each individual views reality through the
screen of his own needs and perceptions.

Materials for the study were gathered by personal
interviews, by letters, and by the examination of an abun-
dant supply of publications, office materials, and records
freely supplied by Miss Middlewood and her staff. Miss
Middlewood also contributed personal items, such as news-
paper clippings, photographs, and diary excerpts, as well

as some tape recordings made particularly for this study.

 

.14

 

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Many of the informants' names were suggested by Miss Middle-
wood. However, she freely signed a blanket consent form

for information to be obtained from any available source.

A number of such sources, not suggested by her, were used
with absolutely no evidence of reluctance on her part. Many
hours, of course, were spent with Miss Middlewood herself,
who was extraordinarily generous with her time. This gen—
erosity was especially notable in view of her highly demand-
ing schedule of professional responsibilities at a period
when her office was under-staffed.

An attempt was made to make a fair and dispassion-
ate study, but it would be naive to think that personal
biases were totally excluded. The historical-descriptive
accounts of the Mental Health Education Section have been
made as objective as was possible within the limits of the
types of data that were available. In attempting to high-
light the personal contribution of a dedicated, resourceful
adult educator through a biographical approach, it was in-
evitable and appropriate that some subjective, impression—
istic, and interpretative materials should be incorporated.
The need for rigorous, scientific studies of mental health
education-~indeed, of all education——is fully recognized.
With the further growth and influence of mental health edu-
cation, such research will increasingly be incorporated
as a necessary and ongoing part of that program. At this
time of early development in mental health education, a

more descriptive account has its own value.

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The organization of this study combines a chrono—
logical and topical approach. A quick and personal impres-
sion of Miss Middlewood is first given through the use of
her own verbatim, but slightly edited, responses to a series
of queries relevant to the purposes of the study. Next to
follow is a chronological account of her family background
and early life, with some emphasis on events and relation-
ships which seemed to shape fundamental personality tend-
encies. Subsequent chapters deal successively with her
professional development and the work of the Mental Health
Education Section, with her religious growth and attitudes,
and with her relationships to neighbors and friends.

The detail and elaboration devoted to Miss Middle-
wood's personality development and attitudes is a deliberate
aspect of this study. To be an adult educator in mental
health education calls for some special, and probably more
deeply personal, qualities in forming relationships to other
people. To a significant extent, the mental health educator
not only must be able to talk about mental health, but also
to exemplify it in important respects. The consistency of
personal attitudes, as these are expressed outside the strict-
ly professional realm, similarly seemed to be uniquely sig-
nificant for an adult educator in mental health education.
Fbr this reason, the development of Miss Middlewood's biog-
raphy in the areas of religion and in personal, non-profes—
sional relationships, seemed relevant.

This study is primarily biographical, but there is

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a recognition of the social perspective in which Miss

Middlewood and the Mental Health Education Section operate.
For the reader who has some further interest in this social
perspective, reference can be made to the Appendix, ”Social

Backgrounds of Mental Health Education."

 

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CHAPTER II
SOUNDINGS

Anyone who knows Esther Louise Middlewood very long
is likely to call her, "Esther." Her relationships to people
are typically warm and direct, which helps to account for
the informal title, "Ambassador for mental health.” Of—
ficially, however, she is Chief, Mental Health Education
Section, Michigan Department of Mental Health. Esther is
the kind of comfortable person who frequently has visitors
"drop in" at her home. If visitors were interested in adult
education, mental health education, and some of Esther's
personal perspectives, excerpts from a conversation at her
home might go something like this...

‘nggy; "How is mental health education related to

the adult education movement?"

Response: It is intricately involved with the
adult education movement. For a long time I have

 

 

1The following queries and replies are selected
and edited from tape recordings Esther prepared for use
in this initial chapter of Esther's biography. Rather than
a conventional chronological approach, the opportunity was
taken to make some "soundings" (hence, the title of this
chapter) of Esther's convictions and attitudes as a means
of obtaining a more personal, immediate and relevant glimpse
of her as a person. For the reader who prefers to read a
chronological account first, this initial chapter could be
skipped for later reference, and reading could start with
Chapter III, "Life Time Lines."

made every effort to tie my work in more closely
with adult education, but for too long a time adult
education programs were closely structured as a
traditional academic curriculum. Of course, the
adult education program was rooted in the early
efforts to improve English literacy and to offer
courses in business practices, home economics courses
such as cooking and sewing, and courses for rather
specific skills that could be taught in a set period
of weeks corresponding to a semester. These courses
were of great interest to individuals because of

a rather immediate need, such as the immigrant who
wanted to learn English in a course of a definite
length with specific assignments and routine les—
sons.

Mental health education is in the area of the
humanities. This area of the curriculum has never
fared as well in the formal adult education program,
and adult education has been slow in adapting its
design to the more casual forms of education, such
as courses which initially were not in great demand,
which could be taught in smaller groups, which were
not specific, but were conducted through the medium
of discussions in a variety of settings--church
basements, community halls and settlement centers.

As forward-thinking adult educators began to
see the need for modifications of traditional teach-
ing methods, mental health education has moved in
and found a niche within the larger framework.
However, even then, mental health education courses
have been somewhat tied to formal psychology courses
(which can be extremely dry and uninteresting to
the non—professional laymen) and to home management
techniques (rather than home and family living
courses) which were not concerned with the dynamic
personal aspects of the family. Ultimately, my
hope is that adult education will move more and
more toward casual teaching experiences designed
specifically to meet the needs of people in any
given setting and taught by personnel who are not
preoccupied with traditional academic procedures,
such as homework, grades, and examinations. It
is questionable as to just how much the total field
of mental health education will ever fall into more
conventional adult education sponsorship. Much of
mental health education must be done through mass
media, hospital tours, social agencies and other
sponsors or media not tied to the usual school—
centered program.

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Query: "Some people have said that mental health
education is too superficial and either arouses unfortunate
anxiety or makes for a pseudo—understanding on a primarily
intellectual basis. What does your experience in mental
health education suggest?"

Response: In the first place I think that much
of mental health education is much too superficial
in that we simply learn glib responses, and we come
to feel that there are easy answers for the far-
from-easy problems. Perhaps our approach to the
untutored person has been partly responsible. We
have taught mechanisms of behavior. We have taught
categories of mental illness--things of this sort
which really are not of great concern to people.
And the participants, like many professional people
from whom they learned, have become very sophomoric
in their information and have been able to sling
words around without having any idea as to their
meaning.

 

I think that it is true that mental health edu-
cation arouses anxiety. I think anxiety is aroused
in any field in which we begin to learn more after
we had known little. Certainly this is true of
physical illness. When we learn about cancer there
is horrible anxiety until one knows enough to be
comfortable about it. The same is true with mental
health concepts. When parents begin to learn that
children, for instance, can be damaged by the ex—
periences of their childhood and youth, there is
greater parental concern. If we were to leave the
situation at this point, it would be very unfortu-
nate. Because there is anxiety, we have to put
mental health education on a positive basis so that
we support parents and support human beings gener—
ally to help them understand their strengths and
capacities to manage their own problems and to do
whatever is needed for their children or others
of concern to them.

We need to help people know that they are not
bound by some mechanical processes that are going
to take over their lives. It is possible to do
this. It is possible if we avoid cliches, avoid
hiding behind words that are not clearly understood,
and avoid terminology which is appropriate technical
shorthand for a clinician, but has an entirely

10

different meaning to the person who is not profes-
sionally oriented. I am referring, for instance,

to such words as "hostility." "Hostility" to most
people does not mean what "hostility" means to a
clinician. Most people immediately think only of
angry, fighting, overtly expressed feelings, whereas
many times the clinician refers to something quite
different.

As for pseudo—understanding and intellectualiz-
ing, we had these problems long before we had men-
tal health education. We have always had people
who like to have a very glib, facile understanding
of things that are very difficult to understand.

We see this need expressed in many fields of know-
ledge. Unfortunately, when it gets tied to fields
such as mental health, we get people who can diag-
nose everybody else and the ills of the world in

a very intellectual, detached basis that has little
practical meaning or personal significance. It is
my experience, however, in mental health education
that people are very capable of understanding many
of the principles of mental health which can apply
to them and their children. For instance, the basic
concept of individual differences in human beings

in itself allows for a great deal of comfort and

for a creative individuality as soon as people hon-
estly accept this idea. If parents honestly believe
this concept they can allow for individual growth

in their children. They can also allow for patterns
of parenthood within their own family style of liv-
ing which may be different from those of another
family--patterns which may be more conducive to
stability and health and happiness within their
particular family than a pattern imitated after
someone else's style of living.

Query: "What are some of the other mental health
concepts that you believe are most important?"

Response: There is the concept that aggressive
feelings are not only a natural part of man's life,
but that they form a basis for the sturdy, driving
forces that are creative and productive later in
life when they are channeled and when the individ—
ual is not afraid of the management of his inner
feelings of anger. We need to help individuals
understand that there are times when, by the nature
of man, he protects himself in certain ways-~psy-
chological ways. They need some understanding of
the methods that might be used to avoid unbearable

 

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pain and pressure. These concepts certainly strength-
en, rather than weaken, an individual.

The concept that we are all in need of love as
well as capable of giving love is not a concept which
can just be intellectually passed along. People
must understand this concept with a recognition that
they may have an infant's hunger for love which is
being disguised in many ways. They will be at their
best when they come to grips with this need and
either find a solution by reaching out themselves
or by simply accepting the need and making the most
of their lives in the very best ways that they can.

There are a lot of other general principles which
we ought to know and which can be used to the indi-
vidual's advantage. For instance, there is the
person who has been scapegoating because of his
own feelings of inadequacy. If he can become com-
fortable and understand that this is the way he
feels, he may not have to have a scapegoat in a
racial prejudice or some other prejudice that is
crippling his life. So I think that mental health
education can be done well, but it cannot be done
if we are just going to do it on a slogan basis
or on a mass information approach. It will have
to be done in small, intimate groups of people who
can talk together, share honestly with one another,
come to know and accept one another and respect
one another. To me, this last method is necessary
in a sound program of mental health education. I
think one of the reasons that formal school-based
adult education programs found it difficult to in—
corporate sturdy mental health education in its [gig]
curriculum was because it has not been designed
with the idea that deep, basic attitudes have to
be modified over a long period of time and in rather
small groups. Such attitudes are not going to be
changed drastically by an intellectual understand-
ing of the symptoms or by learning facts only.

Query: "What are the main changes in the concerns
expressed by mothers regarding their children during the
past twenty-five years in which you have worked with parents?"
Response: Initially, much of the concern of
mothers was about toilet training, when weaning
should take place, what to do about thumb sucking,

how to keep a child from wetting the bed and how
to make him into a nice, tidy individual. These

 

 

 

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questions have literally disappeared-~even as has
much of the concern which came next for food habits
as mothers learned more about health and vitamins.
We find more casualness in mothers about feeding
processes as they realize now that children more

or less balance off food as they go along. Then

we had the movement into concerns about discipline.
This concern has been rather chronic, but there was
a period when it was almost paramount. Now we are
moving into the need to make the child compete and
get ahead, which is changing with growing concerns
about pressures on children. There are pressures
for social precociousness and acceptance as well

as for academic learning. There is still only an
intellectual understanding of this problem. There
is a great need on the part of parents to exert
pressures despite the fact that they think they
should not do so.

Within the last two years I would say that even
the parents of pre-schoolers are expressing the
concern: "How can we keep him from being an ado-
lescent like the adolescents of today?" We hear
this comment all the time from parents of adoles-
cents who are concerned about their kids today.

The "lawlessness," the abandon, the lack of moral
values, that we hear much about today are sources
of concern. There is some trend, slight as it may
be, to easing off on educational pressures in spite
of the tremendous social push toward education.

It will be interesting to see if we can come to a
more relaxed attitude toward the learning process
in children in the next ten or fifteen years. I
would be willing to predict that this trend might
come. At least the trend could be toward being
more relaxed and realistic in terms of individual
children.

Query: "Some authorities believe that there are

basic changes in family life which indicate a growing tend-

ency toward basic character defects in children as evidenced

by more disrespect for authority, tendencies to be more

egocentric and impulsive, and the breakdown of traditional

moral values. What are your observations?"

Response: My observations are purely observa—
tions, not scientifically founded and not to be

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accepted as bona fide facts. I think that there
has been too much said about some of these factors
without having a clear knowledge of any of them.

I have a contention that most of the research in
this area is too limited and too specific, but that
we make broad generalizations from it. There are
not very many bona fide long-term research studies
that have been made about family design.

 

Off the cuff and by observation, I think we
have done an injustice to children by allowing the
authority of the family to switch, first of all,
from the father to the mother. The mother, in most
instances, does not like to be the crucial author~
ity within the family and has allowed it to slip
to the children. Frightened by lack of certainty,
the mother feels restless and cannot find support
for her own authority. It is my feeling that most
women would prefer to have some kind of strength
behind them in family organization. This desire
is one reason for their having pulled away from
the responsibility of really disciplining children
and helping them feel that the world does not ro-
tate about their impulsive whims.

I also think that there are some problems which
are emerging because families are small nuclear
families instead of large kinship families. Cer—
tainly the impulse-ridden portion of our society
is of great concern to most people who are in posi-
tions of leadership. We see this behavior expressed
in crime, delinquency, vandalism, irresponsible
behavior in marriage, the neglect of children and
irresponsible buying and management in families.
Certainly a lot of our current concerns have to
do with the nature of the family. I am not saying
that I want to go back to traditional moral values.
I think that there is nothing older than an outmoded
value which applied to a society which no longer
exists. But such a thing as integrity, it would
seem, would not change in its importance in a so—
ciety. I think that people hunger for a greater
degree of integrity today and they appreciate and
enjoy it wherever it is found. Certainly the ca-
pacity for robust responsibility toward the family,
the job or to other human beings is a good quality,
and maybe we need to assess it in a new light. If
designs which had value in the past are outmoded,
we ought to look at them, garner from them the
strengths that are applicable today, and turn to
new designs that have strength for tomorrow. I
doubt if the day will ever come when we can have

 

 

ii.

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14

in the world the same large kinship base we had in
the past. To simply and nostalgically hope for the
kissin' cousin group to be together and functioning
is ridiculous, but we can look toward the nuclear
family. The kissin' cousin strength, perhaps, can
come from neighbors, friends and the kinds of human
relationships that we have to establish with peOple
who are not related by blood. There are ways of
doing this if we think it is important.

Query: "What do you think the primary contribution
of religious values can be to child development in family
life?"

Response: First of all, it depends basically
on what religious values we are talking about. Some
religious values can be detrimental. If we are talk»
ing about a value system which would enable the child
to feel some stability and direction in his life
and will give him a yardstick for his own value sys-
tem, then it is almost essential to his development.
Children who are always uncertain about order in
the world, who have no positive feelings about what
is good and what is bad, who feel no certainty in
the minds of their parents about certain issues,
are usually very frightened children. The knowledge
of a benevolent being, the certainty of being loved,
the feeling that there are things which are accept-
able and others that are not acceptable, the cer-
tainty that there is a certain place in the universe
as a whole and some responsibilities within ita-
all these values stand a child in good stead. How-
ever, if the religious values are frightening, threat-
ening, or negative, they could be damaging, and we
have seen much of that in the history of religions.

 

I think we have a great deal to do in revamping
some concepts of sturdy, moral family life, as den
fined by the church, to become significant to people
living in today's world. Undoubtedly, religious
values of a broader nature--the respect for the
integrity of other people, the fact that we do not
exploit others, the values of love and tenderness—-
all should add tremendously to the stability and
happiness of the family. I think, though, that
some religious emphases produce problems. For ex-
ample: we sometimes teach a religious value that
all parents should automatically love children.
This vague, sentimentalized value comes from many
of our religious doctrines. Often it is pronounced

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(II

15

in the church that somehow children are God's bless-
ings and that we all ought to want to have them.

So parents who find themselves in the position of
very understandably and reasonably not wanting child—
ren--sometimes helplessly not wanting children-~are
thrown into great stress because no one helps them
understand their situation more realistically. Per—
haps we do not give enough time to honest understand-
ing and counseling with people.

Query: "What do you believe to be the primary needs
and problems in family life today as indicated in your con-
tacts with parents?"

Response: The needs of families vary as much
as the needs of individuals. We might have to take
the needs and say that in certain kinds of families
this is true and in certain kinds of other families
something else is true. I do know that in many sub-
urban area homes and in upper suburbia, if you will,
there is a tremendous need for more concise, direc-
tive power, call it what you will--discipline, author—
ity--in the family. Children are hungry for it.
The parents themselves feel that they are failing
in many instances. But they don't know how to at-
tack the issue and manage the situation without
becoming arbitrary in a way that they feel is wrong
because of the various types of concepts popularly
presented to them. Interestingly enough, there
are almost as many articles that point to a need
for sturdier discipline as there are that point
the way to permissiveness. Yet because parents
are so uncertain, many of them turn toward the per—
missive. It is hard to manage children in a world
where children are outspoken, a world which has
become somewhat too much child-centered, certainly
adolescent-centered.

In another area we need to define much more
adequately the place of women in the family and
in the world generally. Helping them to enter into
a stable family position in which they can feel
proud in their child-bearing years, in the early
child-rearing years, and then pave the way for re-
entry into productive involvement in society as
their children move out of the home. This problem
is fairly new in our society due to a combination
of factors. The more advanced education of women
prior to marriage, the fact that many women help
support the young husband in the early ventures

   

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16

in education or training and the beginning of bus—
iness, and the fact that women have more years to
live after child-bearing years and child-rearing
years—-all these factors enter in. This problem

of women's role runs almost throughout the whole
society, from the very low economy to the upper
economy. However, the lower-income woman has the
rationale of a real economic need by which she can
evade the home if she feels the need to do so.
Women in the upper-income brackets have no such
rationale. In many instances they feel great guilt
if they move out of the home into the working world.
I think that we need a redefinition, at least a
thinking through, of the relationships within the
family and an establishment of better patterns of
communication. Somehow, the old, authoritative
pattern which was effective in many ways, has broken
down. Somehow, the husband cannot tell the wife
what to do, and the wife and husband don't demand
obedience of the children as in the past. Yet we
have never set up a new pattern in any clear way,
and a lot of people are confused and upset about
the shifting sands within their own family.

In the years ahead families are going to have
to take an honest look at the tremendous stresses
under which we place ourselves by choice. It's
hard enough to contend with the Russians, but in
many instances we also impose pressures by virtue
of our own selection of goals. It may be that we
can't amass untold wealth and still have all of
the kind of leisurely family relationships which
we'd like to have. You can't have all of your
youngsters go to college and still have a tremen-
dously secure financial future for yourself. There
are balances that we may have to weigh and then
decide which values are most important to us as
human beings. We can't be all things to all people
as individuals, and we can't have all things in
family groups. The pressures for upward mobility
and for perfection in terms of learning academic
knowledge are tremendous. In many instances these
goals are not even realistically harnessed to capa-
bilities or anything except fantasy. There are
also large numbers of families who simply need a
decent, respectable opportunity to live.

Query: "Some people believe that the roles of
faflners and mothers are rapidly changing. Do you agree,
and if so, what do you believe to be the main changes over

tm3,past.twenty or thirty years?"

 

 

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17

Response: Yes, roles are changing, but I think
that one of the mistakes we make is that we are talk-
ing about a reversal of roles, and I don't think
this is valid. I don't think fathers can become
mothers, and I don't think mothers can become fathers.
By their very nature they serve different purposes
to the child. The father obviously is not going
to be able to bear and breast-feed children. The
mother is not going to spend full time at support-
ing the family when she has to bear and rear children.

It used to be that women simply didn't talk to
men, share ideas with them or enjoy them unless it
was in a seductive relationship. Today men and women
can do many things together and enjoy one another
in many, many ways without involving necessarily
a seductive relationship. There is a possibility
of richness in the relationship between men and
women, and we have opened the way for much more
fun as fathers and as mothers because each individ-
ual can define his role more nearly according to
his liking. If a father enjoys playing with the
kids in the bath, he's free to do this. If a mother
likes to go out and play baseball with the young-
sters, she is free to do this. I think it is too
bad when we try to define a specific role too rigid—
ly. This rigidity takes away a great deal of indi-
viduality and the wonder of relationships founded
upon individual choice.

I think one big problem is in the strength which
the father manifests to his family. The father
has always brought into the home the wonder of the
outside world, the physical strength and magnitude
of his being. In homes where the father is reduced
to an undignified position, both boys and girls
become confused in terms of sex roles. However,
such a development is more frequently founded upon
deviation and sickness within the family rather than
a shift in the social concept of what mothers and
fathers ought to do. Mothers are playing a greater
role as breadwinners, but this change is not new
to me as an individual. This pattern was part of
my family for many years. In no way did this out-
side work detract from my mother and her relation-
ships to us at home, except that perhaps we did
experience more need to be involved in the family
functioning and, perhaps, some moments of loneli-
ness when she was involved in work and unavailable
for us at the moments we wanted her. Good family
planning, however, means that the mother's working
increases the children's independence, and I am

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18

sure that this is happening in many homes today.
So changes are not necessarily bad. I think the
changing woman's position today is had only if it
has produced uncertainties for them. The father
can change to a much more exciting role if we take
away the old autocratic position and help him re-
define himself in a new, purposeful relationship
to the family. I think we have failed to do this.
When we fail to help people into a richer concept
of self and their role in their families and just
strip them of old roles and old patterns, we are
doing them an injustice.

Query: "Do you see the mental health educator as
a growing new professional discipline or as a specializa-
tion within one or more other disciplines of the future?"

Response: Education related to mental health
is accomplished by people in many different disci-
plines and in varied settings. Such education can
be done, if it is done well, within Christian edu-
cation in the church. Education related to mental
health has to be done by the classroom teacher. It
is done in prenatal and well-baby clinics. We can
never see the time when it will all be done by a
specialist. On the other hand, we do need the re-
sponsible leadership of the specialist to lead the
way in areas where we need to have a large, overall-
program established, to give leadership to other
groups or to institute programs to help people under-
stand more about principles of mental health.

The mental health educator, as a specialist,
can well be drawn from many fields: psychiatric
social worker, psychiatrist, health educator, from
general education with a counseling background, or
from work in child growth and development. Then
it would be necessary for him to supplement what-
ever form his first basic education took. As an
example, if it were a person who had first special-
ized in the human growth and development field with
primary emphasis on early childhood education, he
would certainly need to move into study of the dy-
namics of general and abnormal adult behavior and
an understanding of the adolescent. He would need
to broaden his knowledge because the mental health
education job is much broader than simply family
life education or human growth and development.

He would also need some understanding and skill
in the area of group processes.

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In her own words, Esther has entered into a dialogue
which helps more vividly and accurately to know her atti—
tudes and beliefs about mental health education as it is
related to adult education, to family life, and to religion.
In water-borne navigation before the era of radar, a lead
plummet-«widla line marked off in fathoms of six feet——was
dropped over the side of a ship to measure the depth of the
channel. The sailor with the line then called out the depth
to guide the helmsman and captain in navigating the vessel.
The sailor's calls were dubbed "soundings." By analogy,
the queries of the dialogue in this chapter were plummets
to elicit Esther's own "soundings" about mental health edu»
cation. From this simulated visit with Esther, an inter~

pretative chronology of her life and work follows.

I‘ob

 

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at

v

1908

1909
1911
1913

1914

1916
1917
1917
1918
1925

1925
1929

1929
1935
1936
1937
1938

1940

CHAPTER III

LIFE TIME LINES

SOME DATES IN THE LIFE OF ESTHER MIDDLEWOOD

May 23. Esther Louise Middlewood, born at home on
Hyde Street, Detroit, Michigan, the second child of
Burdette George Middlewood and Ethel Bromley Middle-
wood. (Ada, an older sister, was born on November 28,
1906.)
December 31.
family home.
October 11.
ily home.
January 2 .
home.

Family moves to Redford, Michigan, where Esther at-
tended the first and second grades in a one-room
school.

Family moves to Farmington, Michigan, where Esther
continues the elementary grades in a one-room school.

Brother, Howard, born in Detroit at
Brother, George, born in Detroit at fam-

Brother, Homer, born in Detroit at family

April 10. Sister, Barbara, born in Farmington at
family home.
Ca. May. Father enlists in U.S. Army during World

War I.

October 18. Father died in Florida from severe flu
epidemic of l9l8 while still in military service.
Esther is graduated from Farmington, Michigan, High
School.

Esther enters the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Esther is graduated from University of Michigan with
A.B. degree in Education and Psychology.

Esther teaches English and Mathematics at Caro High
School, Caro, Michigan, for next six years.

Esther re-enters the University of Michigan.

Esther obtains M.A. degree in counseling and guidance.
Esther teaches Mental Hygiene, English and Sociology
at Benton Harbor High School, Benton Harbor, Michigan,
for next three years.

December 2, Esther's mother, Mrs. Ethel ("Middy")
Middlewood, is killed in an auto accident.

Esther becomes Director of Guidance, Junior High
School, in Benton Harbor, Michigan.

20

21

1944 Esther is psychiatric social work trainee, Kalamazoo
Child Guidance Clinic, Kalamazoo, Michigan.

1945 Esther is psychiatric social worker, Children's Center,
Muskegon, Michigan, for two years.

1947 September 1. Esther is appointed as first Mental
Health Education Consultant, Michigan State Depart-
ment of Mental Health, Lansing, Michigan.

1948 September 1. Esther is appointed Chief, Mental Health
Education Division, Michigan State Department of Men—
tal Health.

1952 Sister, Ada, dies.

OK, baby, this is the world,
So inhale and exhale,
And be with us awhile
--William Saroyan
It was late spring--May 23, to be exact—mwhen Esther
was born to her parents, Ethel Bromley Middlewood and Burdette
George Middlewood. The delivery was at home, not unusual
for the time, and the baby was healthy. Mother, too, did
well, and no one remembers just how father fared that day.
The year was 1908. Ex—President Grover Cleveland
died on June 24th. President-elect Taft beat the Democratic
nominee, William Jennings Bryan, that fall as President
Teddy Roosevelt was completing his term of office. Only
a few months after Esther's birth Orville Wright was seri-
ously injured, and Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge was killed,
while testing a Wright aeroplane (gig) attempting to pass
these government specifications: carry two persons with
combined weight of at least 350 pounds for 125 miles and

a ”speed of at least 40 miles in still air."l

 

1World Almanac and Encyclgpedial 1909 (New York:

Press Publishing Company, 1909), p. 465.

22

Current literature, it was reported, reflected the
"appalling extravagance and extreme poverty of the present
day, the wild craze for excitement of the idle rich, the
looseness of the ties of matrimony and the looseness of
business honor."1 The race question was described as "one
of the cruel questions the United States must face."2 A
serious race riot, accompanied by the lynching of negroes
(pig), occurred that year at the home community of the Great
Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln--Springfield, Illinois.

A best seller in 1908 was the book, To ether, deal—
ing with married life in the United States. Some five
thousand troops continued the third year of the military
occupation of Cuba started by the United States in 1906.
Both the Emperor and the Dowager Empress of China died with-
in one month of one another in 1908. H. G. Wells' new book,
The War in the Air, describing airships which attack the
United States in a world war, was published. The publicaw
tion of Psychotherapy in its Relationship to Religion, by
Dr. Cabot, was an example of the current interest in "mind
over matter" and the connections between disease and various

forms of religion. The Cry of the Children, publication

 

on child labor, coincided that year with Congress' passage

of a model child labor act for the District of Columbia.3

 

lIbid., p. 360.

21bid., p. 361.

3Ibid., pp. 361-363, 465, 617, for data in this
Paragraph .

23

In Chicago Dr. William Healy held his first meetings
in preparation for the operation in 1909 of the Juvenile
Psychopathic Institute, first child guidance clinic in the
United States. Only two years before the University of
Michigan had opened the first psychopathic hospital in the
U.S., and that same year—-l908--Massachusetts was following
up with the first such hospital to be Operated within a
state hospital system. Clark University in Massachusetts
was preparing to receive a visitor the following summer
whose publications, recently translated into English, were
starting to create heated controversy. The visitor's name
was Dr. Sigmund Freud.

"Lunacy," "lunatic asylum," and "insane asylum"
were still accepted terms, and psychiatrists were widely
known as "alienists" who dealt with "alienated minds.“l
[Today sociologists talk again of alienation.] And in that
very city where Esther was born, the technological revolum
tion which was becoming so much a part of American culture~~
with its consequences for alienation, mental illness, and
mental health—-was well illustrated in the budding automo~
tive industry. Ford produced the first Model T in 1908,
but horses were still competing with motorized buses in

Detroit's famous park on Belle Isle.2 That fall, only a

 

lNina Ridenour, Mental Health in the United States
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1961),
pp. 1-2 a

2M. M. Quaife and William White (ed.), This Is De-
troit (Detroit: Wayne University Press, 1951), p. 126.

 

24

few months after Esther was born, W. C. Durant combined
the Buick and Olds organizations into his first components
of the new General Motors Corporation, later to add some
twenty auto and parts companies in just two years.1

So it was, that among the flux of many events later
to become "historic" with the passage of time, the Middle-
woods celebrated the birth of their second child, Esther.
And there was one more rather special incident that year,
as little publicized as Esther's own birth. An episode
just seventeen days before Esther's birth was to become
the earmark of another birth, the meeting of a group who
came to be known as the founders of the national mental
health movement.

That other birth is described by Nina Ridenour,
historian of the mental health movement, as follows:

It was the afternoon of May 6, 1908, that a
little knot of people sat down together in a resi—
dence in New Haven, Connecticut, upon the invita-
tion of Clifford Whittingham Beers--a young man
with a remarkable history—-to organize the Connecti-
cut Society for Mental Hygiene, the first state
association of its kind and the beginning of the
organized mental health movement in America. The
objectives of this pioneering little group have a
familiar ring today: "To work for the conservation
of mental defects; to help raise the standards of
care . . . ; to secure and disseminate reliable
information . . . "--phrases which in the years
since 1908 have, with minor variations, been re-
peated in the charters and by—laws of hundreds of
mental health associations all over the world.
History does not tell us the extent to which the
New Haven group shared the high sense of destiny

lArthur Pound, Detroit (New York: D. Appleton-Cen-
tury, 1940), pp. 293-294.’

 

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25

of their young founder (he had just turned 32) but
Clifford Beers for one had no doubts about how he
intended to proceed. According to his plan the
Connecticut Society was not only to be the first
in a long line of societies to follow, but also
to serve as a pilot effort to provide experience
in organizing. As soon as feasible he proposed
to organize a national society-—a plan he carried
out to the letter nine months later, when on Feb-
ruary 19, 1909, he invited a similar group of a
dozen people to come together in New York City's
Manhattan Hotel for the purpose of creating the
National Committee for Mental Hygiene (now the
National Association for Mental Health).1

It was to be some years before the events in Con-
necticut and New York came to have any special relevance
for Esther Louise Middlewood, that other newborn infant
of 1908. Certainly no one could have predicted then what
was to become her significant role in the mental health
movement that Clifford Beers and his colleagues started

in 1908.

Relationships with Grandparents

On a more personal level, too, Esther was to find
another significance regarding her birthm-the irony of es-
pecially being named after her paternal grandmother. She
recalls:

On both sides my parents' families were English.
My paternal grandfather was from a 50-50 family,
and he was employed in a modest job for the Detroit
News Company, a distributor of magazines and news-
papers. I was fond of him, and he was rather quiet
and unassuming. My grandmother apparently was quite
sensitive about her family background as compared
to my mother's family, which had a somewhat distin—
guished history. In fact, my grandmother found it

lRidenour, op. cit.

 

 

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26

necessary to get up a family genealogy and discov-
ered a cousin, a BishOp Wesley of South America,
who added some distinction, but there were no out-
standing heroes. My grandmother was a very strong
person, somewhat artistic. I didn't like my grand-
mother, and I don't think she liked me, even though
I was named after her. I don't think she thought
my mother should have had me. My older sister,
Ada, was like my grandmother, and my grandmother
obviously preferred her.

Esther recalls how her paternal grandmother would
bring gifts, such as two dolls on one occasion, and would
show preference to Ada. The dolls, one dressed in pink and
one in blue, were first presented to Ada. The remaining
one, which happened to be blue and was far from Esther's
choice, was given to her. Similarly, the grandmother usu-
ally gave Ada her first choice of hair ribbons and dress
materials. The grandmother also teased Esther in such a
way as to make her feel less attractive in comparison to
her sister. Again referring to her own birth, Esther com-

ments:

I have the impression that my mother was very
happy when she first married and prior to my birth.
My father travelled for the Burroughs Company, and
she accompanied him. When she became pregnant with
me she could no longer be with him and had to go
live with my father's parents. (There was a step-
mother in her own home with whom she was not par-
ticularly comfortable.) She and my grandmother
did not hit it off, and she felt she always had
to be on her good behavior because my grandmother
tended to be so critical. I am sure the controls
placed on me very early were quite strong in an
effort to keep peace with my grandmother. My mother
later told me that this was one of the unhappiest
periods of her whole life. I am not sure that she
was very glad that I came along at that time. I
think, too, that both my mother and my father re-
ally wanted a boy.

27

Esther's maternal grandfather Bromley was an enginm
eer—surveyor who did some of Detroit's early city planning.
He was of English stock, with connections to minor aristocu
racy and the town of Bromley, in Sussex, England. Esther's
maternal grandmother died in childbirth, and Esther never
knew her. However, she did know her grandfather's second
wife, her stepgrandmother, whom she describes as a beauti-
ful, proud, and haughty, aristocratic woman of German ex-
traction. Rather than "grandmother," she was known as "Aunt
Rose" and was very meticulous, rigid, and proper.

Aunt Rose's independence and pride were such that
once when she broke her hip she disdained the use of canes.
She was a fascinating, although somewhat distant, figure
in Esther's childhood. Visits to the grandparent's home,
although not conducive to free play or warm and intimate
feelings, were always something of an occasion and were a
glimpse into a more privileged, sedate, and mannerly world.
Esther, too, had a special-~if not closes-feeling to grand—
father Bromley, despite whatever feelings the grandparents
had about Esther's mother having married "out of her class"

to Esther's father.

Relationship to Father

 

Of a different class or not, her father is rememm
bered by Esther in her own words:
He was genial, loved people, and was a friend

of everyone. He was very outgoing and loved to play
with his children. I can remember him putting me

28

on his shoulder when I was four or five. He was

everything wrapped into one for me then. I was

so impressed with his strength. He was a fairly

rigorous disciplinarian and had a flashy temper.

I was his favorite.
She recalls her father as loving to talk, but not being es-
pecially athletic or interested in outdoors activities.
"He was more of a reader,” she believes. He loved to cook
"(as did his father) and more often than not, would cook
Sunday dinners. After his earlier travelling job when he
was first married, he became a motorman on the Detroit street
car system. Esther recalls the pleasurable experience of
riding immediately behind him as he operated the trolley
out to the "turnaround"1 and back on the round trip. "It
was wonderful," she says, “just to see the back of his head
and his shoulders." Sometimes she and the entire family
took their lunch and made a special occasion by eating at
the park near the "turnaround.”

Although Esther believes that in some ways her mother
was the stronger personality, her mother definitely showed
deference to the father and fostered this attitude in the
children. There were the subtle, but definite, actions
such as father's prerogative of opening and reading the
daily newspaper first before anyone else. It was also some-
thing of a family ritual that all the children got cleaned
Lu; in the afternoon just before their father arrived home

1The ”turnaround” at the end of the street car line

wEas a circular loop of track which enabled the motorman to
reaverse the trolley car for the return trip to go downtown.

 

 

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29

from work. As part of being "his girl," Esther managed
to do more with her father than her older sister in early
childhood. Her younger brothers were still too young to
share much in his activities then. Perhaps the venture
was just to be with him while he chopped wood or ran an
errand, but to a little girl as a pre-schooler or of early
elementary age, this companionship seemed very precious,
indeed.

Esther's recollections of her father are not so
rhapsodic as to blur all memories of either her own pranks
or his discipline. When she was five there was the occa-
sion when he became so angry because he thought the child-
ren had started swimming too early in the season at the
nearby river, and he was afraid that they would catch cold.
At least that's what her father EEEQJ but Esther wonders
now if what really bothered her father so much was that the
swim was in the nude. For the record, none of the children
caught cold.

On another occasion during a winter blizzard it
was necessary to get supplies at the store, and Esther had
volunteered to walk the two-and-one-half-mile trek with
her father. The snow was still knee-high, and the temper—
atures were near zero. When her father hastened home, half
flcozen, he was very upset when he realized that Esther was

IKSt at his side and apparently had dropped off only a few
Sizeps from the door. Going back with apprehension that

Shae might have frozen or wandered further and gotten lost,

30

he found her "making angels in the snow." She was quite
unconcerned and seemingly oblivious to the tree—cracking
temperatures. Meantime, her father's ears were quite frost»
bitten. Esther leaves out a description of her father's
discipline upon this occasion, but suffice it to say, she
pictures her father's temper as “flashy."

Esther depicts her younger brother, Howard, and
herself as possessed with an intense curiosity as children.
She thinks their curiosity was sometimes misinterpreted as
mischievousness. If this misinterpretation took place, it
surely was not the first instance-~nor is it likely to be
the last--that parents have done so. Be it curiosity or
mischievousness,Esther describes these examples.

Esther loved the horses that pulled the fire com-
pany rigs and would follow them on their runs. Once she
got lost and had to be brought home by the police. Was
she really running away from home? Esther says not, but
she is not sure her parents understood about these jaunts.
On another occasion she and Howard hid under the tarpaulin
of some farmers who had stopped at a store operated by
Esther's parents. The farmers were on their way to the
farmer's market in Detroit. Curiosity or mischievousness?

Still another time she and Howard were exploring
a large doll house which was up on a hayrack or wagon.
Apparently unaware of the two children in the doll house,

some gypsies hitched their car to the hayrack in an attempt

 
 
 

 

 
 

31

to steal it. However, the local constable—-with the unlikely
name of "Daddy Lightfoot"--managed to apprehend the gypsies
before they had gotten very far. The two Middlewood child-
ren were rescued--only to have the two motives of curiosity
versus mischievousness weighed again in the parental scales
of justice.

When Esther was six and her brother, Howard (that
pair againi), was four and one-half, they went to "find"
their father at his work as street car motorman. On their
walk they buried their sweaters and shoes because of the
heat and somehow ended up in their underpants. They finally
"found" their father, who up to that moment was unaware
that he was "lost." Perhaps father Middlewood never quite
understood, for he was either so angry or so embarrassed
that he tied his curious (mischievous?) urchins on the back
platform of his streetcar, where they were temporarily dis-
owned by paternal edict and exiled from the main passenger
section.

Once Esther and Howard, that ubiquitous duo, set
the house on fire. A friend, Esther claims, had accident-
ally spilled a five-gallon can of gas off the back porch.
The ground was so hard that the gasoline formed a puddle
on the surface. How could the evidence of the "crime" be
eliminated? Esther struck on the idea of burning the puddle
away. Her parents, unknowing, were in the front of the

house. The only trouble was that the porch itself began

 

 

 

 

 

'r

 

32

to burn. Whether her parents were summoned by the scent

of burning wood or the panicky yells of their miscreant
offspring remains as fuzzy as the wisps of accumulating
wood smoke, but they arrived. Hastily, a carpet was satur—
ated with water, and the fire was felicitously smothered
before there was any serious damage. Less fuzzy in Esther's
recollections was the discipline administered via father's
razor strap that day.

Counterpoint to memories of occasionally sharp pun-
ishment at the hands of her father is the happier narrative
of his protectiveness and reassurance. Her father was par-
ticularly pleased on one occasion to obtain a ride for the
family in a special launch going to Detroit's well-known
Belle Isle recreation area. The launch, of shallow draft,
rode low in the water. To a child it almost seemed as if
the waves would engulf the craft and swamp it. Sensing
her anxiousness, Esther's father reassured her and showed
her how pleasing it was to hold her hand down into the water
to enjoy the flow around her fingers. There was also the
instance when her father allowed the children to go sit
on the rocks in the river just off the Belle Isle shoreline.
Caught suddenly by an unexpectedly large wave, Esther fell
backward off her perch. Again standing by with tender re-
assurance, her father helped her recover her equilibrium,
her breath, and her confidence. Elaborating, she describes

her father's attitude:

33

He was willing to let us do things, yet was

protective and reassuring, too. He was generally

more permittipgf—"ing," that is, not permispiyg7-

than my mother. I will always remember his happi-

ness in making fun for us on those picnics.
Plain, almost everyday, events in the life of a young child,
these were, to be sure, but from such recaptured incidents
did Esther draw the main contours of her relationship to
her father.

When her father was still at home during her early
childhood, the family often went out for picnics and took
trips to Palmer Park or Bob-Lo Island or Put-In Bay on ex-
cursion boats. Among many happy memories, Esther recalls
the canoeing on Belle Isle where people listened to current
records on the early gramophones while they paddled. There
were the willow trees along the shore, too, that made wonm
derful places for children to climb, play, and devise make-
believe games.

There were a few long-remembered anxious moments,
too. Such was the time of panic when on the way to a boat
for a picnic, Esther dropped a jar of pickled pig's feet,
glass and contents to be broken and splashed in the middle
of Woodward Avenue, even then one of the most heavily—traf—
ficked main boulevards in downtown Detroit. Or what does
a little girl do to quell the worry of getting separated
in line waiting for the Bob-Lo island boat trip, with the

result that she and her brother embark on a different boat

than the rest of the family? Esther well remembers the

 

 

34

shouted instructions from her parents, "Wait for us at the
dock at the other end!" Not the least of her concern was
the fact that she was carrying the basket of chicken and
sandwiches which the family ordinarily ate during the boat

ride.

Father's Enlistment and Death

It was into this warp and woof of everyday moments,
some to be remembered longer than others, that the shock
of her father's enlistment in the army during World War I
took place. The excitement, even patriotic fervor, of those
days is difficult for more recent generations to comprehend.
Disillusioned, even cynical, about nationalistic motives
in wars, the present-day population is more likely to re-
gard military service as a job to be done and gotten over
with a minimum of "hoopla" and unmarked by any surge of
enthusiasm or high moral aspirations. By contrast, the
mood of the times in the days of her father's enlistment,
was a considerable measure of belief that the world was
indeed to be ”saved for democracy." The Yanks were quickly
to deliver the coup de grace to what had come to be regarded
as the forces of the "Horrible Hun" under the direction of
an evil Kaiser.

Depths of understanding might come to Esther in
later, more mature years regarding her father's enlistment
in military service-~inc1uding the fervor and patriotism

of the times. However, at the age of nine she could only

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35

react to his action as an emotional desertion. She was
joined in this feeling by her mother, to be left with the
care of six small children. Many of her relatives were to
express condemnation of her father as being irresponsible.
Esther recalls seeing her father once while he was on leave
and in uniform. His death, when she was ten, came less
than one month before Armistice Day, when in the course
of events, it might soon be expected that he would be dis-
charged and return home again.

Her father's death was the ultimate confirmation
of his desertion. Esther's reaction was so strong that
she had to fantasy that he died as a war hero when the truth
was that he was one of many victims of that era's historic
and deadly flu epidemic. Even at the age of 22 she was
still preoccupied with her father's desertion and death
and wrote to his old army buddy about him. One of her
favorite high school teachers, too, was to be entwined in
this fantasy, for she also thought that Burdette Middlewood
had died in World War I combat. What were the influences
that led to her father's enlistment? Somewhere the answers
lie hidden in the complexities of his own nature, his mar-
riage, and the social forces of his times. Maturity would
bring to Esther a fuller understanding of his impulsive
nature, even an awareness that her father never quite as-
sumed the essential responsibilities of being a husband

and father. But even for a ten-year old daughter, now grown

36

up, there would always be a certain mystery about the inner
drives that propelled her father into the fateful course

culminating in his death far from home and family.

A Family Without a Father

For Ethel ("Middy") Middlewood, wartime widow with
six children, ranging from babe-in-bassinet to eleven-going-
on-twelve, there was precious little time to dwell on her
husband's demise. That winter all six of the Middlewood
children were in the Detroit Children's Hospital at one
time or another. By all odds, the winter of 1918-19 was
one of the most trying, demanding periods in the life of
this thirty—two year old mother.

That illness could sweep through a family of young
children is not remarkable even now—-much less then in an
era of less developed preventative medical care. Even so,
for those who are impressed with the interaction-—the "one-
ness," in fact--of psyche and soma, the illness of the six
children swiftly accompanying the bereavement of a husband's
and father's death, seems striking. Esther herself devel-
oped pneumonia while her brother, Homer, had something like
today's strept throat, and Barbara was diagnosed as a dip-
theria carrier. Ada, Howard, and George had influenza.

One of the symbols of that very miserable hospitalization
for Esther came to be a very simple object-~her mother's
jaunty brown beaver hat. For it was this hat that Esther

first spotted out the window, down the hall, or at the door

37

to let her know that "mom" had come to visit and break the
lonely monotony of sterile hospitalization.

In the years to follow, the kind of woman "Middy"
Middlewood was, showed in many varied facets. No matter
how much disappointment or bitterness she may have felt
about her husband, Esther never once remembers her mother
saying anything against him. The only time that ever verged
on this possibility was once when Esther whined about some
task her mother assigned her and cried out, "If my daddy
were here, I wouldn't have to do it!" "Middy" burst out
bitterly, "Oh, your daddy..." with whatever thoughts that
would have followed being left unsaid and choked back in
controlled anger. Esther says she could seem to sense that
her mother would have said something negative about the
father. A chastened little girl lost no haste in settling
down to do the chore with no further complaint, for she
is sure she would not have wanted her mother to say anything
derogatory about the father at that time.

Regardless, then, of her own mixed feelings about
her husband, "Middy" was mindful of what it meant to her
children to have as positive a picture of their father as
possible. Moreover, she knew it was important to do what;
ever she could to make up to them for his loss. Esther
comments:

I cannot help feeling just how much wisdom

mother had about this. She was always inviting

male relatives and their families over to the house.
Then there was ”Uncle" Fred and "Aunt" Matey. They

 

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38

were not really our relatives, but "Uncle" Fred

was very close to us, as close as any real uncle

could ever be.
Years later, in the depression of the 1930's, Esther was to
reciprocate the emotional gift she had received from "Uncle"
Fred by taking him and "Aunt" Matey into her home for nearly
a year when he had suffered some severe economic reverses.

Along with being mindful of her children's needs
for relationships to older men, from the very beginning of
her widowhood "Middy" was very proud and would not seek help
from more affluent relatives. "She would rarely accept
anything from anybody," her youngest daughter, Barbara,
was to say many years later, and some of her children oc-
casionally felt "Middy" was overly independent. She man-
aged for several years on a veteran's widow's pension or
a mother's pension—-the early forerunner of Aid to Depend~
ent Children, as this assistance is more currently named.
Esther remembers that it was something of a family occasion
when the monthly checks arrived. At one time the amount
was $52.50 per month for a mother and six children.
The family continued to live in what Esther's cousin

called the "children coop."l Esther, though, describes her

family's home as a simple, not-so-small frame green farm

 

1Of this name, Esther comments: "Dad had origin-
ally designed the building as a chicken coop because he had
intended to have a chicken farm. However, it was finished
as a house, and a sun porch was added in front. In those
days it might have seemed small to others, but to me it was
wonderful and our own. According to today's homes it was
not really small—-42' by 26'--without bath and porch.

 

 

39

house with clapboard siding, a large combination living-
dining room, a kitchen, and two bedrooms. It was not quite
"two rooms and a path,” as the saying goes, but "Chic Sale”
supplied the outhouse bathroom facilities, and water was
drawn from a well. No luxuries of inside plumbing, elec-
tric lights, or a telephone for the Middlewoods in 1918!

Through the years, both inside water and an inside
bathroom were to be added as finances permitted. Esther
remembers the whole family working on putting in additional
wallboard partitions and adding on a room. To this day,
Esther enjoys wood crafts, wood finishing, and tinkering
with mechanical objects, such as the power lawnmower. Peru
haps time adds a romantic glow, but she truly remembers
those early construction projects as pleasurable rather
than as arduous. Her mother typically added gaiety and
lightheartedness to family work projects.

The family-—and "family" is used here advisedly--
tilled the five acres where the Middlewoods lived on the
outskirts of Farmington, Michigan. There was always a large
vegetable and flower garden. With her six children, "Middy"
ran an assembly line of vegetable processing to prepare
food for canning. Even Barbara, as a pre—schooler, had
a part--such as picking the silk off the ears of corn.
Vegetable soup, home-canned, was a family favorite all win-
ter. The ingredients varied according to the seasonal variw

ation of ripening crops. Each jar, then, had an element

 

 

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40

of surprise as it was opened and sampled. Not only vege-
tables and flowers took root and thrived in the Middlewood
five acres. For Esther was to relate later that every one
of her brothers and sisters were to have cultivated in them
a love of growing things, shown either in their vocation
directly, or indirectly in home gardening.

It is not accidental, either, that Esther's yard
and garden have a very special meaning for her. Several
informants have commented upon her fine photographic skill,1
and her still pictures of flowers from travels in the Carib-
bean and in Mexico reveal once again that deep ground of
appreciation for what she herself would call God's handi-
work, that awe for the creative potentialities in one small,
and seemingly ever-so—unlikely seed. "Middy," it seems,
was to bequeath to each of her children this legacy from
what could have been an onerous chore, performed by reluc-
tant hands and dragging feet of resistant children. Not
a few parents would marvel at the capacity of this mother
to imbue her children with a transforming pleasure which
colored duty with a kind of joy. It is small wonder that
Esther's neighbors and friends show a mighty respect for

her prodigious energy in many endeavors, not to mention

 

lRegarding her interest in photography, Esther notes:
”Dad loved photography, too, and was rather good at it.
Of course, he used glass plates with the camera that you
hunched behind with a cloth draped over your head and shoul-
ders. He developed his own pictures, but I was too young
to share in that at the time.”

41

her proclivity for work in her garden at 5:30 a.m. in summer
dawn's early light.

If straitened finances were a goad to hard work at
home, the slim family pocketbook was equally effective to-
ward "working out" in nearby farmers' fields. Except for
periods at summer camps, Esther recalls how the older childu
ren toiled at picking beans, harvesting pickles, or picking
up potatoes from early morning until late at night by moon-
light during summers.

They were able to earn more than $5 per day apiece=~
a pay greater than the noted $5 minimum wage offered by
Henry Ford in his auto plants. (This $5 daily rate caused
great controversy among those nation's employers who thought
he was overpaying his workers and creating unfair competi-
tion in the labor market.) Regarding finances and personal
attitudes, Esther says:

There was never a time when I “felt poor," al-

though we were considered to be poor, and objectively
we certainly had a financial struggle. We dressed
in "hand-me-down" clothing. My mother also made
much of our clothing, and she had a knack for add-
ing something attractive or styling the clothes so
that I never felt that I lacked in personal appear-
ance. My first "purchased" dress came when I was

a sophomore in high school. There was one thing
that my mother insisted upon. We always had new
shoes, and no one was ever permitted to wear some-
one else's shoes. Sometimes we had to do without
new shoes for awhile longer because one of the other
children had his turn for new shoes that month.

We always had adequate food, shelter and clothing,
and mother had a knack for turning our hardships

into fun.

Along with raising garden crops, the family built a small

. l

 

42

barn for two milk cows, "Bessie" and "Betsy." Wood was
chopped from trees on the home acres to provide fuel for
cooking and heating until later years when an electric stove
was installed in the kitchen and an oil furnace was put in

for heating.

Mother Becomes a "Lady Postman"

With the added financial needs of a growing family
and her own sense of independence, it was inevitable that
”Middy" would think of ways to work toward self-support
beyond the self-help projects of home gardening and dress-
making. Until Barbara, however, was old enough to enter
school, she took only shorter term jobs, such as helping
at someone's home, where she could take Barbara with her.

As Barbara approached her fifth birthday, "Middy"
thought more specifically about more regular full-time em-
ployment. When she was Ethel Bromley, prior to her marriage,
she had worked for the Burton Abstract Company in Detroit.
She had made mechanical drawings and blueprints, as well
as attending to other tasks in the office. She was espec—
ially captivated with architectural drawings and details,
with their intricacy and artistry. Perhaps there was just
a touch of her father's eye for engineering and surveying,
and she felt drawn to return to her old job, which she had
been assured was still open to her.

Ultimately, though, the decision was made on the

basis both of a new opportunity and especially her desire

43

to be away from her family as little as possible. "Middy"

later was to say:
I thought wistfully of my old work. I loved
it and I had to make a living for those children...
six of them...But I knew that would take us into
the city. They loved the country...and it was for
them. I hadn't the heart to crowd them into a tiny
apartment where the din and scuffle of city streets
would replace the sweetness and the sun-soaked beauty
of the countryside.1
Esther's mother was given an opportunity to try
operating a rural mail route for an official trial period
of six months. (Unofficially, people around town said things
like "I give her about two months," or "She won't last two
months," according to what Esther heard her mother say later.)
"Middy" herself was not altogether sure she could last on
what she described later as "a rough, storm or shine, day-in,
day-out job on the country roads."2 To complicate matters
further:
I had never touched the wheel of a car until
I set out in one the first morning on Rural Route
2. For several days I had driven with another car~
rier, and watched him handle the car. That was
all. No one knew I had never learned to drive,
and they never did know, I guess.3

From then on she bought a new car every year, which

had the incidental, but important, advantage of assuring

 

lEsther McIntyre, "'Lady Postman' While Wearing Out
10 Cars on Job as Rural Carrier Finds Time to Raise Six
Children and Take Lead in Club Work," The Detroit News,
July 30, 1933, Feature Section, pp. 2, 8.

2Ibid., p. 2.

3Ibid.

44

mobility and greater opportunity to travel and take part
in cultural activities for her children in later years.
Her new job was also to reinforce for her children that
image of diligence, efficiency, and careful planningm-com-
bined with a warm interest in people and a desire to be
helpful-~which impressed both her children and others who
came to know ”Middy." Speaking of her job, she was to say:
It's a human interest job, this business of
delivering mail to people. You find "sob" stories,
comedy, and tragedy all along the line. I've been
"Middy" to everyone on my route all these years,
and I've done everything for the folks I serve from
lending a woman 50 cents to buy gas so her husband
could go to work, to rushing for the doctor when
a new baby was coming. You almost make their troub—
les your own, so intimate are the glimpses you get
into the lives of the village people and their rural
neighbors.l
Esther's Relationship to her Mother
The time is more than thirty years ago. The indirect
quotations are from Middy in a feature story in the Detroit
News, but they could have been uttered by Esther in 1965:
She thinks women make their big mistakes in
taking life and their ambitions too seriously.
In being "perfectionists," they miss the casual,
easy assurance that they envy in men. They strain
their nerves and ruin their figures and disposi-
tions.2
Her constructive criticism of a women's group, too, is al—

most an exact duplicate of Esther's own comment many years

later regarding the tendency of a P.T.A. group to scatter

 

lIbid.

21bid., p. 8.

45

its program emphases too widely and not concentrate with
more depth on a few significant projects.

There is a touch, perhaps, of the lingering senti-
ments of women's suffrage movement in one of Middy's other
comments, but the problems of women's equality and male
chauvinism are not so completely resolved to completely
date this observation regarding the efforts of her Business
and Professional Women's Club to help younger women:

We hope to help these girls facing the future

to avoid the difficulties we older women have had
in bucking a "man's" world. We can point the way
that will help them to keep their eyes open to the
political maneuvers that discriminate against women
while pretending to benefit them. We try to help
them also to the individual adjustment that means
successful, wholesome, happy living. The younger
generation is well able to work out its own prob-
lems if we elders will give them intelligent co-
operation and learn when to let them alone.1
The last two sentences might have been lifted, almost word
for word, from comments Esther has made and written. "Middy's”
openness to new knowledge about human behavior was expressed,
too, as she voiced the desire, had she had the time, to
take "a course with a good psychologist" and her willing—
ness to consult a psychiatrist when one of her children was
manifesting behavior that concerned Middy.

”Middy" had an avid interest in books and consid-

ered reading to be one of her main interests when she could

work time for it into her busy schedule. Even when times

were hardest financially, she scrimped to save enough money

 

lIbid.

46

for theater tickets so that she and the children might go
to one or two plays each year. She was the first President
of the local Parent-Teachers' Association and Worthy Matron
of the local Order of Eastern Star.

The parallels, then, between Esther's lifelong at-
titudes and interests and those of her mother, provide a
striking example of the process of "identification" (Esther
might call it "emulation" or "imitation" as she spoke to
laymen) which seems such a significant part of family life.
Efficiency with tenderness, intellectual drive and curiosity,
diligence with a sense of fun and lightheartedness, a love
of the good earth, a concern for people without oversenti-
mentality, a desire to be helpful in a practical way, but
with an awareness of the problems of overdependency-—such
were the qualities that "Middy" represented to her daughter.
And there were other attitudes, too, which might be best
illustrated anecdotally.

Esther remembers well an early episode in which,
at age four or five, she "stole" an apple from an A. and P.
store and came home with it. She hid the apple to eat it
in bed that night. For some reason the "crunch" of the
bites into the apple, not to speak of chewing it, seemed
horribly noisy that evening under the covers. [She was
not aware of it then, but could the noise have been partly
the growing voice of a child's dimly emerging conscience?]

"Middy“ was not to be fooled, and somehow she became aware

47

of the apple, although saying nothing about it until the
following morning.

Esther's confession was quick to emerge. "Middy"
talked at length about how long it took to grow an apple
and get it to market, the hard work of all the people in-
volved, and how these people had to be paid. She then took
Esther back to the store with the now half-eaten apple which
Esther had not finished for fear of making too much noise.
After being apprised of the situation, the store manager
agreed with ”Middy” to place the apple in front of a large
Big Ben clock. Esther was assigned a small job of carrying
oranges from a crate to a bin in her diminutive apron until
an agreed-upon period had elapsed. Time did pass, and Esther
was awarded the apple. Whether it was the apple or the
experience-~or both--that tasted bitter, she cannot recall,
but she knows that somehow that apple had lost its savor.

Christmas Eve in the life of a lady rural postwoman
and her children is well-remembered. "Middy" was not re—
quired to deliver every last-minute Christmas package that
arrived at the post office. She had a deep feeling, though,
about what some of those packages might mean to parents
and children along her route, as well as what it would mean
for the packages to arrive too late for Christmas. So,
unlike some of the other rural mail carriers, she resolved
always to deliver every single package to her route patrons

by Christmas Eve. Sometimes it required two cars, and very

.u...

 

48

early she involved the older children as ”runners" to speed
up the process of delivery and make sure that the boxes got
right to the door. {As her children helped in what became

a traditional family project, the excitement mounted. The
route was 40 miles and had 600 stops. Many of "Middy's"
friends along the route had prepared gifts for her and her
family. These presents made a growingly impressive pile,
not to be opened until later, which contrasted with the
dwindling stack of patron's mail, as yet undelivered. Or-
dinarily, ”Middy's" mail run was completed by 4 p.m., but
on Christmas eve, the work was seldom done before 8 p.m.
Then it was home for a traditional oyster stew and the open-

ing of the patron's gifts.

Relationships with Sisters

Esther thinks that mostly she was happy to have
her new baby sister, Barbara, born a few months before the
father's enlistment. She used to walk the new baby in a
fine English ”pram" and cover her with a beautiful afghan.
At night, when Esther was only nine years old, she had the
particular responsibility of getting up to heat peppermint
water for Barbara's colicky spells. How cold those floors
seemed on a sharp wintry night! Her father was working
on a night shift at Ford Motor Company, and her mother was
running a combination bake shop and restaurant for a few
months before her father enlisted in military service and

after the family's move to the small acreage in Farmington.

 

I...

 

\I.

N

49

Esther, then, was assigned the task of helping with Barbara's
care, especially at night when her mother needed her rest
before arising early to bake apple crisp. Farmers who stopped
at the restaurant very early in the morning on their way

to the Detroit farmer's market especially relished "Middy's"
apple crisp.

Although Esther was "the little mother" for Barbara,
there was pain in this relationship. The pain was doubly
difficult for Esther because of the earlier feelings about
Ada, her older sister, and the paternal grandmother's prefm
erential treatment. Both Ada and, now, the new baby, Bar-
bara, were considered to be more attractive physically than
Esther. ”My folks," Esther comments, were proud of me, but
they cherished Ada." At home there were numerous profes-
sional photographs of Ada, but Esther can recall only one
of herself. A childhood photograph of Esther reveals her
to be a round-faced pre-schooler with a rather happy-appear—
ing demeanor--by no means unattractive. It makes little
difference whatever the objective facts were, though, for
it is Esther's feeling that she was the Cinderella between

two attractive sisters that really counts.

Problems of Adolescence and Maturity

As early as seven or eight years old, Esther was
also aware that she had excessive weight. The awareness
in elementary school grew into a deep-~and perhaps in an

adolescent, exaggerated way, even desperate--anguish.

50

”Middy," then, was presented with the tears of Esther, age
fourteen, wanting to please the boys and struggling with
new-found feelings of puberty. She recalls her mother saying:

You will just have to do things well, or even

better than others, when you do them. I know you
are heavy. If you play basketball, you will just
have to play harder. You won't take any beauty
contests, and you may not be able to dance the "Big
Apple" or the ”Black Bottom," but you can still
learn to dance and to dance well.
There was no denial, no avoidance, no false reassurance,
and no wishful thinking in "Middy's" direct, practical-minded
approach to the problem of her daughter's weight. Esther
knows that her mother also tried to stress diet control,
but to no avail.

At the University of Michigan, when she was only
seventeen, she was placed on a rigid diet in a special diet
kitchen and dining facility. The health service doctor
cruelly admonished her: "If you don't lose weight, no one
will like you!" Various doctors through the University
years appraised Esther for endocrine imbalance and thyroid
malfunctioning--all without success. She consulted a psy—
chiatrist at the University who did not encourage her to
continue interviews for reasons of obesity. In 1959 Esther
entered the Mayo Clinic, where diabetes was confirmed. As
for obesity, she so poignantly remembers one warm-hearted
Mayo doctor's comment as he put his arm around her shoulder

and said: ”You were born a chubby, and you will die a chubby.

We will just try to help you live as long as possible.”

51

Through the years Esther's friends have sometimes contrib-
uted well-intentioned, but not too subtle, hints-~such as
offering a calorie counter book. Others, though, have said:
"Well, Esther, if you were to lose weight, it really would
not be you. You just would not be the same person."

Obviously, for her friends and colleagues, the ”real
Esther, the ypp," has many facets, many dimensions in which
her weight is only one aspect of many attributes. Within
the bounds of being circumspect, it is not inappropriate
to say that there have been romantic interests at various
times in Esther's life. The details are scarcely important,
nor were they sought from her. She seems to relate com-
fortably to men, includes both men and women in her circle
of friends, and has been known to speak with particular
effectiveness to men's service clubs, such as Rotary and
Kiwanis.

Esther, too, has some convictions about marriage
and the single life. She describes eloquently the plight
of some married women today who are torn between family
and career. Perhaps she has become more conscious of these
conflicts among individual mothers and wives who have sought
her out to air their feelings. Esther can reel off the
names of numerous single women of her own acquaintance whose
lives are fruitful, productive, and happy. She can even
cite a study which suggests that single men are the group

which is most unhappy as a group in our present society,

52

while the next most unhappy group is married women, with
married men ranking as the happiest, and single women as
next most happy.

It would be a mistake to believe that Esther would
not have enjoyed marriage and children, for she believes
very much that she would. She also likes to clean house
and to cook. When she had an occasion in 1965 to care for
her brother, Homer, during an extended convalescent period
at her home, she had real satisfaction in ”keeping house,”
although the nursing care in the early stages was very dew
manding and arduous. Esther can be sharp about what some—
times appears to be parental neglect or rejection of childm
ren; part of the force behind her sharpness is that she
considers that rearing children is a privilege, as she has
intimated in some of her articles.

Nor would Esther soft-pedal the loneliness that
can come in the single life. One can lavish attention on
a black cocker spaniel, and the clatter of a TV set can
shatter the solitary stillness of one's home, but there
is still something of pathos in Esther's comment in one
of her lectures: ”I seldom cry, for after all, who would
be around to hear me.'1 By no means feeling sorry for her“
self as a single person, Esther is too honest to minimize

the disadvantages of the unmarried adult. She believes,

 

lEsther interprets that this comment was made in
explaining the expression of feelings.

53

though, that the more talented, perhaps more educated, woman
faces a dilemma in American society. The more aggressive
marriage—minded adolescent girls [Esther has stronger lan-
guage for them!] push early marriages, often with the pres-
sure of their mothers behind them. The most eligible men
are often propelled into early marriages as well. A girl
who wishes to be creative and have the adventure of develop—
ing her capacities in a career for a while may face the
prospect that marriageable men later, as a group, may be
among the least capable of entering marriage. Esther has
no pat or ready—made answers for this dilemma, but she raises
serious questions about current tendencies to overemphasize
early marriage.

There are the pro's and con's of marriage, early
or late, and of the single life. Whatever these values
might be, the more mature years for Esther brought a mix-
ture of the quiet, ongoing flow of experience punctuated
by times of a more-than-average abundance of happiness and
satisfaction together with moments of heavy responsibility
and sorrow. For Esther, with her rather calm, generally
optimistic, perspective of her life and world, there is no
doubt that happiness has generally outweighed hurt while
satisfaction displaced sorrow.

And if this generalization holds true, perhaps it
dates as far back as when "Middy's" nickname for young Esther

was "Fudge,“ surely a name of endearment, while tacitly

54

acknowledging that her daughter was something of a "butter-
ball" at the time. When Esther would become disconsolate
or upset, even whine or weep a bit, her mother had a way

of putting her finger to Esther's nose, giving it a gentle
prod, as if to suggest a literal turning aside to put a
new face, even a smile, toward the situation. She would
say: "Now, Pudge, you know we Middlewoods can do anything,
and everything will be all right.“ That emphasis on ”we
Middlewoods,“ with all its firm undertones of family pride
and solidarity, became a lifelong foundation for Esther

and her family.

"We Middlewoods"...The Close-knit Family

 

Most certainly out of necessity--in part--and per-
haps by reasons of her own strong individualistic traits,
"Middy” stressed self-sufficiency, sharing, and closeaknit-
family cooperation not only while Esther was growing up,
but far beyond into maturity itself. Linked with this no-
tion as well was a stubborn refusal to be defeated by hard—
ships, perhaps an almost Horatio Alger-like accent on over-
coming obstacles with hard work and assiduous motivation.

The sustenance and support of these attitudes for
Esther can scarcely be denied, but at the same time her
mother's nurture of mutual responsibility and sharing among
family members has probably fallen most heavily on Esther's
shoulders. Perhaps, of all the children, Esther most deeply

took to heart her mother's values. For years, also, "Middy"

55

seemed to assume that because Esther was single, she could
more easily help other members of the family than could the
married brothers or sisters who were struggling with the
multiple problems of early married life. Although younger
chronologically than her sister, Ada, the mantle of "oldest
sister," emotionally speaking, seems to have been worn by
Esther through the years. Ada was strong physically, but
less gifted emotionally and intellectually and very preoc-
cupied with the concerns of marriage and raising a family.
For these, and perhaps still other reasons as well, it was
Esther who.frequently extended material and less tangible
assistance to other family members.

The two-edged quality of sharing and mutual concern
in the family was to crop up in a poignant and upsetting
incident for Esther just before her mother's death in 1938.
From a $900 annual salary at Caro High School in her pre-
vious job, Esther had jumped to an $1800 salary at Benton
Harbor. It was the years of the Great Depression, but with
such new affluence, Esther decided to splurge in a rare
spree of spending. She bought her first fur coat and a
velour hat of which she was extremely proud. (A friend
had recently chided her for her self-denial and suggested
that she should feel a little freer to spend something on
herself.) She wrote her mother that on the next visit there
would be a surprise to anticipate. To her utter shock, her

mother's first comment upon Esther's arrival was: "Oh,

a.

,.

.-

u
c
..

 

 

56

Esther, how could you spend all this money when your brother's
children need orange juice!"

With this misunderstanding marring the visit, Esther
returned to Benton Harbor and soon received two letters from
her mother. The first letter, sent along with a second,
but very different in tone, confirmed the mother's disap~
proval and deepened the misunderstanding. The second letm
ter~-written later and amounting to a retraction-~recognized
that at the particular time almost all of Esther's brothers
and sisters owed her money and that she had, indeed, been
self-denying for many years in offering help to others.
Esther saved the second letter, which also expressed her
mother's more considered belief that she had been unfair
to Esther, and the misunderstanding was resolved. However,
she has never since purchased a fur coat and rarely wore
the original coat and hat after this episode.

This incident took place only a few months before
her mother's tragic death. On December 2, 1938, "Middy"
Middlewood had stopped her car on her rural mail route and
gotten out to deliver a package too large to put in the
box. Her car slid sideways on the ice when she was ren
entering, one foot on the ground and one in the car. Middy
was fatally injured when the car pinned her to a tree.
Visitors at Esther's home today will find a picture of
'Hfliddy" on her coffee table. It is not at all unusual

.for Esther to point the picture out to a visitor, often

57

seeming to connect something that came up in the conversa-
tion with some quality or attitude or comment of her mother.

Maturity also brought changes in Esther's relation-
ship to her older sister, Ada. Changed circumstances—aper-
haps the less intense feelings which come as contacts lessen
and lives become more independent of one another--brought
a muting, a softening, to the harsh, bitter feelings of
childhood rivalry and envy. Into this somewhat mellowed
acceptance of one another's strengths and liabilities came
the diagnosis of Ada's last illness: cancer. Ada came
to Esther's home, where she remained two years until she
died, with Esther giving much of the nursing attention in
the most critical weeks. Later, too, as well as all along,
Esther gave of herself to her sister's children. It was
of great solace, she said, just after her sister died, when
from the hospital window she saw her brothers and her sis-
ter, Barbara, walking together toward the entrance. Again,
it was her mother's words: "We Middlewoods..."

In 1965 the sense of mutual responsibility was to
be demonstrated repeatedly. Esther's brother, Howard, suf-
fered a heart attack, and the family rallied to his needs
devotedly. Her brother, Homer, was stricken with a cerew
bral thrombosis while alone in Florida. Esther left forth-
with, was later joined by her sister, Barbara, and remained
with him for weeks. She eventually brought him home with

her during an extended partial recovery requiring the most

58

intensive and demanding attention. Esther rarely accepted
offers of help during the most critical weeks during the
long, slow months of recovery until he could be cared for
in a convalescent home and resume work at his office in
Detroit on a limited basis. On still another occasion,
when a brother needed to appear in court under trying cir-
cumstances, Esther and her sister and brothers were there,
too, to give support and encouragement. Again, "We Middle-
woods..."

That close-knit network of "We Middlewoods" comprised
the earliest, innermost heartwood of Esther's life. Sur—
rounding this vital core were to come other concentric cir-
cles, each a layer of growth and experience, a new dimen-
sion. Esther would be among the first to say that the vital
juices of family life shape the tree of individual growth.
For it is said:

"As the twig is bent...
...So grows the tree."

CHAPTER IV
SO GROWS THE TREE

A man is a bundle of relations, a knot of roots,
Whose flower and fruitage is the world.
--Emerson

Out of the matrix of her family, Esther found strong
motives for achievement in school and in work. She might
be "in the middle" both chronologically and emotionally
between two sisters she regarded as more attractive than
herself, but if she could "shine" academically or in apply-
ing herself to a job, she could gain recognition, too. The
deep-rooted affiliation with her competent, hardworking,
and intellectually alert mother provided incentives for

marked striving in scholastic and vocational tasks. Again,

we see the mutual resonance of mother and daughter.

EarlyiEducation

Esther first attended school in Redford, Michigan.
The family moved to Farmington, Michigan, after she completed
the second grade, and she finished her elementary and sec-
ondary education there. Through the first eight grades,
she attended a one-room school, which was conducive for
a bright child to absorb the work of the students reciting

in the higher grades above her. Recalling her one-room

59

60

school experience, she recounts:

I always did extra spelling and arithmetic.
I would do the extra problems at the end of a chap-
ter. Sometimes I did not even turn in the extra
problems. I wasn't a "grade-hound," but rather
saw learning as a kind of challenge. That seemed
to be the way my mother saw things, too. I really
was an "over-achiever" who must have appeared bright-
er than I really was. I was comely, and I was ver-
bal, and I think the teachers liked my disposition
in school. I had only four different teachers in
elementary school. My mother knew them all, and
they had been invited to our house for meals.

Esther recalled that when she did well in school,
her parents just took her accomplishments "for granted."
On the other hand, her sister, Ada, was not as academically
competent. Of this situation, Esther comments:

My folks handled this problem poorly. They

paid Ada a dollar for a good report card, but I
received nothing for my good card. My mother
simply would say, "But, honey, mother expects it
of you," if I felt badly. When my folks were away
working, and we were supposed to share the house-
hold responsibilities, Ada would neglect her part
of the work. I would feel troubled that my mother
would come home from work and find the dishes un-
done. I would go ahead and do them. It was easier
for me to do the dishes than to see my mother be
unhappy.

Esther became still more involved with her sister,
Ada, in intellectual striving when an unusual circumstance
arose in elementary school. Esther was double promoted
in the fifth grade to the seventh grade. She now was in
class with her own elder sister. She became especially
upset during that year when it turned out that she had ex-

celled Ada on an important examination, and everyone saw

the discrepancy when the results were published. There

 

 

c

 

61

were limits to competition, and remorse set in when she
knew that she had publicly surpassed her own older sister

in school.

High School Education

 

In high school Esther was an outstanding student,
making the honor roll in citizenship and scholarship most
of the time, although she was not the valedictorian or sa-
lutatorian in the small class of twenty-five graduates.
She is remembered by her high school history and Latin
teacher as a serious, conscientious girl "who always had
the answer," while Esther herself characterized her rela-
tionships to teachers generally as "pleasingly impudent."
Her teacher, Mrs. Dan Veazy, commented:

I can still remember Esther sitting right up
front in my class. She always put her school work
first. She was well-liked, but not an outstandingly
popular student socially. I remember once that I
gave her a "D" on a paper. I met her mother down—
town later at the post office and told her about
it. I commented that the content was good, but
that Esther had been careless about spelling.

Esther was upset, but her mother said: "Good, I
have just been waiting for someone to pull her up
short on that!" Her sister, Ada, was a terrible
student, and I never thought she was attractive
at all. Everyone knew that Esther was very con-
cerned to be able to go to college.1

Esther was especially affected by four schoolmre-
lated individuals during her high school years. Of the

four, three were faculty members and one was a fellow stu-

dent. Archie Leonard was the superintendent of the small

 

1Statement by Mrs. Dan Veazy, personal interview.

62

school system, as well as the girls' basketball coach and
the literature teacher. Esther made the basketball team
because she was hard—driving, skillful and light on her
feet despite her chunkiness.l She had what she describes
as a high school girl's "crush" on Mr. Leonard, whose char-
acteristics seemed to fulfill some of the needs for the
paternal interest which she no longer had from her own
father. Mr. Leonard loved poetry and had what Esther con-
sidered to be a high level of appreciation for literature,
which he conveyed to Esther and other class members. He
later became a lawyer in Pontiac, and fifteen years later
acted as the executor for the estate of Esther's mother,
having remained a friend of the family all through Esther's
high school, college, and early work careers. Mr. Leonard
was demanding and set high standards, which Esther learned
to appreciate, especially since he could also be gentle
and understanding when the occasion warranted it. Adapt-
ing the contemporary 'teen—age vernacular, Esther says that
her high school French teacher, Mrs. Harold Wescott, really
"turned me on" as a highly stimulating instructor.

Another influential person in high school was Harmon
Boice, her classmate through the ninth to the twelfth grades
and on into the University of Michigan for the first two

years. They found mutual interests in literature and enjoyed

 

lAs based on an interview with Harmon Boice, Esther's
classmate and longtime friend, as well as Esther's own com—
ments.

63

doing things together socially. They visited back and forth
in one another's homes, and Esther was very fond of Dr.
Boice, Harmon's father, who also was a physician for the
Middlewood family. Harmon greatly admired Esther's mother,
”Middy" Middlewood, and enjoyed his visits to her lively
family.

Perhaps the admiring relationship with Dr. Boice
had some influence on Esther's desire to become a doctor
when she was in high school. Several reasons eventually
deterred her from this profession. The limited family fi—
nances played a prominent part. The rarity of women doc-
tors and her hazy impression that women in medicine were
rather "odd" made it hard for her to see herself as fitting
into that profession. She considered missionary work, but
wanted to g9, not just preach. Esther felt that she must
acquire some definite background in another service profes~
sion--such as medicine, teaching, or social work—~before
she could even consider becoming a missionary. She weighed
the possibilities of social work and even went so far as
to visit the renowned Chicago settlement, "Hull House,"
to inquire about the social work profession. She learned
that the salaries of social workers were especially low
at that time. She even got the mistaken impression that
wealthy women principally were the only individuals who

could afford to work in such an underpaid profession.

64

Esther Attends the University of Michigan

Esther was graduated from Farmington High School
in 1925, having just had her seventeenth birthday. She
entered the University of Michigan that fall with Harmon
Boice, the only other class member to attend the University.
A few classmates, she recalls, also entered the state teach-
ers' college at Ypsilanti. Concerned townspeople had raised
money to help Esther go to college, but she also worked
very hard at a wide variety of jobs while attending the
University.

She was employed in a private home, where she rem
ceived her room and board, during her first year. At vari-
ous times during her undergraduate career, she had a clean-
ing job in a rooming house and frosted cakes at the Poll
Parrot Tea Room for pastries catered to fraternities and
sororities. She ushered in a theatre, did housework for
a physical education instructor, waited on table at the
Martha Cook dormitory, operated a dormitory switchboard,
and taught swimming at the University pool.

She never considered herself to be especially tal-
ented or assiduous in practicing the piano, but she had
taken lessons for years in grade school and high school.

She became sufficiently proficient so that she taught piano
for seventy-five cents a lesson for a time during high school.
This music training, plus her long-time experience in church

choirs, became the basis of her membership in the University

65

Glee Club and Choral Union. She never soloed, but laugh-
ingly recalls that she sang in an octet as background for
someone who did sing a solo. Later Esther was to learn

to play the trumpet and clarinet in the Interlochen Music
Camp, where she spent eight years as summer swimming and
waterfront instructor beginning in her senior year in col-
lege.

Esther's participation in sports at the University
was also a continuation of earlier childhood experience
and training. From informal swimming nearly as soon as
she was able to walk, Esther had further development in
swimming, including formal instruction, every summer at
Girl Scout camps beginning at the age of twelve. She even-
tually qualified as a lifeguard, and by the time she went
to Interlochen as a college senior, was a lifeguard in-
structor. She was on the University women's swimming team
and the women's hockey team for three years. In addition
to the very active involvement in sports, Esther had parts
in plays and also was on the debate team. In retrospect,
she wonders how she ever managed to work so many hours,
engage in so many extracurricular activities, and maintain
a good scholastic record. She remembers, for example, getn
ting up and swimming a mile each morning for three years
while she was on the swimming team. She was the top swim~
mer at the 440-yard and 880-yard distances.

Esther took as many psychology courses as she could

 

 

 

 

 

\l

66

at the University, but she gradually began to see that her
focus in psychology was not in working with animals in the
experimental work that was so strongly emphasized in the
Psychology Department at that time. Clinical psychologyu-
closer to her interests--then tended to emphasize what she
regarded as rather routine psychological testing. She wanted
to work with people to be helpful, and testing in itself
seemed dull. She was captivated by courses in sociology

and anthropology, but always on the applied level rather

than research.

Her academic advisor encouraged her to move toward
teaching. The field seemed to offer security, which was
important with respect to her family's limited financial
resources. Then, too, her long work with youth in summer
camps as a counselor seemed to fit the teaching interest.
Furthermore, she had the abundant family experience of be—
ing an older sister with a younger sister and three younger
brothers. The common denominator of her wish to serve people
had undergirded all of her evolving thoughts about medicine,
missionary work, social work and, finally, teaching. Does
this theme reflect echoes of her mother's attitudes which
”Middy" voiced?

It's a human interest job...We try to help them
also to the individual adjustment that means suc-
cessful, wholesome, happy living. The younger gen-
eration is well able to work out its own problems

if we elders will give them intelligent cooperation
and learn when to let them alone...1

 

lEsther McIntyre, o . cit., pp. 2, 8.

67

A Teaching_Career Is Started

After obtaining her A.B. degree in psychology and
education in 1929, Esther had a summer at Interlochen and
then took her first teaching position at Caro High School,
Caro, Michigan. Her practice teaching at the University
of Michigan was at the University High School, where gener-
ally the students were of high academic background and in-
tellectual ability. When she got to Caro, she realized
how artificial the practice teaching had been. Like most
beginning teachers, she was apprehensive about this first
teaching experience. Her doubts were heightened by several
factors. She found that in one class she had two male stu-
dents who were older than she was. In a very large room
used for a study hall she was to witness many students rhyth—
mically clomp their feet as a particularly heavy-footed
older woman teacher walked down an aisle in an unfortunately
characteristic gait. Esther determined that she would not
be caught by these two circumstances, being mindful that
her heavier figure might become a butt of ridicule in some
way. As for class discipline and the older boys, she exer-
cised a firm, but friendly, approach. She is pleased that
never once in her teaching career did she have to send a
student to the principal's office, and the two older boys
were no exception. She bought some crepe-soled shoes to
avoid any particularly audible tread in the large study

hall and was never subjected to student hazing.

68

In addition to the usual hazards of the new teacher,
Esther had the special circumstance that her younger sister,
Barbara, had come to live with her. "Middy," her mother,
was not particularly well and did not feel quite up to cop-
ing with the vagaries of adolescence in her sixth and final
child. Perhaps most important, though, was that "Middy"
felt Barbara needed a better education than that rather
narrow, strictly academic curriculum approach in the local
home high school. Barbara completed high school while liv-
ing with Esther, and the experience was both rewarding and
trying for both.
Years later, Barbara recalls:
Once I was at the blackboard and Esther cor—
rected me. I turned around and said: "Oh, Esther,
I did too!" I had a class with Esther, and she
had always insisted that I call her "Miss Middle-
wood." I suppose she was conscious of being a be-
ginning teacher and the need for respect from all
pupils, even her own sister. I know I "heard about
it" from her when I slipped-~in my irritation at
being corrected--and forgot to use the right name.
I will say, though, that Esther was the best teacher
I ever had. She was strict in class and she was
strict with me when I lived with her, too, but I
think I learned more from her than any other teacher.
On her side, Esther had her qualms about assuming
the responsibilities of mothering her younger sister. She
believes she bent over backward to be strict because of

her own insecurity. She has wondered often how perplexing

it must have been for Barbara to have her older sister be

 

1

terview.

Statement by Mrs. Barbara Oldenberg, personal in—

69

a mother to her as well. She never wanted to be in the
position of overshadowing Barbara as she felt in limited
respects her own older sister, Ada, had overshadowed her.
She knew that for years Barbara had heard of the academic
and related accomplishments of which ”Middy" was understand»
ably proud with regard to Esther. Barbara did very well
in high school, too, but both Barbara and Esther concur
that having your older sister try to be your sister, mother,
and teacher was confusing at times. Jokingly, Barbara adds:
"Not only that, when I went to camp, Esther was my counselor
there, too. It seems I couldn't get away from her anywhere!"l
Although a middle-sized class B high school of about
four hundred students, as Esther recalls it, Caro High School
then had no visiting teachers or counseling services. This
deficiency was not unique for the time nor for the size of
school, but it meant that the family-related or personal
problems of students had to be handled entirely by the class~
room teachers and administrators, to the extent that they
were dealt with at all. For Esther this deficiency presented
an opportunity rather than a problem. She coached debating
and sponsored plays, which developed avenues for knowing
many students on a more informal basis. Her individual
interest was conveyed to both the students and the community.

Evidence of this was to come on one occasion strikingly

 

1Ibid.

70

when a letter came to the town post office addressed, "Miss
Goodfellow," and seeking help for a personal problem. The
post office delivered the letter to Esther because of her re-
pute, by then, of being committed to aiding individuals.
While she was at Caro she assisted an amputee in
one farm family who at the age of eight had never attended
school. She was able to help him get medical care, includ-
ing prostheses and vocational rehabilitation services. The
reward for giving this assistance was to come some years
later when he had completed work in chemical engineering
and held a responsible position for a Michigan chemical
firm. Similarly, she was to help another family arrange
for the placement of their retarded child. Federal social
services, such as the Social Security programs, were non-
existent then, and even the state services were minimal.
Local responsibility centered largely in voluntary services,
with the exception of very limited financial assistance
rendered through politically-oriented township officials
acting as relief dispensers. With such gaps in both school
counseling services and community facilities, Esther recalls
that many problems of children and families were simply
neglected. However, with her interest and awareness of
the limited services that were available, Esther became
a kind of volunteer visiting teacher and social worker at

Caro long before the school formally had such a service.

On a more personal level, Esther also reacted

71

somewhat differently than other teachers. Her behavior at
Caro was to be the forerunner of a consistent life style
where she attempted to avoid stereotyped professional atti-
tudes and contentment with routine, hackneyed approaches.
She found that the teachers in Caro tended to be in a small,
isolated clique. They had their own bridge club and music
club and did not mix much with the townspeople. Many of
the teachers, particularly the large number that was single,
tended to leave the community on weekends and to be unin—
volved in the Caro community generally.

Esther is not sure that the Caro townspeople would
have welcomed more involvement on the part of the teachers,
although she herself had no problem in getting into church—
related activities such as the choir. However, she found
that she also tended to go home for weekends, and certainly
this pattern was rather understandable, considering her
attachments to her mother and family. She is not sure that
she would have stayed at Caro as long as she did were it
not for the fact that her sister, Barbara, was there with
her. Barbara, normally enough, preferred to remain with
her classmates rather than having to shift schools in the

middle of her high school career.

Esther Specializes in Counseling and Guidance
In the six years at Caro, Esther's interest in the
emotional and family adjustment of her students grew. She

sensed that personal conflicts often seemed to get in the

72

way of learning and was intrigued with the notion of how
such learning inhibitions might be reduced or avoided.

From this gradually maturing focus, she decided to return
to the University of Michigan to obtain her M.A. degree in
counseling and guidance. Her master's program focussed on
her thesis: Satisfactions and Annpyances of Junior and
Senior High Students, an unpublished study of 2,000 students.
After obtaining her degree she at first intended to enroll
for a term at Wayne University to prepare for teaching in
the Detroit school system, where certain courses from the
city university were required as prerequisites. However,
she received a good offer to teach at Benton Harbor, begin—
ning in January, 1937, and decided to accept it after comm
pleting some additional child development courses at Wayne
University.

At Benton Harbor High School, Esther taught courses
in English and sociology, with the latter course emphasiz-
ing mental hygiene concepts for one of two semesters. She
understands that her course in mental hygiene was the first
one to be given accreditation by the University of Michigan,
which was the statewide secondary education accrediting
body at that time. Her sociology course emphasized know-
ledge of the community and community resources, such as
the social agencies and courts.

More traditional-minded teachers looked askance

at her project-centered approach with the use of student

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73

committees. Committee chairmen arranged outside visits

to social agencies and brought in reports, sometimes being
excused from traditional attendance at class to engage in
these projects. However, she had the complete support of
her principal in what was then a fairly radical approach

in teaching for that particular high school. During another
year she deliberately took a widely heterogeneous group of
students for a core course of English and social studies.
She wanted to test the concept of teaching for individual
differences and used small group methods to help students

of varying abilities to operate at their own level of learn—
ing and experience. The class, although somewhat experi-
mental in nature, was deliberately kept at the same size

as other teachers' classes.

Esther wanted to combat the notion that anyone could
teach for individual differences if their classes were small~
er. She kept accurate records of scholastic achievement,
compared with testing norms, for each student. She believes
that she demonstrated that if teachers will be creative
and diligent enough, allowances can be made for individual
variations in students, and that they also make very satis-
factory academic progress. A few of the other more flex-
ible, forward—looking teachers adopted her methods, but
somewhat to Esther's regret, many teachers seemed very con-
tent to teach in routinized, standardized, uncreative ways.

Esther felt that not only professionally, but

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74

personally, the teaching group tended to settle in a rut

and to teach the same way, year in and year out. She well
recalls one very experienced teacher who directed a class
without a textbook in hand and from rote memory said: ”Now,
class, turn to page 48, and on the top of the page, you

will see a sentence beginning with the words, 'The man...'
Will you please find the dangling participle?" It was a
shock to Esther to realize that this teacher had been teach-
ing for so long in the same old way that she could practic-
ally repeat herself mechanically year after year.

On the personal level, Esther found that teachers
had a set route for proceeding from the school to their
residences and seemed to follow the route unvaryingly.

Their life outside school hours, as well as in, seemed to

be routinized to a high degree. To Esther, this kind of
regimen was most distasteful. She also had a growing im-
patience with the lock-step, subject-centered, traditional
curriculum and teaching staff which seemed to teach students
as automatons who had no feelings, no families, and no free—
dom to be creative or different--in other words, not as
human beings, but machines.

During 1940-1944 Esther became a guidance counselor
and director of guidance at the Benton Harbor Junior High
School, where she could try to use her interest and talents
for more individuation of students as complete, living per—

sonalities. This work, as well as her previous work in

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75

teaching the sociology and mental hygiene courses, brought
her into ever-greater communication with the social agencies
and community facilities of the community. She was active
in community organization committees, particularly the So~
cial Planning Council, the Twin Cities Girl Scout Council,
American Cancer Society, and American Association of Uni-
versity Women.

Esther found her growing concern for the individual
student and for wider community implications was throttled
by demands for schedules of standardized testing programs.
Too often, the tests had to be given routinely and limita-
tions of time, teacher interest, or teacher competence left
the results to be unused or misused. Again, the routinized,
bureaucratic demands of the school testing program seemed
to overshadow really individual concern for the student as

a person.

Esther's Work in Child Guidance Clinics

 

Coinciding with these feelings, Esther met Dr. Clyde
Simpson, first head of the Kalamazoo Child Guidance Clinic,
a psychiatric clinic for children which was one of the early
public clinics established by the State Hospital Commission,
to be changed in 1945 to the newly created State Department
of Mental Health. Prior to taking the position at the Kala-
mazoo Clinic, Dr. Simpson had been associated with the famous
Dr. William Healy of the Judge Baker Foundation, Boston.

It was this identical Dr. William Healy who, in 1908, that

76

same year that Esther was born, had been preparing to es-
tablish the first child guidance clinic in the United States
at Chicago. Only a few years later he had moved to Boston
to set up the Judge Baker Foundation, one of the most famous
treatment centers in the country, with emphasis on the sci-
entific treatment of juvenile delinquency.l

Through Dr. Simpson, then, Esther was to feel still
further the influence of the mental health movement through
one of its very early leaders, Dr. Healy. Dr. Simpson cor-
rectly saw Esther's growing interest in individual consider»
ations for children and encouraged her to take a training
position in psychiatric social work at his Kalamazoo clinic.
There had been some expectation that she would gain credit
for field work training in social work at the University
of Michigan, but this accreditation never developed. How-
ever, Esther had the benefit of careful, individual staff-
ing of all of her individual treatment cases by Dr. Simpson,
whom she found to be an excellent, painstaking teacher,
who was not content with careless thinking and demanded
the best from her.

Again, Esther was to receive the indirect influence
of Dr. William Healy through still another member of the
Judge Baker Foundation staff who had worked with Dr. Healy

in the 1920's. Dr. Samuel Hartwell, Assistant Director of

 

lHarry L. Lurie (ed.), Encyclopedia of Social Work
(New York: National Association of Social Work, 1965), p.
99.

 

 

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77

the Department of Mental Health, was in charge of all com-
munity services-~mainly child guidance clinics at that time--
for the Department. Dr. Healy had written the foreword to

Dr. Hartwell's well-known book of that era, Fifty-Five ”Bad"

 

.BQXEJ recounting Dr. Hartwell's work with delinquent boys
at the Judge Baker Foundation. Dr. Hartwell, a fellow of
the American Psychiatric Association and the American Ortho~
psychiatric Association, had been President of the latter
organization in 1940, just as Dr. Healy had been its first
President in 1923. Prior to coming to Michigan in 1945,
Dr. Hartwell had been the head of child guidance clinics
in Worcester, Massachusetts, and in Buffalo, New York.
Under his leadership, his clinic in Massachusetts had been
cited as one of the outstanding clinics in the United States
by the National Committee for Mental Hygiene.1

In his speaking, writing and other professional
communications, Dr. Hartwell placed a strong emphasis on
the educational function of the child guidance clinic.2

His concept was that a strong element of the clinic program

 

1From Dr. Hartwell's obituary in the Buffaloi_New

Yorky_Evening_News, July 31, 1951, as found in the newspaper
scrapbook, Michigan Department of Mental Health, page num-
ber unspecified.

 

2As evidenced in personal interview with Charles

Wagg, long-time leader of the Michigan Department of Men-
tal Health and a close professional colleague of Dr. Hart-
well in the years 1945-1951. Dr. Hartwell's views are also
indicated in his Fifty—Five "Bad“ Boyp (New York: Knopf,
1931, pp. 1-8), and in his “Presidential Address,” in the
Journal of American Orthopsychiatry, X (April, 1940), pp.
207-215.

 

78

should be a teaching function for the community's caretaking
groups and professions--such as social workers, workers in
children's institutions, parents, clergy, teachers, nurses,
and doctors. Through case conferences, as well as study
and discussion groups, he saw the clinic staff as taking
leadership to improve the care of children in the community.
It was almost inevitable, then, that a congruence
of interests would bring Esther and Dr. Hartwell together.
Following her one-year training period, Esther went to the
new Western Children's Center, Muskegon, Michigan, where
she was temporary Acting Director until a new psychiatrist
came in to replace a Director who had left earlier. At
Muskegon she carried on individual treatment cases of child-
ren, but also met with groups of community caretakers in
the Hartwell tradition--more often than not, in late after»
noon or evening sessions. Dr. Hartwell and Esther were
committed very early and very clearly to the concept of
education for positive mental health, and emphasis which
came to be somewhat controversial in ensuing years.1 They
both believed that with special skills of communication,
the principles of living for emotionally healthy and satis-
fying lives could be learned and put into practice. They
were certain that there were not enough psychiatrically-

oriented therapists to treat all the individuals in need

 

1See Appendix, pp. 193-195.

79

of help. Furthermore, they were convinced that many fam-
ilies and individuals could be helped on a supportive edu-
cational level in groups-—effectively and more economically
than suggesting intensive individual therapy for everyone
with emotional problems.

Somewhat fortuitous with the converging interests
of Dr. Hartwell and Esther in the area of education for
mental health was the passage of the National Mental Health
Act of 1946. Through the National Institute of Mental Health
newly organized within the U.S. Public Health Service, funds
were made available to states for programs in research,
training and education.1 Dr. Hartwell recognized the value
of Esther's work in Muskegon and employed her as the first
mental health education consultant for the state of Mich-
igan in August, 1947. For Esther, this new work was a cul-
mination of many years' growth and professional development.
Now her deep interest in children and family life could be
implemented by the widest possible outreach into many com-
munities.

The very fall that Esther was appointed to her new
position, Michigan experienced one of its periodic "exposes"
of its mental hospital services. "Crackdown Due in Asylum

Quiz" was to be one of the headlines in the Detroit Free

 

 

1Ruth I. Knee and Warren C. Lamson, "Mental Health
and Mental Illness," Encyclopedia of Social Work, ed.
Harry L. Lurie (New York: National Association of Social
Workers, 1965), pp. 495-496.

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80

§£g§§_on September 26, 1947. One month later, on October 25th,
the Detroit Times printed an article headed, "Sigler to Ask
Millions for Mentally Sick," describing the current Michigan
Governor's new state program.1

"Asylum," which the Free Press headline writer had
used, suggested the outmoded nomenclature more in vogue
forty years earlier when Esther was born, even though it
may have been used because of technical needs for a shorter
term than the more modern and humane word, "Hospital." The
expose also was in keeping with the wave of such episodes
occurring in the immediate post-World War II period,2 when
there was a greatly renewed interest in mental illness.
So it was that Esther began her new assignment to see that
along with the great swell of interest and concern for those
individuals who were seriously ill with emotional problems,
there was also a program of preventative emphases. For
both Dr. Hartwell and Esther, their program of pioneering
innovation at the state governmental level was to become
a concrete expression of Sigmund Freud's cautious belief
in the power of reason, or education-~in human affairs:

The voice of the intellect is a soft one,

But it does not rest until it has gained a hearing.3
--Sigmund Freud

 

lFrom news clipping scrapbook, Michigan Department
of Mental Health.

2See Appendix, pp. 183—184.

3Quoted in Leopold Bellak, Handbook of Community
Psychiat§y_(New York: Grune and Stratton, 1964), Introduc—

tion, p. x.

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81

Department of Mental Health Background

The efforts of Dr. Hartwell and Esther in mental
health education were predicated partly on historical de-
velopments leading to the establishment of a Department
of Mental Health in the State of Michigan.1 During the
nineteenth century Michigan followed the fairly typical
state pattern of care for the mentally ill. Its first hos-
pital for the mentally ill was opened as the "Wayne County
Pest House" in 1832.2 Direct state responsibility was to
come in 1859, with the opening of Kalamazoo State Hospital
under the name, "Michigan Asylum for the Insane." The vari-
ous "asylums" or "homes" to follow were operated autonomous-
ly by local boards of trustees without central coordination
until 1923. However, beginning in 1911 the institutions
were more typically called "hospitals," signifying the newer
trends of the first and second psychiatric revolutions.
In 1923 the first nominal step toward centralized direction
occurred when the state legislature created the State Hos-
pital Commission, meeting once a month and, having no staff

of its own, at one of the state hospitals. The board was

 

lThis background material is based on The Develpp~
ment and Growth of Michigan's Mental Health Programs: A
Histopy of 125 Years_of Transition and Progress (Lansing,
Michigan: Michigan Department of Mental Health, 1962), pp.
1-39, and upon a personal interview with Charles F. Wagg,
associated with the state hospital system and State Depart—
ment of Mental Health for nearly thirty years in an execu-
tive capacity and for most of this period serving as either
the Director or Acting Director.

2The Development and Growth of Michigan's Mental
Health Programs, op. cit., p. 33.

 

82

wholly advisory and operated as a commission within the
large state welfare department.

From this abortive early centralization a further
step was taken in the period 1937-45, by which a central
staff on the state level was employed with complete author-
ity and responsibility for the operation of the formerly
independent hospitals. The new State Hospital Commission
of seven members was appointed by the Governor with Senate
approval and was independent in the sense that it was no
longer a part of the state welfare department. In the early
years, 1939-1942, there were problems connected with the
lack of legislative appropriations and vagueness of job
definitions, but by 1942, the appointment of two profes—
sional staff members plus stenographic help, based on more
generous appropriations, had been effected.

In 1945 the legislature created the Michigan Departm
ment of Mental Health as a major cabinet department in the
executive branch. Thus, in about forty-five years, the
state had moved quite remarkably. Rather than the mere
confinement of the "insane" in "asylums" loosely organized
under local boards, Michigan had progressed to the goal,
largely unrealized as yet, of a much more complete program
with enlightened hospital care, treatment facilities within
the community, and preventative emphases.

The legislative act of 1945 used such phrases as

"prevention of mental illness," but even more important

83

for the mental health education function, charged the newly
created state department specifically to: "conduct a state—
wide mental hygiene program with emphasis upon the promo—
tion of mental health..."1 Even under the State Hospital
Commission of 1937-1945, the position of Director of Mental
Hygiene as an additional position beyond the post of Execu-
tive Secretary, strongly pointed to the new interest in
prevention and education. While the post of Director of
Mental Hygiene was not defined specifically by the legis-
lature and not budgeted until 1941, proponents of the posi~
tion were mindful of the need for the development of mental
hygiene clinics and other corollary services, including the
specific functions of mental health education.2

In l946--just one year after the new state depart-
ment was authorized--Congress passed the National Mental
Health Act, recognizing mental health as a major national
public health program. In part, this legislation reflected
the growing national concern based on the records of the
Selective Service Administration, the military services,
the Veteran's Administration, and other public and private
organizations reporting the incidence of mental illness
in the U.S. revealed during World War II and the immediate

post-war period.

 

1Ibid., p. 18.

2This statement is based on a personal interview
with Charles F. Wagg, who had been both Administrative As-
sistant and Executive Secretary during this period.

84

The entrance of the federal government more actively
into the mental health field added new leadership and finan-
cial resources to the infant State Department of Mental
Health. As part of a federal grant, the Department offi-
cials decided to use funds to establish a mental health
consultant service in the central office of the State De-
partment in 1947. This grant was made under the authority
of the federal government through the National Institute
of Mental Health, U.S. Public Health Service, to encourage
community mental health services along with research and
training programs. Under the leadership of Charles Wagg
and Dr. Samuel W. Hartwell, Assistant Director for Mental
Hygiene, the concept of mental health education becoming
a primary function of the newly developing child guidance
clinics in the state, was developed. "Unfortunately," ac-
cording to Mr. Wagg, "this original approach was lost be-
cause of the tremendous pressures for individual treatment
of very disturbed children in the local communities."1

From the outset, a clear distinction was made be-
tween mental health education and the public relations or
promotional efforts of the Department. The purposes of
the Mental Health Education Section have been defined as:

There is need for the continual improvement

of social conditions, for sturdy family life, edu-
cational planning that concerns itself with the

whole child, preventive services for children in
schools such as counseling and diagnostic services,

 

lIbid.

85

marriage and family counseling, etc. A community
will supply these services in proportion to its
appreciation and understanding of the needs for
them. The Michigan Department of Mental Health

has long believed that it has a responsibility to
aid in the reaching of these goals, and it was under
this concept that it established a mental health
education section as a part of its functions in
1947. The section is not and has never been con—
ceived as a public relations or promotional arm

of the Department. The educational staff is rarely
involved in public support programs for more care
and treatment facilities. Rather, it has been their
assignment to serve as consultants to school groups,
as advisers to boards of organizations which are
concerned with people, as trainers of leaders in
parent education, and to carry out other similar
activities. Many mental health films, pamphlets
and teaching aids of various types are utilized,
some of which have been developed by the Department
and are widely used.1

The promotion of positive mental health, rather
than education about mental illness, was determined rather
early to be the principal focus of the new mental health
education effort. In part, education about mental illness
was handled informally through staff members of state hos~
pitals and community clinics. Additionally, however, the
existence of the active Michigan Society for Mental Hygiene,
later the Michigan Society for Mental Health, also made
it less necessary to provide information about mental ill-
ness. For many years both the National Association for
Mental Health and the Michigan Society had seen education

about mental illness as one of their major functions.2

 

1The Development and Growth of Michigan's Mental
Health Programs, op. cit., p. 29.

2For a discussion of the issues involved in education
for positive mental health, education about mental illness,
and problems of defining mental health, see Appendix B, pp.

86

The Early Years of Mental Health Education

With this background, Esther was named as Mental
Health Education Consultant to the Michigan State Depart-
ment of Mental Health in September, 1947. To her knowledge,
Esther was the first person to hold such a position in a
state mental health agency in the United States. Since
this program was a pioneering effort with no particular
precedents to follow either in Michigan or from other states,
it was Esther's responsibility to explore the possibilities
and to begin a sharper definition of the functions of the
educational efforts.

Several factors converged to set the direction of
the first projects toward mental health education in the
state's schools. Esther herself had an extensive background
in education, both as a teacher and counselor, giving her
a familiarity with problems in the schools and acquaintancew
ship with the roles of teaching and administrative personnel.
In many Michigan school systems in the late 1940's there
was little or no emphasis on mental health other than what-
ever straightforward classroom teaching would bring. Many
schools lacked counseling and guidance programs, as well
as special education and school social work facilities.
Clearly, too, in most communities--as is still true todaym-
the school system provided the most pervasive, all-encom-
passing social institution affecting children and parents

at critical stress periods. The logic, therefore, for schools

87

as a target group for mental health education efforts was
quite overwhelming.

Esther's early months in the field—-with long, ardu—
ous trips throughout the state--were spent mainly in inter-
preting this new educational service of the Department of
Mental Health, particularly with individuals in the commu-
nity who might be interested and influential in the accept-
ance of the program. Along with these wide-ranging exploram
tory trips came two school-based major efforts in Port Huron
and Dearborn. James Lewis, new superintendent of schools
in Dearborn, requested Esther's help in fostering a stronger
mental health orientation in that school system. A nucleus
of interested school nurses formed a beginning group with
whom she could work, but Esther also met with the schools'
administrators, parents, community groups, and in-service
teacher's training groups. Esther modestly discounts her
own role and credited a progressive school administrator,
but points out that after she spent eight weeks in Dearborn,
both psychological services and visiting teacher services
were soon instituted. Within eighteen months after her
leadership, Mr. Lewis reported to her that nearly ninety
teachers were sufficiently stimulated to undertake further
in-service training in mental health aspects of education
in Detroit courses.

A somewhat similar concentrated effort occurred

in Port Huron, where she worked particularly with visiting

 

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88

teachers and parents' groups. For a time there she even
had her own temporary desk directly in the school system.
The report of her visit was reflected in a news clipping
from a Port Huron newspaper, dated November 23, 1947, only
three months after she started on her new job. Headed "Men-
tal Health Consultant Closes Educational Visit,” the article
went on to quote the Port Huron Superintendent of Schools,
Howard D. Crull. Describing Esther's visit as "very suc-
cessful," Mr. Crull said that she "has been praised by all
the groups of professional and laymen with whom she has
worked and to whom she has spoken." He went on to comment
that: "Port Huron is large enough to support a full-time
worker in the field of mental health. It is hoped that
Miss Middlewood's visit has shown the value to the community
of such a service."1

Esther's visit in Port Huron included three weeks'
lectures and consultations. She had spoken to five service
clubs, teachers' groups, PTA's, the PTA Council, junior
college psychology classes, child study groups, church or-
ganizations, and Boy Scout leaders. In addition, she also
had participated in two radio broadcasts and conducted classes
for parents two nights a week, with a growing attendance

which reached about one hundred individuals at the maximum,

 

1From a clipping in the files of the Michigan State
Department of Mental Health central administrative office.
The name of the paper was not indicated, nor was the author
mentioned in a by-line. All other quotations in this param
graph are from the same source.

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89

according to the news report. Very early, then, Esther's
role as the catalytic agent to focus community interest

in mental health and needed resources is seen in these two
concentrated community efforts.

Interspersed with the wider ranging interpretive
efforts throughout the state, Esther regarded these two
concentrated efforts in single communities as good initial
investments of her time. Both visits had resulted from
direct requests for help and gave her more intensive and
extensive knowledge of the problems of two Michigan commu~
nities and school systems than would have been possible in
briefer visits. However, she realized that such intensive
efforts gave undue attention to a few communities at the
expense of a broader approach in keeping with the state-
wide responsibility of the Department of Mental Health.
Furthermore, other state and local agencies--such as the
State Department of Health, local health departments, and
the State Department of Public Instruction-—began to ask
for service.

From the outset, Esther determined that "one-night
stands," which were too often requested for entertainment
value, were inappropriate. It was inevitable, though, that
some of these types of engagements were accepted more fre-
quently in the early months when the need was urgent to
inform people about the services to be offered by the Men-

tal Health Education program. However, Esther consistently

.9:

\

90

encouraged a planned series of meetings to promote greater
group involvement and more educational scope and depth.
From the beginning, too, visual aids were used, but with
discrimination and a focus on their use as an educational
tool for discussion and study rather than being an end in
themselves.

"Mental Health Takes Wings"l was to be the title
of a report of her first year's activities when Esther was
the only professional staff member in mental health educa—
tion. One of the initial activities in the first year was
a cooperative plan with the Michigan Department of Public
Instruction to establish three-week mental health institutes
in seven communities, scattered widely over both the upper
and lower peninsulas of Michigan at an overall distance
larger than the distance between Detroit and New York City.
In addition to the Port Huron program, institutes were held
in Iron Mountain, Wakefield, St. Joseph, Alpena, Big Rapids,
and Ironwood. Emphasis in all these institutes was placed
on cooperative planning at the community level between Esther
and a representative group.

The emphases in the various communities varied.
Some communities asked mainly for work with teachers in
the schools. Adult education, wider in scope than teachers'

groups only, was emphasized in other communities. For

 

lEsther L. Middlewood, "Mental Health Takes Wings,"
Mental Hygiene Bulletin, Michigan Society for Mental Hy-
giene, 6 (November, 1948), pp. 10-11.

91

example, in every community a six or eight-session course
in mental health was held, on a non—credit basis, for all
interested adults. In the seven communities 1,420 individ—
uals were enrolled in the courses. Shorter units, or in-
dividual lecture-discussion programs, were also presented
to parent study groups, church groups, ministerial associa-
tions, luncheon and service clubs, teachers' groups, and
social work groups.

One of the more productive programs that year was
in Waterford Township, where the schools had recently been
consolidated. Several half-day in-service training sessions
for teachers on understanding child behavior were held.
Enthusiasm for a high school guidance program, for planning
for atypical children, and for follow-up study during the
following year was generated. Parents, including groups
in the outer county area, also asked for mental health edu-
cation programs. That year thirty Farm Bureau women's groups
expressed interest in programs in mental health education.
Plans were made for study groups with ministers, social
workers, and for youth leaders-~especia11y for those com-
munities further removed from mental health facilities.

In the area of media that first year, two series
of mental health radio programs were purchased and programmed
cooperatively with the Michigan Mental Hygiene Society.
Bibliographies for books and pamphlets were prepared for

distribution, and mental health films were deposited in

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92

the Audio—Visual Education Center, Ann Arbor, for distribu-
tion at minimal costs for use throughout the state. Approx-
imately fifty books on mental health and child development
were placed in Children's Centers (child guidance clinics)
for use in parent education in the communities served by
the centers.

In the second year of the program, September 1,
l948-September 1, 1949, Esther was named as Director of
the Mental Health Education Division. With increased funds,
partly because of federal financing, Esther was able to
employ three additional field consultants and one clerical
assistant. Initially there was some consideration given
to placing individual consultants in regional assignments.
However, for reasons of coordination and mutual sharing
of experiences with a new staff, it was decided to assign
consultants on the basis of the specialized experience which
they offered by virtue of different professional backgrounds.
The division of work and the individual backgrounds included:
(1) school-related emphases by a consultant with a bachelor's
degree in education and a master's degree in psychiatric
social work, with work experience in both school social
work and child guidance clinic case work; (2) programs with
the aged and work with public relations media by a consult~
ant with training in clinical psychology and secondary edu-
cation; (3) programs related to religion, child guidance

clinics and juvenile courts and parent groups by a consultant

 

,.

 

 

93

with training in religious education and psychiatric social
work; (4) for Esther herself, work with parent groups and
teachers, with special emphasis on conferences, workshops,
and institutes because of her longer experience and back-
ground in schools and child guidance clinics. The backgrounds
of her staff members reflect Esther's conviction that mental
health educators need not have a single pattern of profes-
sional training. In fact, she sees no profession alone

as providing all of the skills and knowledge needed, but
tends to emphasize backgrounds in child development and
child guidance, education, psychology and social work.

Along with the expansion of consultation, a number
of special projects were implemented during the second year.
The Pierre the Pelican pamphlet series for parents of first-
born children were distributed in thirteen counties through
local departments of health to a variety of parent target
groups and with different types of follow—up approaches.

The pamphlets had been developed and used by the Louisiana
Society for Mental Health through its director, Loyd W.
Rowland.l The project was experimental and designed for
evaluation in cooperation with the Research Division of
the State Department of Mental Health.

The use of media, such as radio, films, pamphlets

 

lLoyd W. Rowland et al., "A First Evaluation of

the Pierre the Pelican Mental Health Pamphlets," The Lou~
isiana Mental Health StudiestNo. 1 (New Orleans, Louisiana:
The Louisiana Society for Mental Health, 1948).

 

 

‘1

v.

94

and books, was continued, but supplemented and extended
with book and pamphlet bibliographies and a new annotated
film bibliography and guide. Esther wrote a number of arm
ticles for state and national publications, and conference
displays were arranged. A notable publication that year
was These, Our Children,1 written by Esther and since re-
printed in many states and widely used.

In this second year the beginnings of what was later
to become the highly successful Parent Education Associates
program were on the horizon. Two workshops sponsored by
the Mental Health Education Division were held in the Upper
Peninsula and Lower Peninsula of Michigan for lay people
doing mental health-related work with parent-teacher groups,
child study groups, and the Department of Health. From
both workshops, requests came for follow-up programs, in—
cluding additional workshops. In one workshop requests
came in two communities to set up lay leadership training
programs for former social workers, teachers, and nurses
with some experience in child growth and development who
might serve to provide additional leadership in mental
health-related discussion groups.

The Division consultants also served in workshops

 

lRalph Daniel, one-time mental health consultant,

Michigan State Department of Mental Health, presently the
Executive Director, Michigan State Board of Alcoholism,
described Thesey_0ur Children as the best publication of
its kind that he knows. See Bibliography for complete ci-
tation.

95

sponsored by other groups, such as Department of Public
Instruction Curriculum Committees, a county health committee,
a conservation workshop, public health nurses, fourteen Mich-
igan Education Association Conferences, Home and Family Liv-
ing Workshops of the Parent-Teachers' Association, and an
institute of the Michigan Mental Hygiene Society.
Cooperative planning with other agencies and state
departments included: planning with the Department of Pub-
lic Instruction for implementation in the schools of the
new state law regarding sex education; planning with the
same Department's Health Education Committee for incorpora-
tion of mental health materials along with physical health
elements in school curricula; development of a child study
guide for local child study groups as a joint project with
the Department of Public Instruction; planning with the
State Library for depositing and distributing mental health
publications among relevant state agencies; intensive work
with three local health departments for strengthening their
mental health activities through consultation and demonstra-
tion approaches. One of the consultants chaired a state-
wide committee on mental health practices in colleges, which
included both major state colleges and universities and

one private college.1

 

lAnnual Repprt of the Division of Education, Sgpe
tember l, 1948, to September 1, 1949 (Lansing, Michigan:
Michigan Department of Mental Health, 1949), pp. 1-19, to-
gether with interviews with Miss Esther Middlewood, Mr.

96

Sixteen county programs described as of a more in-
tensive nature were carried out during this second year of
the Division's program. Initial contacts were made with
forty-four other counties in which at least one community
program was set up, and in many of these counties, community
committees were set up. Staff members also served as pro-
gram leaders in fifty-five widely varying kinds of confer-
ences, such as the State Health Education Conference, the
State Rehabilitation Conference, the Governor's Conference
on Child Welfare, the State Welfare Conference, the State
Probation and Parole Conference, and a number of other con—
ferences largely centering in either general education,
nursing, or health education.

The second year's annual report described sixteen
objectives for the Division's program. These objectives
could be grouped more succinctly into six major purposes:
(1) To acquaint the public with patterns of mental health,
to encourage popular acceptance of a preventative psychiatric
program, and to initiate programs of mental health education
and curriculum planning with key groups such as teachers,
parents, youth workers, religious educators, and individuals

in industry; (2) To decrease misconceptions of mental illness

 

Ralph Daniel (former Mental Health Education Consultant)

and Mrs. Julia Doxstader (secretary, Mental Health Educa-
tion Division, later re-named Section) for seventeen years,
1947-1964, are the sources of the report of the second year.

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97

and increase public understanding of mental illness;1 To
coordinate mental health education work and to act as a
consultant with various other state departments, such as

the Department of Public Instruction and Department of Health;
(4) To participate in intra-staff groups and committees of
the Association of Michigan State Child Guidance Clinics
within the State Department of Mental Health; (5) To encour-
age and promote various mental health media--including films,
books and pamphlets with some original productions--and lay
leadership training; (6) To promote child growth and develop-
ment research and relevant teacher training in schools and

colleges.

The Early 1950's

From the early exploratory period and expansion
of staff leading to a still more comprehensive program dur-
ing the first two years, the early 1950's brought sharper
definitions of function, increases in local participation
and leadership, renewed efforts toward program evaluation,
and more intensive efforts toward the original production
of mass media, such as films and radio programs. Many of
the program emphases similar to those reported during the
second year were continued, and larger office facilities

made it possible to provide more adequately for film and

 

lAlthough stated as an objective at this time, in
practice this goal was, as previously indicated, given low
priority compared to the other objectives. The reasons
for this de-emphasis have been noted previously on page 85.

 

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98

pamphlet distribution and usage.1 At times in the early
1950's there were staff vacancies, and the more typical
staff was three professional staff members and one secre-
tary rather than four professional staff members, as in
the second year of the Division.

The joint evaluation of the Pierre the Pelican pamph-

 

let series distribution previously noted was completed with
the Research Division during 1950-51. Cooperative planning
of sex education programming with the Department of Health
and the Department of Public Instruction was reported that
same year. In 1951-52 increased cooperative programming
with the State Department of Social Welfare was described.
Success in increasing local participation and leadership

in community-based programs was attained, along with buildm
ing up "community files" in the Division offices which gave
pertinent chronological reports regarding those communities
in which the Division had worked. In 1950-51 there had
been planning with twenty-three counties on a county—wide
basis. Considerable work had also been accomplished in

ten additional counties without complete county-wide pro-
gramming. In thirteen counties that year no contacts had

yet been made.

 

lEsther's policy on film, book and pamphlet usage
is that while they are useful educational instruments, they
should be used discriminatingly, geared to ongoing educa-
tional efforts planfully, and not distributed "cafeteria
style” to all comers. Among other factors, she cites the
high economic cost of indiscriminate usage.

 

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99

For the broader objective of mass education, the

production of the film, Angry Boy, was accomplished in 1950

 

and distributed nationally under the auspices of the National
Mental Health Film Board, with showings in England and Europe
as well as domestically. The film was well received at

the 1950 White House Conference on Children and was nation-
ally televised with an estimated audience of 100,000. The
Division owned 183 films placed in six distributing centers
throughout the state, and the total audience reached in

film showings in 1950-51 (exclusive of the TV audience for

 

Angry Boy) was approximately 116,000.

Other singular advances made in 1950—51 included
the preparation of numerous articles, including some directed
to mass public media and others to professional groups.
Radio was used more widely that year with eleven live pro—
grams, and thirty-two courses of instruction, such as work—
shops and seminars, were conducted. In addition, consult-
ants participated in 667 meetings reaching 55,165 individ-
uals as speakers and leaders. The largest single group
consisted of PTA meetings reaching 16,605 individuals.

The report of 1950-51 noted that there had been
a change from the first year's emphasis upon work “on an
individual community basis without much being done to co-

ordinate programs."l After pointing out the reasons for

 

1Annual Report of the Division of Educationi July 1,

1950, to July 11.1951 (Lansing, Michigan: MichiganState
Department of Mental Health, 1951), p. l.

100

the individual community approach, the Annual Report pointed
out that while a state—wide approach was now possible, much
direct teaching was still required in those areas lacking

in resource people in mental health. Despite this continu-
ing need, however, an increase in consultative community
planning and leadership training was noted. Greater need

of leadership workshop and training programs was anticipated
for future development.

Still in the early 1950's, but now in the sixth
year of the program, special emphasis was placed on program
evaluation.1 Some of the difficulties of using specific
criteria, such as divorce rates or mental hospital commit-
ments, as indexes of disorganization (or relative health
with improved rates) were pointed out. Evaluation by the
consumer, evidenced by requests for service and letters
of either commendation or criticism, was cited as one meas-
ure of relative effectiveness. Demands for the service
of the Division continued at a level which required rejec-
tion of many requests for assistance.

However, for a more thoroughgoing approach to eval-
uation a state-wide advisory committee was set up for the
first time. The committee met three times during the pro-

gram year, and the subcommittee on program evaluation met

 

1The source for the description of the sixth year
is the Annual Rgport for the Year July_l, 1952, to June 30,
1253, Education Division (Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State
Department of Mental Health, 1953), 23 pp.

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101

four times. The larger committee consisted of representa—
tives from the fields of health, education, community or-
ganization and social welfare, religion, psychiatric serv—
ices, and mental health, and sociology. The subcommittee
on evaluation was headed by Dr. Howard Y. McClusky, Profes-
sor, School of Education, University of Michigan, and prom-
inent leader in the field of adult education. A formal
report was prepared, and the Division also took steps to
develop additional evaluatory measures with the Department
of Mental Health Research Division.

A statistical report on mental health film usage
that year disclosed that the consultant staff had used films
on 421 occasions, reaching a total audience of 19,631 per-
sons. In addition, five film libraries throughout the state
where the Division had placed films reported 2,598 showings
reaching a total audience of 127,784. A total of 10,664
pamphlets were also distributed on a selective basis that
year.

A breakdown of the work of the consultants in direct

service showed the following:1

 

 

Type of Meeting Number
Lectures 373
Lay leadership training 89
Study groups (series) 125

(continued)

1

This informal table is from the Annual Report,
~1952-1953, O o Cite, p. 15.

102

 

 

Type of Meeting, (continued) Number
State committee meetings 62
Consultation

Health Departments 53

Educators 46

Community planning 48

Child guidance clinics 16

Other state agencies 28'

191

Conferences, institutes, conventions 52
Workshops (two days or more) 40
Radio and television programs 39
Total meetings held 969
Total meetings unable to accept 309

 

As part of the evaluatory procedure with the Research
Division, the study of the effects of the Pierre the Pelican
pamphlet series was completed, and reports were distributed.
This study showed that readers of the pamphlets learned
factual information. However, the point that many author-
ities question the value of learning factual information
per se in terms of improved behavior, was reported in the
interpretation of the study.

The desirability of defining Division goals more
sPecifically led to a study between the Research and Edu-
cation Divisions regarding the objectives of mental health
education. This study essentially was an opinion survey
fronlone hundred authorities in six relevant fields: (1)
pSYtfluatry, (2) psychology, (3) psychiatric social work,

(4) mental health education, (5) public health and (6)

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103

education. The opinion survey defined five major goals,
with a number of sub-goals under each major purpose. The
five goals were:
I. Disseminate knowledge about and develop

understanding of the underlying principles of men-

tal health (with emphasis on the aspects related

to the individual adult); II. Promote the develop-

ment and maintenance of good mental health in child-

ren; III. Create informed public interest in the

problem of mental illness; IV. Develop the community

aspects of the mental health program; V. Promote

the training of personnel.1

In the light of the five major objectives, a program

review of the Division was then undertaken. In addition,
experimental studies were taken with the Research Division
to test the effectiveness of various types of programs with
variable leadership. In the light of the five major objec-
tives, the program review indicated substantial work was
being accomplished in all areas except the third goal.
Again, the deliberate omission of this program objective
was pointed out in terms of the substantial job in this

program area being accomplished under the Michigan Society

for Mental Health, formerly the Society for Mental Hygiene.2

 

lIbid., pp. 16-18.

2The sources of data for the section, ”The Early
1950's," comes from the Annual Reports, 1950-1951, and
1952-1953, as previously cited, and from personal interviews
with Miss Esther Middlewood and Mrs. Julia Doxstader, Di-
vision secretary.

CHAPTER V
THE TREE GROWS TO MATURITY, 1953-1965

Maturity need not mean inflexibility, and through-
out the earlier formative years of the program, Esther re—
iterated a desire to change the program to meet changing
needs. One of the main emphases of the mature years, for
which there had been forerunners in lay leadership workshops
earlier, came to fruition in the Parent Education Associates,
known more familiarly among its members as "PEA." In 1965
PEA members numbered about 1,800 individuals in forty Mich-
igan communities. The program became known as PEA in 1950,

and in 1960 a written manual was produced by Esther and a

1

committee of the PEA. The Manual defines the purposes of

PEA as follows:

The Parent Education Associates are a group
of leaders who are willing to devote time for train-
ing in principles of both child growth and develop-
ment and group process, and also to give time for
subsequent group leadership. They do not profess
to be authorities nor do they pretend to offer thera-
peutic service. They work primarily with parents
who are essentially healthy but who are also inter-
ested in doing the best job possible as parents in
light of current knowledge and available sources
of help.2

 

1Esther L. Middlewood et al., Parent Education As-
sociation Manual (Lansing, Michigan: Michigan Department
of Mental Health, 1960), 29 pp.

» 2lbid., p. 5.

104

105

Esther believes that there are many reasons for
having lay leadership development in parent education.

She also believes that self-led groups under unskilled
leadership can become destructive when the leader "has a
yen for being an authority” or lacks ability to use group
processes productively. Citing the lack of enough profes-
sional persons to meet the felt demands of parents, she
also points out that many professional persons do not have
the interest or particular attributes to make good group
leaders. With their basic training and concern for work
with individuals, where their services are also desperately
needed, she does not anticipate that professional group
leaders will be available in sufficient numbers to meet
demands in the future.

Where a professional person is pressed all too often
for specific answers about symptoms or more serious clin-
ical types of problems, lay leaders are less apt to be pushed
into this role. Esther believes lay leaders can be trained
to know their limits in this respect and that other laymen
do not expect a lay leader to give professional advice.

She cites also the fact that laymen talk in everyday lan-
guage understandable to other parents and are less apt to
fall into professional cliches or terminology that is either
confusing or anxiety-provoking to laymen. As compared to
professional leadership, lay leaders are far more available

at morning and afternoon or evening hours in small neighborhood

106

groups at times when parents themselves are free and can
meet in familiar settings at homes or other neighborhood
facilities. The possibility of lay leadership from all
ranges of socio-economic groupings, as compared to the
largely middle class origins of professional leaders, is
cited as an advantage of lay leadership.

Esther would be the first to acknowledge that par-
ent education for mental health is not universally accepted,
particularly by some members of the professional disciplines~-
psychiatry, psychology, and psychiatric social work. In
general, the criticism of these disciplines would be along
the vein, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing," that
lay leadership promotes harmful intellectualizing and intro-
spection, can disseminate erroneous or misleading informa-
tion and become a destructive vehicle for a domineering
lay leader. Esther believes that each of these criticisms
can be countered by the ways lay leaders are selected and
trained.

Esther does not stand alone in her support of par-
ent education for mental health purposes. Public health

leadersl particularly have given lay leadership in parent

 

1See the speeches of William G. Hollister, M.D.,
M.P.H., Consultant, Mental Health in Education, Community
Services Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, U.S.
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; of Roger M.
Howell, M.D., Associate Professor, Department of Health
Development, School of Public Health, University of Mich-
igan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; of Margery J. Mack, Ph.D., Men-
tal Health Consultant in Social Science, Mental Health

107

education their strong support. Like Esther, they cite
the many advantages of lay leadership and discount the pre-
sumed drawbacks.l

By 1962 there had been sufficient experience with
lay leadership in Michigan that Esther worked out a work-
shop to be jointly sponsored by the Mental Health Education
Section (formerly Division) of the Michigan Department of
Mental Health and the National Institute of Mental Health.
In addition to the roster of eleven workshop leaders and
Education Section staff members, forty-four lay and profes-
sional leaders in parent education from twenty-seven Mich-
igan communities were participants.

A critical issue at this conference was the consid-
eration of ways in which experienced lay leaders might now
themselves become trainers of other lay leaders. The grow-
ing, tested capacity of lay leadership, Esther believed,
had come to the point that lay leaders might become trainers
rather than relying on the very small state professional

staff. From the beginning Esther had encouraged local

 

Section, Public Health Service, U.S. Department of Health,
Education, and Welfare, Chicago Regional Office; and of

J. Wilbert Edgerton, Ph.D., Regional Program Director, Menu
tal Health Section, Public Health Service, U.S. Department
of Health, Education, and Welfare, Chicago Regional Office
in Workshop Report (Program Development Through Lay Leader-
ship in Parent Education), Lansing, Michigan: Michigan
Department of Mental Health, 1962, pp. 19-25, 65-69, 70,
43-45 0

1Carl F. Hereford, Changing Parental Attitudes Through
Group Discussion (Austin, Texas: Hogg Foundation for Mental
Health, 1963), is a report of a four-year study which strongly
supports parent education.

108

community participants to draw in local or nearby resource
people as much as possible. In part, this emphasis was a
practical necessity because of the limited state staff,

but it was also the deliberate focus based on a philosophy
of encouraging local initiative and avoiding undue depend-
ence on a charismatic "outside” leadership. The lay leader-
ship workshop, held in Lansing, Michigan, on September 17-21,
1962, brought to a focal point a growing trend to disperse
leadership to citizens in the community.

As it has developed since its inception, PEA has
typically been a three-year program of leadership training.
The areas of study have been partly structured, but Esther
and her co-workers have deliberately built in informality
and flexibility to meet the particular needs of individual
groups. However, the first year had suggested areas of
study such as the basic needs of children and adults, under-
standing behavior in terms of normal and atypical patterns,
and development of healthy sex attitudes. Film and pamph-
let resources were suggested, but emphasis was placed pri-
marily on providing informal participation which might be
an example of good discussion group processes.

The second year was planned primarily to deepen
areas of study, to explore areas which might have been omit—
ted in the first year, and to add group process skills.

In the third year, practice and evaluation of group process

was stressed, with the group taking over responsibility for

 

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109

its own leadership and getting ready as alumni to give leader-
ship to new groups in the community such as PTA's or Child
Study clubs. The alumni group following the third year was
designed as a lay leadership resource group for interested
groups in the community. During the three-year training
program, groups were encouraged to meet from September through
May on a monthly basis. A state council consisting of one
delegate for every ten members, plus group chairmen in local
groups, meets not more than four times yearly. Two of these
meetings consist of a state-wide fall workshop open to all

PEA members and a two-day spring workshop open only to coun-
cil members or alternates.

Generally,PEA was designed to be a supplementary
service group for existing organizations in the community.
Rather than being totally independent and autonomous, the
PEA groups have typically been sponsored by some local agency,
such as the visiting teachers, the PTA, or the school sys—
tem's director of family life education. In communities
where more than one PEA group operates, efforts have been
made to have some local professional person assume respon—
sibility for coordination and professional leadership as
a resource person. Throughout the life of the PEA program
One of Esther's consistent concerns has been to avoid dupli-
Cation and competition with local programs and to encourage
1-C><:al responsibility and initiative within the very infor-

malstructure of coordination through a state PEA council

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110

and the services of the Mental Health Education Section.
Reviews of "community files" for PEA groups kept
in the Education Section office confirmed a strong degree
of local responsibility and leadership taken by PEA groups.
The experience of the Lansing PEA groups, reported in a
personal interview with Mrs. Dale Granger, Director of
Family Life Education, Lansing Board of Education, also-
provided confirmation. Mrs. Granger said:
Esther has tried to keep contact with the PEA

groups enough so that they know she is interested

and available when needed, but not in a way that

they become too dependent. I know that she has

been concerned about keeping a good balance between

providing help as a resource person without encour-

aging too much reliance upon her.
Mrs. Granger commented that occasionally a member will say
that one of the main reasons they belong to PEA is because
of the opportunity to meet occasionally with Esther. How—
ever, this comment is balanced by a few other more aggres-
sive leaders who will comment that they would like to take
more personal initiative in state meetings where Esther
has had a professional responsibility for planning. For
nearly ten years the Lansing group has had at least one
group operating at each of the three-year levels, and Mrs.
Granger takes local responsibility for the PEA operations.
She has interpreted the PEA program to school principals,

Who in turn take responsibility for referring and selecting

Parents from the local schools who might be interested in

1Statement by Mrs. Dale Granger, personal interview.

111

joining a PEA group. An attempt has been made to select
parents who were primarily interested in becoming lay leaders
rather than in solving some personal or family problem.

Still another appraisal of Esther's role in the
local PEA movement was given by Mrs. Angus Miller, a certi-
fied social worker and long-time leader in a volunteer pro-
fessional capacity of PEA groups in Waterford, Michigan,
one of the more successful PEA community areas. In a per—
sonal communication to the author, Mrs. Miller writes:

I feel that Esther has been unique in the mental
health education field with her positive, challeng-
ing, responsive approach to human beings of the ado-
lescent and adult age range. With warmth and a
sensitivity for the cultural context and age-expe-
rience interest from which they speak, she explores
with them the beliefs and doubts, the expectations
and disappointments, the confusing theories and
practices of family life. Many young, middle-aged
and elderly persons, either male or female, wind
up with being more comfortable, adequate human be-
ings with some assimilation of why they or those
related to them behaved as they did and what some
possibilities might be for fostering healthy emo-
tional growth. This is in sharp contrast to some
other mental health educators that I have observed
who, in their extremes, are condescending, shocking,
bullying, authoritative, confusing and disturbing.

I am trying to say that Esther is well aware of her
audience's feelings and aspirations, as well as
being brilliant in her communication in lay terms
of dynamic psychology.l

Mrs. Miller points up an additional facet of the
PEA in pointing out that the groups "investigate and reflect
on social programming, based on their increased understand-

ing of children's basic needs." While the PEA manual strikes

 

hlLetter from Mrs. Angus Miller, September 6, 1965.

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112

an impartial stance regarding social action, neither negat-
ing or encouraging it, Esther herself reports that as parents
meet together community facilities related to children's

and family's needs quite typically come into discussions.

She has also observed quite informally that some of the

PEA leaders also grow into greater interest in community
leadership more broadly than parent education interest alone.
While the PEA program is not designed to promote support

for community resources or programs, the increased interest
and mutual support gained in the group involvement tends

to foster moves on the part of individual members in this
direction.

An example of this kind of development was provided
by Dr. Frances Martin, Professor of Education at Central
Michigan University. She writes about a PEA member, whose
name is omitted in this account to preserve privacy:

One of these PEA members, Mrs.
recruited me as a volunteer [for a local Job Train-
ing Center]. It has been my pleasure to see the
intelligent way in which she is handling the public
relations aspect of this project. She says that
she started her community work as a result of her
contacts with PEA some ten years ago. She says
that this group experience of three years' duration
of study and discussion saved her sanity as it helped
her understand herself and her family. She is now
a very sensitive yet poised individual. She is
not hurt by rebuffs and questions concerning this
new federal program. She listens to problems of
the trainees with sympathy and helps relieve small
individual frustrations and grievances... Mrs.
admits that the training in PEA was very
difficult at times as she had many problems to face
in understanding herself and often felt discouraged.
However, the groups and Esther supported her and

 

 

113
she found herself gaining in mental health over
the years.1
Dr. Martin suggests that other PEA members would

have similar experiences to report. She also related that
Mrs./ mentioned her appreciation for the enrichment
experiences at PEA workshops. One experience was that of
hearing a young Nigerian couple present their indigenous
music, and Mrs. told Dr. Martin that Esther fre—
quently arranged informative experiences which "lifted their

sights."

Services to Caretakers' Groupg

One of the substantial contributions made by Esther
and the Mental Health Education Section in the mature years
of the late 1950's and early 1960's has been the way in
which other programs have been sparked and fanned into in-
dependent entities. In her own 'teens Esther had worked
with groups of children at the Methodist Children's Home
in Detroit. Under her leadership, the Education Section
has had a continuing interest in the so-called "caretaker”
groups--all those individuals who are either natural par-
ents or serve children in some quasi-parental capacity.
Having been a half-orphan herself, it was natural that
Esther would have a special feeling for children who were

temporarily deprived of parental care and were placed in

institutions or other programs which substitute for parents.

 

1Letter from Dr. Frances Martin, September 30, 1965.

114

With this background Esther accepted an opportunity
in 1957 to work with the house mothers of children at the
Methodist Children's Home. Catholic nuns holding similar
positions in a nearby Catholic children's institution heard
of this new in-service training program and asked that they
be included. In her own words, Esther describes further
developments:

Workers from other institutions asked to join

the regular study sessions. Ultimately the group
became so very large and workers were driving so
far to come that they had to leave at 5:30 or 6
a.m. to get to the meetings by 9 a.m. Four area
meetings were established, and finally a structure
was developed to provide in-service training in
the four regions.

For some years now the Educational Section has only
needed to provide some materials for the sessions, occasion—
ally serving as a guest resource person. The Education
Section staff was able to withdraw from continuous leader-
ship as the State Department of Social Welfare was able to
see the program as having proved itself and warranting their
staff attention as a permanent part of their program for
children's institutions in the state.

On an individual institutional level Esther per-
formed a similar service at the Starr Commonwealth for Boys,
a Michigan children's institution. Wallace Watt, consult-
ant with the Mental Health Education Section for eleven
years until September 1, 1965, describes Esther's contri-

bution:

The personnel in such institutions can be quite
rigid and not especially open to new approaches.

~r-
4“
I

 

9.
‘I

 

115

They tend to accept outside leadership rather skep-
tically. Esther has the knack of coming in and
drawing out from them what they considered to be
their problems in caring for children, what they

did about it, and why they handled things as they
did. Only after finding these things out and help-
ing the staff members know that she could understand
and sympathize with them, did she begin to help

them consider other alternatives for handling child-
ren's difficulties in the light of sound mental
health principles.l

Watt related further that the Starr Commonwealth
group, including the administration, was converted to genu-
ine acceptance, asked for Esther to return for planned annual
series of meetings, and then moved to their own independent
in—service training program. He pointed out that Esther
typically encourages such groups to draw increasingly upon
other professional resources while she gradually withdraws
from more active leadership. Because of the relative prom-
inence given to Esther's leadership in the parent education
field, Watt stated that he thought her contribution to in—
stitutional workers was sometimes overlooked.

As another example of work with a caretaker group,
Esther relates the following:

For many years a well-planned workshop was held

in conjunction with Houghton college for rural pas-
tors. The leadership was provided by the Michigan
Department of Mental Health. Gradually more and
more of the responsibility was taken by the members
themselves. This was true also of the rural pas-
tors' training program at Michigan State University.
Initially we asked for and were granted permission
to teach a course on basic mental health needs of

children and adults. For several years we provided
leadership, films, and materials. The people

 

1Statement by Wallace Watt, personal interview.

116
involved wanted more, so a second year course was
added on psychiatric principles.

Esther recruited psychiatrists from the Department
of Mental Health for the second-year course. Ultimately,
she states, a third year was added as a course in pastoral
counseling. As the program became better established the
Education Section first withdrew materials, then leadership
at the planning stage, and last as a teacher. By this time
all of these elements were regularly provided for through

the regular continuing education structure of the University.

Auxiliary Services

Although Esther's primary responsibilities have
been in person-to-person involvement in direct service or
in planning and consultation for indirect service, her work
in auxiliary programs is not inconsequential. Following
her first task as the technical consultant for the produc-
tion of Angry Boy,l she served as a consultant for five
other films. The Lonely Night depicts the role of the psy—
chiatrist in assisting a neurotic girl with unresolved con—
flicts and hostility which make it difficult for her to

consider marriage. The film, In Times of Trouble, develops

 

the role of the minister in assisting the wife of an alco-

holic husband. The third film, The Bright Side, shows the

 

 

1Referring to a film series produced by the National
Mental Health Film Board for educational use, Nina Ridenour
writes: "The first film of the series, and probably the
best, was 'Angry Boy'. . . ." From Nina Ridenour, op. cit.,
p. 112.

117

contribution of healthy family life to the development of
children. The film, It's a Big Problem, describes the men-
tal hospital program of the Michigan State Department of
Health. The fifth film, The Broken Dream, is concerned
with the needs of retarded children. In some of these pro-
ductions, Esther wrote the entire script. She also showed
her interest in the film media by serving on the National
Mental Health Film Board in 1956-60, and she was a consult-
ant for a film workshop for the Board in 1962.

Esther has also shown an interest in research. With
the technical assistance of the late John Paul Sibilio, psy-
chologist of the Michigan Department of Mental Health, she
developed a project pertaining to children as they enter
kindergarten. A principal objective of the project was
to determine if a modified, projective story-telling ap-
proach might be used for children of kindergarten age to
identify distorted self-concepts. With an adaptation of
the Michigan Picture Test for this age level, she found
that kindergarten enrollees could verbalize significant
stories. Furthermore, she found significant correlations
Of the test evaluations with some "blind" evaluations of
the children by teachers. Esther believes this study, as
Yetzunpublished, holds promise for detecting early poten-
tLalities for problems of children at the significant stress
Period--entrance into school.

Where Esther was very active in 1948-1951 in writing

 

‘v:

 

'Ifl
I

 

'

118

articles for laymen, she has had less time for this activity
in later years. In part, she was preoccupied with film pro-
duction, and at other times shortages of staff made her
direct and indirect service responsibilities occupy most

of her time. However, she began the production of a manual
for mental health education under a grant of the National
Institute of Mental Health and completed five chapters of

this work by mid-1965.

Professional Relationships with Outstanding Leaders

 

In addition to Esther's versatile services and ca-
pacity to work with clientele of various backgrounds, her
rapport with professional leaders from different, although
related, disciplines is important. This capacity is sub-
stantiated through letters written by professional leaders
regarding Esther and her contributions through the Michigan
program and service at the national level.

From the area of family life education and child
growth and development, Dr. Evelyn Millis Duvalll writes
that in working with Esther, she was impressed on how "well-
focussed" and "well-designed" the Michigan programs were.
She comments further: "I personally have been especially
impressed with the significance of the program with young

homemakers,” referring to the Parent Education Associates

 

lEvelyn Millis Duvall, Ph.D., is a widely known
family life education leader and the author of numerous
books on child growth and development and on family life.
Quotations are from her letter, August 9, 1965.

S.)

K .
i-lvo'

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..Ar,

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119

project, and commends Esther ”for the leadership she gave
at the International Conference on the Family in 1960.”
David R. Mace, Ph.D., Executive Director, American Associa-
tion of Marriage Counselors, writes regarding Esther:

I know that she is a family life specialist

who is held in the highest esteem among her col-
leagues at the national level. Her sound judgment,
wide knowledge, and warm humanity have made her
many friends, and in any professional group she

is always listened to with deep respect.

Muriel W. Brown, Ph.D., long-time family life educa-
tion specialist, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare, describes Esther's contribution, as follows: ”It
is her work in parent education that I know best, and the
state program to which she has given leadership is, in my
opinion, the best of its kind in the country."2

From the perspective of psychiatry, Esther's contri-
bution is reported by Robert H. Felix, M.D., President,
American Psychiatric Association, 1960-61, former Director,
National Institute of Mental Health, and presently Dean,
School of Medicine, Saint Louis University, Saint Louis,
Missouri. Dr. Felix describes how he tried to recruit
Esther for work at the national level, but points out that
work at the state level would not have progressed as rapidly

in this country if she had left Michigan. Continuing, he

writes: ”Always I have found her ingenious, full of ideas,

 

1Letter from David R. Mace, September 14, 1965.

2Letter from Muriel W. Brown, August 11, 1965.

 

PA?
"v-

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.ub

.\d

a:

.5.

F s

“v

 

120

alive with enthusiasm, and impatient to move on to imple—
ment those new ideas which are constantly coming from
her. . . ."1
Several health education leaders comment especially
on Esther's contribution in combining skills and interests
from different disciplines. Mabel E. Rugen, Professor of
Health Education, University of Michigan, describes Esther's
leadership in combining public health, health education,
general education, and mental health aspects in her work.2
Wallace Fulton, M.P.H., Associate Director, Office of Com-
munity Services and Health Education, The Equitable Life
Assurance Society of the United States, New York City,
stresses how Esther has coordinated a public agency mental
health program with the family life field, especially by
her use of volunteer interest and participation at the local
level. Stressing that too few people know the significance
of Esther's contribution, he declares: "I cannot help but
feel that she has come closer to developing a thoroughly
realistic mental health program than anyone else I know
operating at the state level in the United States."3
Esther's high degree of skill in the area of films
as a mental health medium, as well as her ability to work

with a film producer, is reflected in the observations of

 

1Letter from Robert H. Felix, September 7, 1965.
2Letter from Mabel E. Rugen, September 15, 1965.

3Letter from Wallace Fulton, September 16, 1965.

121

Irving Jacoby, President of Affiliated Film Producers, New
York City, maker of documentary films in mental health and
other fields. First, Jacoby pays a marked tribute to Esther's
public speaking ability on mental health topics before wide
ranges of audiences. Describing her contributions to film
production, he writes:
How nice, then, in a person so skilled and
gifted, for me to find a most practical and sensi-
tive critic of the medium I work in. Miss Middle-
wood never misses the slightest nuance of writing,
acting, or film technique that helps get a psycho-
logical message over to the public... She has been
one of the most effective users of film and one
of the first to integrate motion picture into a
statewide program of mental health education. She
was also one of the first in her field to take an
active interest in the production of such films
and was of invaluable assistance to the writers
and directors that she worked with.1
Michigan's ex-First Lady, Mrs. G. Mennen (Nancy)
Williams, followed the work of the state's mental health
education program closely during the 1950's.2 She writes,
"Miss Middlewood's personality, her interest, and her drive,
were a great force and I know her well. . ."3
From the field of education at the local level, an
enthusiastic and detailed letter was written by James Ten
Brink, Superintendent, Intermediate School District, Muskegon,

Michigan. Ten Brink describes Esther's faculty of “meeting

people on their level, in their environment, and in their

 

1Letter from Irving Jacoby, August 26, 1965.

2Statement by Charles Wagg, personal interview.

3Letter from Mrs. G. Mennen Williams, August 24,

1965.

122

cultural pattern." He especially stresses her willingness
to serve and her ability to help groups face problems and
to overcome apathy to obtain solutions. Further describing
her work with groups, he comments, "She is fluent in com-
munication, versatile in her understanding of problems,
and extremely flexible in approaching situations."1

The view of'a mental health educator at the national
level comes from Nina Ridenour, long-time educational di—
rector of the National Association of Mental Health, who
writes:

I have always regarded Miss Middlewood as know-
ledgeable, experienced, and having a wealth of back-
ground in mental health education, able to mobilize
her experience and bring it to bear on the immedi-
ate problem at hand.2

The growing interest of the federal government in

mental health education, as well as Esther's relationships
with federal officials, was reflected in personal communi-
cations at the national and regional levels. J. Wilbert
Edgerton, Regional Program Director, Mental Health Service,
U.S. Public Health Service, confirmed that the Michigan
program is the only one in the Midwest which has full-time
staff service for direct education in mental health beyond

providing distribution of films and literature. Edgerton .

especially stresses the value of lay leadership, as follows:

 

1Letter from James Ten Brink, August 27, 1965, is
the source of all quotations in this paragraph.

2Letter from Nina Ridenour, Ph.D., September 16, 1965.

123

"I was impressed with the dedication and obvious capacity
of these lay mental health educators to carry out a program
under the training and direction of Miss Middlewood and
her staff."1

Catherine S. Chilman, Ph.D., Social Science Analyst
in the Welfare Administration, U.S. Department of Health,
Education, and Welfare, Washington, writes that Esther's
"professional competence and depth of knowledge are remark-
able." She sums up her evaluation with this commendation:
”I know few people in the parent education field who have
combined the many gifts that she has shown in the develop-

ment and perpetuation of a statewide program with national

implications."2

Administration

When Esther started in the state central office
of the Michigan Department of Mental Health, she was the
third professional staff member in addition to the Depart-
ment Director and the Assistant Director.3 Including Sec-
retaries and other non-professional personnel, the staff
of eight persons in 1947 at the central office has groWn

by September, 1965, to include eighty-two employees, with

 

lLetter from J. Wilbert Edgerton, September 13, 1965.

2This paragraph's quotations are from letter of
Catherine S. Chilman, August 30, 1965.

3Statement in personal interview with Esther.

124

thirty-three classified as secretarial personnel.l From
that early small group, where there was easy, quick access
to the top policy—makers, the growth to the present size
has required more levels of authority and the use of chan-
nels in keeping with customary bureaucratic development.

For most of her tenure, however, Esther has had
direct access to the top administrator of the Department,
as well as her immediate supervisor, who usually occupied
a post as an immediate assistant to the Director. Although
noting the more formalized trends, generally Esther describes
the Department administration as not overly rigid. The
growth of the Department has also brought an increased em-
phasis on business management within a Department expending
approximately one hundred million dollars annually and rank-
ing as one of the two largest departments in expenditures
in Michigan state government.

On balance, Esther believes that she has had marked
freedom in determining the policies of her own Section.
Civil service pay scales or rigidities in the hiring proc-
ess have made for some difficulty. So also did the retrench-
ments in overall departmental budgets during Michigan's
governmental financial crisis of the late 1950's and early
1960's. Both factors contributed to cut—backs in her staff

and difficulties in filling those vacancies that were authorized.

 

1Statement in personal interview, Joseph McCall,
Department Director of Information Services.

125

At present the Mental Health Education Section is a
part of the Community Services Division, one of five oper-
ating divisions of the State Department of Mental Health.

In addition to the Education Section, a major program of

the Community Services Division is the operation of combined
state-local sponsored psychiatric clinics. Other major
Divisions are concerned with services to the mentally ill
and to the mentally retarded, administrative services, and
research and development. The Assistant Directors of the
five operating divisions are directly responsible to the
Director of Mental Health, who, in turn, is responsible

to the Governor. A report of a separate budget for the
Mental Health Education Section is not available, since

its items are included as part of a larger budget category.l

At the request of the current Departmental Director,
Dr. Robert Kimmich, Esther was engaged in September, 1965,
in drawing up a proposal to define the functions of her
Section in the future and to spell out the needs for staff-
ing. In terms of personnel, the peak period of the Section
was in the early 1950‘s when as many as five professional
staff members were employed, and as of late 1965 two pro-
fessional staff members are authorized.

To restore the Education Section to a more complete

 

1Statement in a personal interview with Charles F.
Wagg, Deputy Director.

126

service in the next few years, Esther is recommending1 that
there be a Chief, who would be responsible for overall ad-
ministration; representing the Section of the State Depart-
ment with national programs of common concern; representing
the Department in the educational programs of other state
agencies, such as the Department of Health or Department

of Public Instruction; mutual programming with related non-
governmental groups such as the Michigan Council of Coopera-
tive Nurseries, the Child Study Association and School Health
Association; determining program priorities and emphases.

She recommends an assistant to the Chief who would
act as field work supervisor. In addition to being a liaison
between the field staff and Chief, this worker would do a
limited amount of field work near the central office in
Lansing and be a special resource person to regional staff
members. There would be one mental health educator as a
field worker in each of the four regional offices of the
Department of Mental Health. At the central office, to
perform a staff function for the field staff, an audio-visual
aids specialist is proposed. This staff member would be
used to provide graphic arts for displays and would also
supervise the film and pamphlet distribution program of
the Education Section.

Time studies of current staff services, as compared

 

1This description of the proposed staffing of the
Section is from an unpublished initial draft written by
Esther in September, 1965.

127

to the early 1950's,1 suggest the continuing trend observed
from the beginning years of the Section program. This trend
is from direct teaching to more consultative work. Mainly,
the consultation is planning with interested groups toward
defining yearly program goals and suggesting methods, ma—
terials, and program resources. Typical examples of this
form of consultation would be Esther's service on the board
of the Michigan Council of Cooperative Nurseries, her work
with community PEA leaders, or her work with a YWCA in plan-
ning a parent education series. A somewhat similar type

of consultation is Esther's work in helping a local public
health department plan its year of in-service training ses-
sions for public health nurses.

Another level of service is that rendered to other
state departments, such as being a member of the Curriculum
Committee in Home and Family Living of the State Department
of Public Instruction. As compared to a decade ago, there
are far fewer single speeches, although in one fairly rep—
resentative month of 1965, Esther was the principal speaker
at an area child guidance clinic meeting and at a church
men's group meeting. As a major project, the Parent Edu-
cation Associates consultation with lay leaders occupies
about one-fifth of Esther's professional time. With the

introduction of new federal programs in education and toward

 

1This paragraph is based on time logs provided by
Esther.

128

the attack on poverty in 1965, more demands are being placed
on Esther for consultation regarding planning of new programs
and the evaluation of newly-completed programs, such as the
"Head Start" pre-school projects of the summer of 1965.

For the future, Esther projects a continuation of the em—
phasis on lay leadership for direct teaching in mental health
along with emphasis on long-range program planning consulta—
tion with local groups, particularly in communities where

professional resources are not highly developed.

Liaison and Leadership Functions

During the late 1950's and early 1960's Esther has
served on a number of boards for organizations which have
relationships to mental health education purposes. She was
President of the Michigan Council on Family Relations, l955~
1958, and a member of the Board of Directors, National Coun-
cil on Family Relations, 1957-1961. She served as a con-
sultant to the State Board of Managers, Michigan Congress
of Parents and Teachers, 1954-1958, and in 1958 was given
the Distinguished Service Award of the Michigan Congress.
She serves as an advisor to the American Council of Parent
Cooperatives and during 1957-1962 was a member of the Ex-
ecutive Board, Michigan Council of Cooperative Nurseries.
Esther's international interests have been expressed as a
member of the International Liaison Committee, National
Council on Family Relations, and by conducting workshops

in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Her special interest

129

in children and children's institutions has been expressed
by service on the boards of the American Legion Children's
Home, Otter Lake, Michigan, and the Methodist Children's
Home, Farmington, Michigan. Similarly, her continuing in—
terest in the Girl Scout movement has been expressed through
unremitting service as a leader, Council member, or advisor
to Councils through the years since she herself was a Girl
Scout. She further expresses her professional interests
through memberships in the Michigan and American School
Health Associations, the Michigan and American Public Health
Associations, and the Welfare League, Association for Re-
tarded Children, Society for Mental Health and Adult Educa—
tion Association as state organizations. Esther also is

an associate member of the World Federation for Mental Health.

_§§ther's Educational Philosophy

The diversity and magnitude of Esther's professional
activities are undergirded by her educational values and
Philosophy. Esther is not especially susceptible to placing
individuals in stereotyped categories, and she repeatedly
stresses the significance of individual differences. For
this reason, she would resist any alignment of her own edu-
taitional approaches in such categories as "progressive"

(n: ”essentialist“ or "reconstructionist." In this light,
it ‘dould be more appropriate to delineate some features of
hex: educational philosophy which she has either stated ex—

plicitly or which are shown implicitly in her leadership

130

and program emphases. From the outset of her first teach-
ing job, she saw the school and community as inextricably
intertwined. The community school concept was one she wel-
comed. While not utopian about how much the school, as an
institution, might "reconstruct” the community, much less
the world, her own work as a social studies teacher clearly
suggests her conviction that the school has a vital role
to play in influencing the community.1 While working in
the schools as a teacher or counselor, she obviously saw
her own function as providing a link between the school and
community.

Wherever possible, Esther tries to elicit from groups
their conception of their problems as the background for
her leadership. To this background she brings to bear a
problem-centered, life-oriented emphasis with a strong en-
couragement toward democratic problem-solving processes.
Thus, she is not the authoritarian "expert." In the same
vein, she views people as rounded, three-dimensional human
beings with bodies and feelings, not brains alone. However,
she does not believe an educational program can be conducted

without intellectual content, and her own sister, as her

 

1In one community where she taught her class made
a survey of community resources and problems which was re-
ported to the local Council of Social Agencies. It was a
matter of considerable interest in the community when the
small committee investigating housing reported that some
of the worst slum housing in the community was owned by
a prominent local philanthropist, and that the rents were
disproportionately large.

131

student, testified that Esther was not an easy taskmaster
when she taught in high school.1 She is aware that learn-
ing takes place within an emotional context and that the
feeling of rapport and mutuality between the teacher and

the learner is crucial. While the main lines of Esther's
teaching concepts could rather easily be.placed in a gen-
eral area of one educational philosophy, out of respect for
her own convictions against stereotyping, the reader is left
to draw his own conclusions at this point. Enough has been

described so that it should not be too difficult.

Mental Health Education as Adult Education

Multiple criteria can be used to determine whether
mental health education, as found in the Michigan program,
is a part of the larger adult education movement. On the
basis of clientele served, the program clearly and primarily
serves the adult population, although occasionally students
in secondary schools have been involved in direct service
and teaching. The educational focus of the program is clear
from both positive and delimiting vantage points. On the
delimiting side, the program has ruled out functions which
are primarily of a public relations or publicity emphasis.
That is, the Educational Section is not seen as a way of
promoting the Department of Mental Health itself as an in-

stitution. The far-ranging efforts of the Section, together

 

l

terview.

Statement by Mrs. Barbara Oldenberg, personal in—

132

with the large number of people who are touched by its ef-
forts, inevitably has public relations implications for the
larger Department in which the Section operates. In some
areas of the state, the work of the Department most directly
comes to the attention of citizens through the educational
programs of the Section. Similarly, the news coverage of
the Section's many programs throughout the state causes
its work to be better known in certain respects than the
less publicized ongoing functions of the Department's clinics
and hospitals.1
Notwithstanding these public relations sidelights,
the Section's defined and programmatic objectives are edu-
cational. From the outset, the personnel of the Section
have stressed the value of a series of meetings with planned
educational objectives. These objectives included the full
range from information-giving on through attitude change
and behavioral change. As with most educational efforts,
the Michigan program is geared toward the healthy person-
ality rather than the more pathological, unconscious levels.

The Parent Education Associates lay leadership training has

 

1In a personal interview Ralph Daniel, former Men-
tal Health Consultant, reported that informal hand counts
in meetings of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan consistently
showed that the audience knew the work of the Department
of Mental Health most personally through programs of the
Education Section, particularly through Esther's own many
appearances there over the years. Similarly, Joseph McCall,
the Department's Director of Public Information, reported
in a personal interview that informal counts of news clip-
pings of the Department received from a news clipping serv-
ice showed the overwhelming number of news stories had em-
anated from the Education Section.

133

particularly stressed this aspect, but the work of the pro—
fessional staff members has also been toward this objective.

Esther's own formal professional training was in edu—
cation at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The
overwhelming part of her employment experience prior to her
work in mental health education was in the traditional sec-
ondary school educational setting. For Esther and the Mich-
igan program there has necessarily been a ”bridging function"
between education and a number of related disciplines, such
as psychiatry, psychology, child development, health educa-
tion, and social work. While having some multiple identifi-
cations, Esther has consistently held membership in the
Adult Education Association of Michigan and has attended
its meetings. Thus, her own professional identification
with adult education is substantiated.

Historically, the adult education movement has long
recognized that its educational scope encompassed many set-
tings beyond the traditional school- or university-based
programs. Many of the programs in which Esther and the
Education Section personnel have participated have, in fact,
occurred in school settings and under traditional auspices
in public education. The circumstance that many of the
Michigan program's projects occur in a church or some other
community center by no means rules the program out as an
appropriate segment of the adult education movement. Rather,

the versatility of the settings in which the Education Section

134

conducts projects helps establish it as a part of the grow-
ing edge by which adult education is brought to people where
they are, rather than being limited to a traditional school
environment. Homer Kempfer, adult education leader and
author, substantiates this conclusion by his observation
that adult education programs "are breaking beyond institu-
tional walls and providing services in many locations."1 He
further points out the importance of understanding group
processes in adult education, which has long been an emphasis
of the Michigan program in both professional and lay leader-
ship levels.2 Where the Michigan program has served in the
capacity of facilitating community organization or the
strengthening of social resources through group efforts,
this function is quite consonant with the broader view of
adult education as going beyond the traditional, narrowly
didactic emphasis on subject-matter learning. The informal-
ity, the emphasis on discussion methods, the tendencies
toward goal-setting by the group, the problem-solving ap-
proach, the emphasis on life mastery for developmental tasks
appropriate to adult levels, the lack of prescribed course
lengths, grades, and tests--all these attributes are quite

compatible with the kind of adult education conceived by

 

lHomer Kempfer, Adult Education (New York: McGraw-
Hill, 1955), p. 31.

21bid.

135

leaders in the movement.1

Quite specifically, too, in the areas in which men-
tal health education so closely parallels family life edu-
cation and parent education particularly, there is both
historical and contemporary evidence for this subject-matter
area being included in the broad scope of adult education.
Kempfer traces the history of various adult organizations,
such as the National Congress of Parents and Teachers and
the Child Study Association of America, which initiated
programs for adult education for parents.2 Beyond these
and other historical aspects, there also is reason to in—
clude mental health education within two of the four major
program areas for adult education which are serviced from
an analysis of adult developmental tasks. These four pro-
gram areas include: self—realization, human relationships,
economic efficiency, and citizenship responsibility.3 Men-
tal health education bears directly on both self-realization
and problems of human relationships. In addition, Michigan's
program also has some relevance to citizenship education,

although this aspect is not a direct goal of its efforts.

 

1All of these attributes are covered in Kempfer,
22;_g$§., Chapter 2, "The Kind of Adult Education Needed,"
pp. 17-39 0

2See Appendix for a further development of this
historical background.

3A5 found in Educational Policies Commission of
the NEA, The Purposes of Education in American Democracy
(Washington, D.C.: National Education Association, 1938),
as found in Kempfer, op. cit., p. 42.

136

‘Michigan's mental health education efforts clearly
fall within the scope of adult education. The clientele
group, for all practical purposes, consists of adults. The
educational processes and objectives are shared with other
adult educational programs. Esther's own professional train-
ing and identification are from the general field of educa—
tion. The settings in which the Michigan program operates
are quite compatible with the settings used by other types

of adult education programs.

Issues in Mental Health Education--A National Study,

Louis D. Cohen, Ph.D., Special Consultant to the
Community Services Branch, National Institute of Mental
Health, reported in 1961 on a brief field study of nine
programs conducted by state governments in mental health
education.1 The survey was not intended to be either rep-
resentative of all state programs nor intensive. However,
Cohen raised significant issues on which the Michigan pro-
gram, and Esther personally, have clearly taken stands.

Early in the program, as previously discussed, the
Michigan program aligned its efforts toward education for
positive mental health, one of Cohen's major "unresolved
questions." Although not personally predisposed to labor

over definitions of mental health, Esther accepts broadly

 

1Louis D. Cohen, State Actiyities in Mental Health
Education (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Of-
fice, 1961), 37 pp.

137

the definition of Marie Jahoda, which includes three dimen—
sions: (1) an active mastery of the environment, not merely
passive adjustment; (2) unity of personality, including
concepts of self-realization and self-consistency with rela-
tive freedom from inner conflicts; (3) correct perception

of reality, including one's own self.1 Operationally, Esther
tries to help individuals and groups move toward the uSe

of what she regards as sound mental health principles. Ex-
amples of these principles would be the appropriate release
of feelings, appreciation of individual differences, accept-
ance of sexuality, the development of ethical standards,

and the flexibility of defining one's role without losing
what might be considered the most essential or fundamental
masculine or feminine values. Esther is not terribly con—
cerned as to whether the mental health principles have been
completely validated at this point of time by rigorous sci-
entific research. She is content to base her efforts on

her own experience, drawing also upon whatever help scien-
tific studies and exchanges with respected professional
colleagues may also contribute. She does not disavow the
need for continuing research, but as a practitioner concerned
with the ongoing needs of the Mental Health Education Section

program, simply does not believe that all educational efforts

 

lMarie Jahoda, "Toward a Social Psychology of Mental
Health,“ in Mental Health and Mental Disorder, Edward Rose,
Editor (New York: Norton, 1955), pp. 561-565. See Appendix
for a further brief discussion of this definitional problem.

138

must be held up pending "the final word" of some scientific
validation. To a degree, then, her work does become an ”act
of faith," as is probably true of most educational programs.

Some mental health educators become preoccupied with
the validity of specific factual information they pass on
to the various groups with which they work. Through profes-
sional reading, taking course work related to her field -
over many years, and active participation in related pro-
fessional conferences, Esther is reasonably secure about
the data-as related, for example, to child growth and de-
velopment-that she utilizes. Again, however, her approach
relies less heavily on information-giving than many mental
health educators, and perhaps she is relieved of excessive
concern over this "unresolved question.“

Another issue has been the degree to which a state-
wide program should rely on volunteer, non-professional
personnel. Esther has taken leadership on this issue by
her development of Parent Education Associates. This ap-
proach, too, is in keeping with Esther's belief that the
role of the state staff more and more should move toward
training local leadership, along with community organiza-
tion and group consultation, rather than direct teaching
and prime service to the health education consumer group.

The ramifications and multiplicity of effort in
the Michigan Mental Health Education program--and especially

Esther's own personal contribution--have been far-reaching.

139

The requests for service have consistently been higher than
the section staff could meet. Esther has characteristically
not tried to inflate the esteem for her program in the esti-
mate or regard of other people, and she has been criticized

l The fruit of the tree of her life work has not

for this.
been self-aggrandizement. Her work, instead, has been a
kind of career-long dialogue speaking to the needs of people.
For Esther, this dialogue not only is a reflection from
her early family, educational and social backgrounds, but
also is interwoven with her religious values. Here, then
a new and different dimension is introduced concerning Esther's
relationship to God and neighbor.

My country is the world;

My countrymen are mankind.
--William Lloyd Garrison

 

1In a letter, Wallace C. Fulton, M.P.H., Associate
Director, Office of Community Services and Health Education,
The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States,
commented on this point. He believes that she should have
described ”her program as it developed by seeking exposure
in professional publications." He blames this "failure"
for the fact that "too few people, as a result, have a clear
notion of how significant her contribution is."

CHAPTER VI

I-THOU

Existence will remain meaningless for you if you

do not penetrate into it with active love and if
you do not in this way discover its meaning for
yourself. Everything is waiting to be hallowed

by you; it is waiting to be disclosed in its mean—
ing and to be realized in it by you. For the sake
of this your beginning, God created the world. He
has drawn it out of Himself so that you may bring
it closer to Him. Meet the world with the fullness
of your being and you shall meet Him. That He Him-
self accepts from your hands what you have to give
to the world, is His mercy. If you wish to believe,
love!l

Esther strives to practice her faith, but is not
inclined to preaching. Rather than exploring theological
concepts in depth, she much prefers to plumb the depths
of human relationships. She shares much of modern man's
dilemma in questioning religious institutions—-churches-—
as to their relevance and meaningfulness. In some respects

she tends to state more about what she dislikes in contemporary

 

1From Martin Buber's Turnin , p. 44, as quoted in

Jacob Trapp (ed.), To Hallow This Life, An Anthology of
Martin Buber (New York: Harpers, 1958), p. 38. Martin
Buber, the renowned Jewish theologian and philosopher, speaks
of the "Eternal Thou" as God. His concept of "Thou” is

that divine spirit in every man, including oneself. Man's
relationship to God, or in the deepest spiritual and per-
sonal sense, to another man, is expressed by the symbol

of dialogue or relationship, "I-Thou." By contrast, when

a man relates to an object, or treats another living as

an object, the symbol of that type of relationship is "I-It.“

140

141

religion than what she herself believes. And yet there
are beliefs, too, expressed more in acts than words.

There has never been any real doubt in my mind
about the existence of God, even when I experienced
the most serious questioning. I have moved away
from literal interpretations of the Bible. I be-
lieve the story of the Virgin Birth, for example,
is a beautiful story which helped the people of
that time to emphasize the Divine aspects of Jesus.

The story had meaning and significance for its day.
I believe Jesus came closer to representing the
Divine of any personality we know.

The evolution of Esther's religious growth is not
marked by any extraordinary event. She has had no "conver-
sion" experience; indeed, she would be dubious about any
such sudden transformation in her own religious evolution,
but is not prone to expressing skepticism about the relig-
ious values of others. A married couple of mixed Christian
and Jewish heritages commented as her friends on Esther's
ability to relate to people of different religious back-
grounds. Typically, though, this respect for religious
differences is not at the expense of becoming a wish—washy
"tolerance" in which she either would deny her own beliefs
or accept the views of others with an inward condescension.

She is not out to proselyte anyone, in the unfor-
tunate zealous sense of that word. If she senses that
friends are rigid or defensive about their religious be-
liefs, she would be the last person to try to undermine
or shake those friends' convictions. Again, this is not

to say that there is a kind of bloodless lack of commitment

on her part; to the contrary, privately she may feel a

142

certain sadness, even irritation, with the burden of relig-
ious misconceptions she feels some acquaintances may carry.

The derivation of Esther's beliefs is more typical
than remarkable. There was the childhood naivete and blind
acceptance of authority, the passionate and personalized
commitment during early adolescence, the rebellion in late
adolescence, and the growing resolution into more stable
beliefs in maturity.

On both sides of my family there was a Metho-
dist heritage. My father's cousin was Bishop Arthur
Wesley, who served in South America. I recall viv-
idly the religious differences between my paternal
grandmother and my Great-Aunt Lou. It was an odd
thing. My grandmother was more liberal in belief,
but because I did not like her personally, I always
sided with Aunt Lou in my religious loyalty as a
child. I well remember my Aunt Lou, who was a strict
fundamentalist. If she came in the house and some-
one was playing cards, she would sweep the cards
off the table with one commanding wave of her hand,
saying, "There will be no card playing here!" I
really was indoctrinated with fundamentalism quite
early.

Despite the history of Methodist affiliation in
their early years, both Esther's father and mother had joined
the Episcopal church prior to Esther's birth. She recalls
her father's singing in the choir at St. Paul's Episcopal
Church, Detroit, during her early childhood. Her mother
appreciated the formality, ritual, and symbolism associated
with the Episcopalian traditions.
I, too, like the richness of ceremony and sym-
bolism when I step into a Catholic cathedral, but
my appreciation is more from an aesthetic viewpoint.

These aspects are not essential to my religious
experience itself. Interestingly enough, my sister,

143

Barbara, is a convert to Episcopalianism after an
earlier tradition of Methodism, and my sister, Ada,
became a very devout Catholic convert.

Esther understands her sister's need for Episcopa-
lianism, but for herself prefers a less involved expression
of faith. Similarly, she readily saw the support provided
to her sister, Ada, with the authority and specificity for
ethical behavior provided in the Catholic tradition. One
of the more meaningful objects in Esther's living room is
a ceramic statue of St. Francis of Assisi created by Barbara,
her younger sister.

When the family moved to the Redford and Farmington,
Michigan, areas from Detroit, the ties with the Episcopal
faith were broken. There was no easily accessible Episcopal
church, and it was too far to continue attendance at St.
Paul's in Detroit. Esther's younger brothers were baptized
in the Methodist church in Redford, and when the family
moved to Farmington, they attended the First Methodist church
there. Esther recalls, too, having attended the revivalist
meeting of the then-noted evangelist, "Billy" Sunday; the
occasions were special meetings for children, and she simply
joined with a number of neighbor children who were attend-
ing. However, this experience was of little permanent im-
pact and was neither fostered nor discouraged by her parents.

As is not infrequent, Esther's deeper religious
commitment came in early adolescence after she became a

church member formally at the age of eleven. As a high

144

school junior and senior, Esther was a volunteer worker
with the Methodist Children's Village of Detroit. She worked
closely with Aileen Davis in recreation leadership. This
experience helped stimulate thoughts of a vocation as a
missionary or as a social worker. Unfortunate experiences
in meeting missionaries, however, made her recoil from that
calling.
They seemed too zealous, even peculiar. They
did not seem to be the kind of person I wanted to
be-—a person who had life, who could do things,
who could feel and experience. Missionaries seemed
to miss so many things in life.
Whatever doubts had been planted about missionaries did not
prevent Esther from attending church regularly.
I did not miss a Sunday all during high school.
I was in the youth group and sang in the choir.
I was devoted to the choir director, Mrs. Ernestine
Pierce. She was so joyful and happy in her faith,
and I emulated her. She was the exact opposite
of Aunt Lou, who was dour in her Christianity.
The Reverend Sidney Eva was her minister, and he,
too, represented a new kind of Christian to Esther. He
was a jolly, round, and plump Welshman who had stuttered
as a child. Like Demosthenes, he also had put pebbles in
his mouth to try to overcome his speech defect, and he dew
scribed dramatically how he stood on a shore in Wales sound—
ing out words with stones almost blocking his throat.
He was never somber or sanctimonious. He was
very forward looking for his time. He almost got
in trouble with some of the adult members because
he got a movie projector for the church youth when
there was no other entertainment in the town for

young people. He was especially interested in youth,
and he re-directed me from a conventional, punishing

145

Christian attitude where everyone acts the martyr,

as if they were thinking, "I am so good, why is the
rest of the world so wicked?" Sidney Eva was just

the opposite. Nothing ever seemed to get him down,
and he always seemed to be happy and optimistic.

He taught us that it is not pious attitudes or be-

liefs, but rather the way we did things and what

we felt about life in a more truly Christian atti-

tude of living that was important.

Esther felt that the Methodist church youth group
was the core and center of the town high school group. Cer-
tainly in terms of numbers alone, this was the case, for
twenty of the twenty-five members of Esther's graduating
class in high school were youth group members. The rela-
tionship to the Reverend Eva, fostered by his leadership
of the youth group, was to be one which lasted for many
years with Esther. So, too, was her relationship to her
Sunday School teacher, now Mrs. Dan Veazy (nee Natalie Knapp)
with whom Esther continues a relationship through occasional
telephone calls.

Entering the University of Michigan at the age of
seventeen, Esther almost had a complete turnabout in relig-
ious conviction. She did not attend church that first year,
except on vacations or weekends when she could attend at
home and see the Reverend Eva. She felt that if people
were "so stupid" to think that card playing was so wicked,
she wanted nothing further to do with their kind of Chris-
tianity. Similarly, she felt that it was not drinking in
itself that was so bad, but the use to which drinking in

excess was put. She began in many ways to discriminate

146

between an outright condemnation of “cards" or "liquor"
versus a selective judgment of the ways an individual might
react to these activities. Like many an adolescent, too,
she more generally questioned the creeds and rituals of
the church.
Again, personal relationships strongly affected
her faith, pro and con. In high school she had become
rather fond of a couple who, as it turned out, may have
been more hypocritically pious than genuinely devout. At
least, that was the way she began to feel about it in a
fit of disillusionment. It seems that this very couple
had given her $100 toward her college expense, a much needed
and appreciated gift at the time. She was terribly shocked
a short time later in her college freshman year to learn
that the husband had been supporting another woman downtown
in Detroit for years and that the wife appeared to know
all about it and to tolerate it. Of this episode, Esther
related: "I was very judgmental and found it hard to ac-
cept either the husband's or the wife's behavior then."
Esther's mother typically took her daughter's rem
ligious meanderings in stride. They had extensive discus-
sions together, and she found that her mother, surprisingly
to Esther, shared some of her own questionings. As a fresh-
man, she wrote a long letter from college to the Reverend
Eva. He replied in the most effective way possible, she

thought, expressing his confidence in her and her ability

147

to resolve her doubts. There was no reproof or scolding.
She still recalls the most important things he had to say:
Life without faith is meaningless and purpose-

less; the primary thing is to have faith in God and
in oneself to strive to be Godlike; each person has
his own divinity to live out. It is up to you to
take this responsibility to realize your own divine
spark, but if you lose faith in this spark, you will
cease to grow.

Esther has consistently questioned the piety, in the
sense of false religiosity, of seemingly devout Christians.
She had shrunk back from joining religious organizations in
her freshman year when she saw the rather isolated, sad,
even odd members who seemed to constitute a sizable portion
of the group. She enjoyed life, wanted to have fun, and
could not conceive of these group members as being able
to be free, outgoing, and joyous. For some members, the
religious group seemed to be the only interest or affilia—
tion they had. For a few others, it seemed to be a place
where they could lead when they could not have been respected
as leaders in any other group. A harsh judgment to make?
Perhaps, but nevertheless, this was how Esther felt that
first year in college.

After receiving the Reverend Eva's letter and fur-
ther discussions with him on home visits, she did affiliate
with several religious groups among her many other activi-
ties in the University. She belonged to the Wesleyan Guild
and to Kappa Phi, a Methodist girls' sorority. Especially

significant to her, though, was the membership in the

148

Cosmopolitan Club, where a number of YWCA members belonged,
although the club itself was not an exclusively religious
organization. She recalls: "It was not like it is today,
where getting to know foreign students is more acceptable.
Then it was rather frowned upon, and it took more independ-
ence to belong to this group.“

In her junior year at the University she took a
course in the Bible from Dean Humphrey of the College of
Liberal Arts. She came to understand the Bible in three
semesters of study which became the foundation of her ap»
proach today. Dean Humphrey made the Bible ”come alive"
for her. She had entered the course with marked intellec-
tual doubts. There were too many contradictions in the
Scriptures, and too often the interpretations she had heard
violated "good common sense." She came to see the Bible
as having depths of religious insight and beauties of lit-
erary form and style; she moved still further from the re-
ligious fundamentalism and Biblical literalism exemplified
in her GreatwAunt Lou and her very early childhood heritage.
Again, she talked with her mother and pleasurably found
their mutuality in the interplay of religious doubt and
affirmation as she grew in her faith.

Music and nature are also special expressions of
Esther's religious identity. Handel's Messiah is a cher-
ished musical experience for her. She has sung in church

choirs from high school to the present and has always found

149

hymns to provide the intangible, but significant, depth
which aesthetic expression can offer. She recalls being
moved to tears when she heard her idol, Ernestine Pierce,
soprano, and Mrs. Fred Cook, contralto, sing "I Come to
the Garden Alone” in her high school years. She has been
known to sing gospel hymns in her car. Singing in the church
choir is the active, participative religious involvement
which far more fits her energetic personality than passively
drinking in a sermon as a regular church member in the pews.
She thinks that proponents of modern church music would
frown on some of her preferences, such as "Day Is Dying
in the West” or "I Would Be True, For There Are Those Who
Trust Me." Nevertheless, she likes the quiet, melodic lines,
even if they do not have the depth of more intellectual,
religious insight contemporary religious musicians prefer.
Esther's devotion to nature and to gardening has
religious overtones, too. When she speaks of her flowers,
even the tone of voice connotes reverence for God's crea-
tions. She is quick, too, to point to flowers here which
came originally from her mother's garden, flowers there
that were from this friend or that, and this bush that was
the gift of a parent group which appropriately detected
her devotion to gardening. The landscaping of her present
garden was lovingly contrived by her brother, Homer. In—
corporating the various species representing cherished human

relationships, Esther's backyard manages to connect her

150

love of nature with her affection for people.

In keeping with other sympathetic critics of the
present-day church, Esther questions the increasing bureau-
cratization of the church as an institution. She openly
rebels at the church's employment of professional money
raisers, whose techniques become "demands which take all
the joy out of giving." She questions clergy and members
who begin to think of the ministry in terms of a bureaucratic
employee who works a forty-hour week, with "fringe benefits"
and time off for "overtime." She is repelled by the large
city church where impersonality and alienation set in as
the presence or absence of members, as individuals, is hardly
noticed. There is, perhaps, a bit of the nostalgic yearn-
ing for the close-knit small church congregation where more
lasting, significant personal relationships were the pat-
tern. Shades of Farmington First Methodist Church, Ernestine
Pierce, and the Reverend Sidney Eva?

And so, within a core of basic religious values,
there are signs of the modern tension between a commitment
to Christianity as a faith, but with very substantial doubts
about the contemporary church as a developing institution.
She says in her own words:

I know the church needs support, and yet I be-

lieve sometimes that I might better give of myself
in everyday living with my friends and neighbors.
I hope the church will not lose sight of its role

in teaching and its concern for the individual as
it takes on other responsibilities.

151

Along with more traditional Christian ethics, Esther
frequently is sustained by a homely moral precept enunciated
by her mother: "Any human being who touches life at any
point has a responsibility of leaving that person or that
place better than when he found them." Her mother similarly
inculcated the value that the greater one's personal gifts,
the greater the responsibility to give of that gift to others.
As an example, Esther mentions that God seems to have given
her a gift of listening to others. For this reason she'
cannot turn aside friends or neighbors who need the solace
of attentive, sympathetic listening.

When she visits parks, she admittedly has been overly
scrupulous about her mother's admonition. She not only
picks up whatever papers she may have brought to the site,
but canvasses the site for other litter which she cleans
up as well. For years she found herself resenting the care-
lessness of others and harboring an exaggerated sense of
ill-will. Was the earlier resentment partly a restlessness
with her own over-conscientious attitude and her mother's
earlier admonition? Possibly, but in any event, the mellow-
ing of more recent years has left her with a calmer accept-
ance of her own needs "to clean up" the park site and less
inner animosity toward the "litter bugs."

The story of Esther's spiritual pilgrimage by no
means compares with a St. Augustine, a Dag Hammarskjold,

or a St. Francis. She would be the last person to claim

152

any saintliness, and her surroundings were far more common—
place than the international vortex where Hammarskjold found
his identity in both politics and in contemplation. Of
human foibles and shortcomings, Esther has her share, and
she strives for some self-understanding and self-discipline
in dealing with them.

Superficially, then, Esther's religious experience
might be regarded as fairly uncomplicated, even mundane.
What is the quality, then, that lifts her out of this con—
ceivably ordinary religious faith? Expressed most directly,
the remarkable quality is that she does, in fact, strive
with some success to live out that precept of religious
stewardship enunciated by her mother, but also familiar
to all who wish to emulate Jesus as the "man for others.”

In struggling against human weakness and frailties
to express concern for others wherever she is, Esther does
clearly express the meaning of religious faith at a high
level. Her ”love of God" does not always manifest itself
in ritual and traditional, institutionalized religious ex-
pressions. However, it is demonstrated deeply in both her
profession and in her ongoing relationships with her fam-
ily, friends, and neighbors--often quite unobtrusively.

And if, as Martin Buber has underlined, love of God is
shown by human affection, then indeed Esther is striving
to obey the First Great Commandment by practicing the Sec-

ond: Love Thy Neighbor.

153

Spirit in its human manifestation is a response
of man to his Thou. Man speaks with many tongues,
tongues of language, of art, of action; but the
spirit is one, the response to the Thou which ap-
pears and addresses him out of the mystery. (I
and Thou, 39).l

 

lIbid., p. 1.

CHAPTER VII
THE SECOND COMMANDMENT: THY NEIGHBOR?
Go put your creed into your deed...
--Emerson
Who is my neighbor? This question was the one the
young lawyer asked Jesus, who then responded with the story
of the Good Samaritan.1 For someone like Esther, the query,
"Who is my neighbor?” does not seem to occur, for her "neigh-
bor" becomes whatever person whose life touches hers. Her
neighbors, her family, her professional colleagues, her
friends, readily attest to her kindliness, generosity and
thoughtfulness. In 1934 her mother was to express her basic
attitude as, "You almost make their troubles your own..."
in regard to her neighbors and patrons on her postal route.2
While there is testimony3 about her material largess
for those in need, equally significant is the open-hearted,
open-door feeling which she manages to convey regarding
her willingness to be the good listener and friend. There
is a special affinity for children, perhaps best expressed

by one neighbor who commented: "All children are her children."

 

1Luke 10: 25-37.

2Detroit News, Feature Section, July 30, 1933, p. 8.

3Statement by Dr. Leonard Price, personal interview.

154

155

Even the most casual visitor in her home will soon learn
that “Aunt Esther" has a kind of special relationship with
the children in her neighborhood.

Her need for assistance with her yard work becomes
a vehicle for getting acquainted with any number of young—
sters. Rather than having one particular helper, she de-
liberately calls on children from various homes. Moreover,
she appears to know many children by their first name and in
some detail. She is observant of them in a particularly perm
ceptive way, and has a forthright, benign, but firm, atti—
tude as she directs them in their work. She is intrigued
with individual differences among her helpers and readily
uses spontaneous opportunities to be helpful to them.

Among three helpers one day, one fibbed to Esther
about how much time he had worked. Quite indirectly, and
with sensitive tact for the feelings of all three boys,
she managed to let the prevaricator know that she realized
he was being dishonest. [Interestingly, one of the other
helpers had very covertly indicated the discrepancy in the
times of work.] Later in Esther's home the same boy came
to her door to complete a job she assigned. He volunteered
not to charge her for some extra work which had to be com~
pleted. He clearly had begun to learn from the way she
handled the earlier experience that he must have some in~
tegrity in his work.

Esther enjoys playing games with children and has

156

a readily-available store of games for children visiting
in her home. With a boy who was being made too conscious
of his foreign heritage among his classmates, she passed
on some beautiful pictures of his native land as a concrete
expression of her acceptance and admiration of his anteced—
ents. A neighbor's child frequently joins her early in
the morning while she does garden work, and she will often
prepare a special breakfast for him. Among members of a
family, she will enjoy giving attention--one by one—-to
each child over a period of time. By individual visits
in her home, each child becomes better known to her as a
distinct person in his own right and comes to feel her par-
ticularly distinct affection for him.

She has taken numerous trips, long and short, with
'teen agers as her guests. The mother of one such girl
commented upon how much it had meant to her daughter to
have this opportunity to make even a short trip.1 The par-
ents of adolescents who some years earlier had enjoyed ex—
tensive trips with her to Mexico or the West Coast stressed
their gratitude for this substantial and meaningful contri-
bution to their children's growth. One mother laughingly
commented upon Esther's venture with two 'teen age girls
who dressed themselves in Mexican shawls and sauntered
flirtatiously near the young Don Juans of a Mexican town

square. Just an apprehensive interlude in the life of a

 

1Statement by Mrs. Clarence Spawr, personal inter-

view.

157

chaperone for some 'teen agers in a strange town.

1 Esther enjoys the yearly holidays with special sig—
nificance for children. She joins enthusiastically in the
fun of "Tricks and Treats" on Halloween. At Christmas she
has been known to hold an open house for both parents and
youth. As one neighbor voiced it: "What other single per-

1 As

son would even think of doing something like that?"
an advisor for youth in her church, she has looked forward
cordially to entertaining the group in her home for planning
sessions.

In 1963 Esther got “caught up" with the idea of a
neighborhood carnival for the benefit of the Muscular Dys-
trophy Fund. Neighbors who participated in this event in
her back yard report that every nearby neighborhood young-
ster had a part in the various carnival activities.2 The
carnival was a highlight for the neighborhood that summer.
When he learned of the event, a Muscular Dystrophy official
expressed his amazement: "Now, if you had sponsored a car-
nival for the mental health, we could have understood that,
but whatever possessed you to do some money raising for
muscular dystrophy?"3 Esther had no friend or relative

suffering from this disease, unlike many individuals who

become imbued with a money raising endeavor. She simply

 

1Statement by Mrs. Craig Britton, personal interview.
2Statement by Mrs. Leonard Price, personal interview.

3Statement by Mrs. Craig Britton, personal interview.

158

saw a cause in need and was not so narrowly focussed that
she would raise money only for some self-seeking purpose
which touched her personally.

One neighbor marvelled at Esther's capacity for
refraining from giving advice or being intrusive about how
parents were raising their children. She seldom spontane—
ously comments to parents about their children, except in
a positive way, and otherwise waits to be asked. A young
mother volunteered that she could see ways in which Esther
could be even more perceptive about children in some respects
as compared to the parents. Being more detached from the
everyday pressures of raising a family, she could also be
more reflective about the interaction between children and
adults.

Esther's neighbors could give specific details con-
cerning her thoughtfulness and readiness to help. One neigh-
bor had a child with croup who had literally "turned blue"
when short of breath about midnight. Along with calling
the doctor, this anxious young mother called Esther, then
asleep. Within minutes Esther was up, out of bed, and in
this young mother's home. Still another neighbor commented
upon Esther's intuitive sense of another person's needs
and her ability to offer the right kind of help at the right
moment.1

Her gregariousness and conviviality extends to the

 

1Statement by Mrs. Clarence Spawr, personal inter-

view.

159

families of her neighbors as well, and she has gotten to
know their parents, for example, by extending her hospital-
ity to them. One neighbor volunteered that sometimes she
has had a personal concern and without even voicing the
worry, just a chat with Esther has left her feeling better--
even if they did not directly diScuss what was bothering
her at the time!1 Esther's neighborliness continues even
after neighbors move. Former neighbors feel quite free to
drop in on her in visits back in the community. In her own
travels, Esther makes a practice of keeping in touch with
former neighbors.

While not necessarily a "soft touch," Esther's ma-
terial generosity is well known to her friends. Not a few
friends think that individuals take advantage of her with
their demands on either her time or other resources. Esther
herself confesses an occasional irritation with individuals
who are either demanding, thoughtless or presumptious, but
typically she would not convey these feelings to the offend-
ing person. She has helped college students with their
expenses and has assisted neighbors whose needs ran ahead
of their current income.

Esther's concern for others is expressed also with
her colleagues. Her long-time secretary of fifteen years
in the Mental Health Education Section commented on their

lasting friendship and the freedom of staff members to discuss

 

lIbid.

160

their personal concerns with Esther as the need arose.l
Still another dimension of Esther's feelings is reflected
in her fondness for her pet dogs. Presently there is "Tammy
II," preceded by "Tammy I" and "Cindy"--all black cockers.
Some casual observers have thought Esther treated her pets
as one would care for a child, but Esther herself draws a
sharp distinction. She thinks adults who dote on pets are
"silly,” and she cites examples. She would never keep her
dog if Tammy bit a child. She was appalled when someone
suggested that she have a tombstone made for a previous dog
that died. When a dog had a brain tumor, she did not hesi-
tate unduly to take the dog to the veterinarian to relieve
the dog's pain with measures for final disposal. "My dog
has her place as a dog and is treated on that level, not
as I would treat a child," Esther points out.

Esther has the motels of the state well canvassed
as to which ones accept dogs as guests, and the motel man-
agers have learned to know that Tammy II is a distinguished
and respectable canine guest. Even when Tammy was a pup,
she accompanied Esther, and on a cold day when she could
not be left in the car, was placed under the lectern at
one of her speeches. The audience generally was never aware
of Tammy's wellmbehaved presence. Even if the pup had whined
or barked at the inopportune moment, Esther would have man-

aged the situation with humor and grace which would have

 

1Statement by Mrs. Julia Doxstader, personal inter-

view.

161

enhanced, rather than disrupted, her presentation at the
time.

Repeatedly, Esther's profound capacity to appreciate
people from any walk of life is stressed.1 She fully enjoys
the stimulation and friendship of friends or professional
colleagues [with Esther, colleagues are apt to become friends,
tool] at state and national levels, but she likes individuals
and families whose work or backgrounds may be less outstandm
ing from certain points of View. A long-time friend2 de-
scribed the comment of an acquaintance who learned that
Esther frequently visited in the friend's home: "Miss.
Middlewood is so well educated, what do you ever find to
talk about to her?" Esther laughed when the comment was
repeated to her and said: "I come because you and your
husband have such a normal home life."

In 1962 and 1963 Esther was the sponsor of a Wilber-
force Echezona family attending Michigan State University
from Nigeria. For many sponsors of foreign visitors, a
kind of nominal obligation is met by serving an occasional
meal or a few evening's hospitality. For Esther, the spon-
sorship of the Echezonas was to become a major project.
After their arrival in the United States, Mrs. Echezona
became ill in what was later to become her terminal illness.

For weeks Esther kept the young Echezona baby in her home,

 

1Statement by Mrs. Craig Britton, personal interview.

2Statement by Mrs. Todd Lunsford, personal interview.

162

hired help for the child's care while she worked, and pro-
vided home cooked meals for the father and remaining older
children still living in University student housing. While
caring for this Negro child, she spontaneously commented

to the minister's wife, having brought the child to a church
function. Holding the baby tenderly, Esther turned to Mrs.
Erickson and said: "How could anyone hate this child?"1

Esther described with uncontained amusement how
she had taken the baby to a local well known pediatrician
who had a number of patients from upper socio-economic levels.
The looks of incredulity, puzzlement, and extreme curiosity
upon the part of the other patients upon seeing her (gang.
wedding ring) and the Negro child in the reception room,
should have been captured for posterity. Their expressions
seemed to be conveying such questions as: "Could she be
the child's mother?" '"Or is she the grandmother?" "How
do you suppose an older white woman ever brought in a Negro
baby to see the doctor?"

Esther entertains guests of different races and
nationalities out of sheer enjoyment of individuals as friends.
She is by no means sure that she could ever join a picket
line for civil rights. Yet she resents the disapproval of
anyone who is so prejudiced as to resent her entertainment

of guests, regardless of skin color. She sees her work with

 

1Statement by Mrs. Charles Erickson, personal intern
view.

163

mental health in many perspectives, but at least one dimen—
sion is to work toward reducing the emotional needs for

scapegoating and other expressions of bigotry toward minor—

ities.l

Esther also feels regret, resentment, too, concern—
ing the dehumanizing practices in some of our organized
facilities for assisting people. While recognizing the
need for such programs as Aid to Dependent Children, she
says:

When ADC came in I was hopeful that mothers
could then go to a store and purchase articles
just like anyone else with a sense of personal
dignity. Instead, I find that they are treated
in the old "welfare" sense of getting aid with
red tape, waiting in lines at shabby offices and
generally being treated in ways that are degrading.

She contrasts the way in which she was treated at
the Mayo Clinic with the clinic of another large hospital
with which she was familiar:

At Mayo's, you are known by individual name.
Your folder is ready when you come for care, and
you have an appointment. Whether you are paying
the lowest or highest fee, you are treated with
respect and as a person. At clinic,
you sit interminably on a long bench. When you
fall off the bench at the far end, then it's your
time to go in. All the procedures are cold and
impersonal.

 

Esther believes that more of our social ingenuity

and resources should be devoted to devising ways of humanizing

 

1In a personal interview, Mrs. Clarence Spawr de-

scribed how Esther reproved a member of her family for tell"
ing a “Polack” joke in her presence. Mrs. Spawr stressed
Esther's sensitivity regarding bigotry, even as expressed
humorously in jokes about minority groups.

164

and individualizing our provisions for socially-organized
assistance to people. Rather than degrading the individual,
we need to do everything we can to enhance his self-respect
and initiative.
Generally, I believe that change has to come
from inside out rather than from outside in.v We
can pass laws requiring people to clean up their
neighborhood, or we can send in a crew to provide
such cleaning socially. Wouldn't it be better,
though, to create in the individual and group such
a sense of selfurespect and pride that they them—
selves would take the responsibility to live in a
clean home and yard because this type of living
was an expression of the kind of person they wanted
to be?
Despite some repute for being "generous to a fault,“
Esther is sensitive to the problems of creating undue de-
pendence in the process of helping others. In any close
relationship there are gains which run certain risks. This
two-edged quality is the very reason that some people flee
into anonymity, detachment and aloofness. For them, to
confide runs the risk of a confidence being violated. To
be dependent runs the risk of rebuff or disappointment.
To encourage closeness or neighborliness runs the risk of
privacy being intruded upon. To be involved invites too
strong a need to consider "what the neighbors will think."
Such are the fears of personal relationships.
With the multiple facets of a mass society comes
an evolution away from the more simple, tight—knit, inti-

mate, and consistent network of relationships in a rural

or small town community. Urbanization, suburbia, specialization,

165

bureaucratization, large—scale organizations, and escalating
technology have brought isolation and alienation to greater
or lesser extent to many individuals. Esther, and many
other contemporary observers, see the need for a new design
of family life, religious institutions, work relationships,
leisure time pursuits, and neighborhood relationships to
meet deep human needs for supportive, interdependent rela-
tionships. For other persons already too damaged by unful-
filled expectations in their relationships to other people,
many facets of mass society merely provide a ready reason
for avoiding intimate ties to other people.

Any attempt to assess Esther's responsiveness and
mutuality in friendships cannot fail to recognize her back-
ground in a closeuknit family in a small town community.
The virtues of individual initiative, independence, and
self-help, combined with mutual aid and group support in
the small community certainly are a part of Esther's childm
hood middle-class legacy. Similarly, a certain skepticism
about largemscale organizations, bureaucracy, and institu-
tionalized programs to solve the problems of individuals
is the counterpart of this heritage.

If Esther emphasizes relationships within neighbor~
hood and friendship circles, primarily it is because she
enjoys people. If she freely uses the telephone to main-
tain relationships despite geographical separation, primar-

ily it is because she enjoys longmterm ties to friends and

166

family. It is true that her practices suggest a direction
to replace some of the human values previously emanating
from relationships in the extended family; likewise, her
approach both enriches and relieves the heavy emotional
burden we now place on the restricted nuclear family. These
sociological considerations may be of professional interest
to Esther, but they are scarcely an important element in
her genuine appreciation of other people. One neighborl
summed up Esther's concern for others thus: "The thing
that is different about Esther is that she does what many
of us think would be the nice thing to do, but never get
around to carrying out."

Suit the action to the word,
the word to the action.

--Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act iii, Scene 2

 

1Statement by Mrs. Craig Britton, personal interview.

CHAPTER VIII

CONCLUSION

From a social psychological perspective, the mental
health education program can be perceived as the resultant
of two sets of forces. There are the forces which might
be described as personality tendencies. For the purpose
of this study, the personal predispositions of Esther Louise
Middlewood were considered to be crucial. In part, Esther's
central role was due to her leadership, and, to some degree,
it was also because she is the only staff member whose tenure
has encompassed the entire eighteen-year span of the Mich-
igan Mental Health Education Section program from its in-

ception to the present.

The Contribution of the Unique Individual

Although by no means comprehensive or in depth,
Esther's biographical profile highlights certain facets
which seem to show considerable influence in the direction
the Michigan program has taken. The loss of her father,
to whom she had a very positive attachment, appears to have
sensitized Esther to the particular importance of the pa-
ternal role in family life. Her mother--a strong, compe—

tent individual, by all available accounts-—became the hub

167

168

of the family after the father's death. She became doubly
significant to Esther as an object of emulation. Not only,
then, was Esther sensitized to the importance of the father
in family life, but she was also made very much aware of
the significance of the mother. Her rivalry, too, with

her two sisters seems to have intensified her intellectual
drive, already stimulated by her admiration of her mother's
concern for learning and cultural stimulation. Thus, the
idiosyncratic circumstances of her own family appear to
have contributed both to her needs to achieve generally

and to her special interest and activity in the fields of
family life and parent education. Had her own relationships
to her parents been more routine and uneventful--even taken
for granted--one might speculate if her devotion to mental
health education would have been quite so keen.

Still other themes in Esther's development have
relevance to Michigan mental health education as she has
led and participated in it. The Michigan program has char-
acteristically been brought to groups at far corners of the
state with an unstinting outreach. Such an outreach has
required an indefatigable energy, long hours of travel,
and a boundless interest in meeting with people of widely
varied concerns and backgrounds.

Esther is blessed with an abundant physical vital-
ity, despite lifelong obesity. She clearly loves to travel

and has a cosmopolitan range of interests in individuals

169

without regard to race, nationality, religion or socio-eco-
nomic status. Esther's deep vein of altruism and profound
willingness to give of herself is attested to by an exam-
ination of her personal, as well as professional, relation-
ships. In each of these attributes there are strong hints
of the strong and meaningful example set by her mother.

Some state mental health education programs consist
of impersonal, second-hand contact with people through the
dispersal of informational materials, the issuance of news
releases, or publication of bulletins and articles. For
Esther this type of desk-bound, detached program would be
nothing less than a bore and would deny some fundamental
expressions of her own special being.

Michigan's program has not given any overriding
emphasis to research, although this element has not been
completely lacking. Esther is not a theoretician nor es-
pecially prone to deep philosophical speculation and pre-
occupation with statistical manipulations. Rather, she
is a "do—er," a practitioner, who would prefer to bring
the knowledge of scientific studies to groups as a trans-
lator, or ”middleman," of ideas. She is conceded to have
a special forte in the ability to make understandable to
the layman those concepts--either psychiatric or sociolog—
ical--which are often obscured in technical language.

Esther's fundamental background professionally is

education, and she has a strong commitment to the educational

170

method. She believes in more than information-giving as
education and is committed to changes of attitude and be-
havior. In this sense, Esther moves from that end of the
spectrum which is fact-feeding to changes in attitudes and
behavior. Such changes, at their extreme, approach thera-
peutic changes of a deep and extensive nature. This emphasis
undoubtedly provided both cause and effect associated with
her on-the-job training as a psychiatric case worker, which
tends to weight her educational methodology toward the more
personal involvement of individuals in groups. This set
of personal predispositions, then, help to explain further
why the Michigan program is not solely the information-giving,
public relations type of service found in other states.

Michigan's program, unlike others, has given great
weight to the positive mental health approach. Here, again,
Esther's own individual predisposition becomes a factor.
The reiterated example and admonition of her mother, "Middy”
Middlewood, was in the direction of denying obstacles and
overcoming them by prodigious effort, enthusiasm, and drive.
Tendencies to be preoccupied with either the more neurotic
or handicapping attributes of personal limitations, much
less mental illness, are rather foreign to Esther's heritage
and personal outlook.

Esther characteristically dislikes routine, repeti-
tive ways of doing things. The Michigan program is not

narrowly conceived nor limited to a single segment of the

171

population or a constricted range of educational approaches.
Esther's functions have been multiple--direct teaching,
consultation for group planning and for community organi-
zation, speaker and interpreter, coordinator, and group dis-
cussion leader. The range of groups in which she has in-
volvement is diversified--various racial and religious groups,
both men's and women's groups, varying age levels, different
socio—economic statuses, and varied professional groups.

The range of geographic coverage over a large state-~plus
involvement in regional, national, and international activ-
ity--have given Esther a wide scope of activities quite in
keeping with her own strong need to have variety in her
everyday life. Other types of state programs, more narrowly
conceived and developed, would be quite incompatible with

Esther's heterogeneous interests.

Mental Health Education as Adult Education

Proceeding beyond the more biographical aspect of
Michigan's mental health education program, its function
as a segment of adult education has been examined. The
program was viewed briefly in terms of the historical back-
ground of family life and parent education. Such criteria
as educational aims and methodology, Esther's background
and identification as an educator generally and adult edu-
Cator in particular, nature of clientele, and settings were
reviewed. On the basis of such an examination, the assess-

ment of this program as a part of the broader adult education

172
program seems incontrovertible.

The Influences of Social Backgrounds

The contribution of cultural or social values, beyond
the more individualized predispositions of Esther's leader-
ship and participation, have been surveyed in the Appendix.
These values become translated into certain role expecta-
tions which impinge on any mental health educator like Esther.
To the extent that the mental health educator suggests the
consideration of a new set of values, at least partly accepted
on the basis of authority and faith, the program does pro-
vide a form of secularized religion in a society which has
seen a loss of religious values and increased secularization.
In an American society which continues to put heavy emphasis
on practical-mindedness and optimism, mental health educa-
tion--particular1y positive mental health education-~finds
a high compatibility. Similarly, where American values tend
to repudiate tradition and the past for emphasis on the future
and scientism, mental health education provides a substitute,
hopefully as scientific as possible, for what are considered
to be the outmoded, tradition-ridden values of earlier par-
ental or grandparental generations. Mental health education
encourages self-examination and introspection, processes
which are more apt to be cultivated in times of cultural
change where individuals are subjected to role conflicts
and are, consequently, forced to greater self-consciousness

about their own functioning. Where social change is relatively

173

slow, roles are well defined and relatively complementary
or congruent with one another--as in a more traditional,
simplistic culture-—and the need for self-consciousness

and introspection becomes less urgent. Altogether, mental
health education is necessarily a part of the warp and woof
of society, which limits and prescribes the functioning and
participation of mental health educators, however gifted

or unique their particular contributions may be.

Giving due recognition to the societal presses upon
mental health education, the particular concern of this
study has been to focus on the unique contribution of an
educational practitioner to the Michigan mental health edu-
cation program. In a culture where large scale organization,
automation, depersonalization, and alienation are increas-
ingly becoming more significant, recognition and encourage-
ment for the idiosyncratic contribution of an individual
becomes especially important. With this fundamental purpose
this study was initiated, and on the note of highlighting
the influence of Esther Middlewood--adult educator and Mich-

igan's ambassador for mental health--this study closes.

APPENDIX
SOCIAL BACKGROUNDS OF MENTAL HEALTH EDUCATION

Along with the personal contribution of Esther
Middlewood as an educator, the social backgrounds of the
Mental Health Education Section are revealing. To some
degree, these backgrounds may be viewed from the standpoint
of the history of psychiatry and the mental health movement.
Still another significant dimension is related to the more

strictly sociological factors in mental health education.

History of Psychiatry
Two major "revolutions" may be described1 in the
history of psychiatry prior to the contemporary period.
Currently there are references to a third revolution which
reflects modern changes in efforts to maintain mental health
and treat the mentally ill.2

With the Age of Reason developing out of the European

 

lSee Gregory Zilboorg, A History of Medical Psychol-
23y (New York: Norton, 1941), a definitive historical work,
and the outstanding and highly readable history of American
psychiatry: Albert Deutsch, The Mentally Ill in America
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1945).

2Nicholas Hobbs, "Mental Health's Third Revolution,”
American Journal of Psychiatry, XXXIV (March, 1964), pp.
199-200, and Leopold Bellak, Handbook of Community Psychia-
try (New York: Grune and Stratton, 1964), pp. 3-5.

174

175

Renaissance, there came increased interest and concern for
the mentally ill. This interest was expressed by more ra-
tional efforts to understand the causes and possible forms
of treatment for mental patients. Where demonology and
notions of witchcraft previously accounted for mental devi-
ations, forerunners for theories of psychogenic factors in
illness were advanced. Various forms of physical treatment,
however crude, became visible expressions of these efforts
to treat patients more rationally.

Zilboorgl describes Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540),
a Spaniard from Valencia, as the intellectual leader of
the first revolution. Vives' thinking moved away from re-
ligious and metaphysical concepts related to man's psycho-
logical functioning. He viewed the human mind as distinct
from the soul, linked psychology with physics, and tried
to find the properties of the human mind in the activities
of the human body. He recognized the interplay of the emo-
tions and intellect, was interested in empirical observa-
tions of man's thinking and feeling, and even had some
awareness of broader sociological implications.

Philippe Pinel (1745-1826), French physician-in-
chief of the Bicetre and Salpetriere institutions under

the Revolution and the Terror, as well as the Napoleonic

 

lZilboorg, op. cit., pp. 180-195. The description
of the first two psychiatric revolutions is drawn from
Zilboorg.

176

regime, is cited by Zilboorgl and Deutsch2 as the most out—
standing practitioner of the philOSOphical ideology developed
by Vives. When appointed to head the Bicetre institution,
one of Pinel's early actions was literally to remove the
chains and fetters commonly placed on mental patients at

the time. Pinel was to earn the title, ”Father of nineteenth
century psychiatry," with his more humanitarian, rational
care for the mentally ill.

Pinel's action to remove the chains occurred on
September 11, 1793, and nearly one hundred years later Dr.
Sigmund Freud was to become the leader of the second revo-
lution in psychiatry. Freud's contributions included his
theories of the influences of early relationships within
the family upon adult behavior, the concept of the "uncon-
scious"--as shown in dreams, "accidents,“ forgetting and
"slips of the tongue”--and the first well-rounded rational
treatment method, known as psychoanalysis. The fertile
ideas of psychoanalysis were to contribute not only to the
treatment of the mentally ill directly, but also to provide
provocative stimulation in the fields of literature, edu-
cation, art, physical medicine, drama, and the behavioral
sciences. For both mental health education purposes and

the broader field of the mental health movement, Freudian

 

lIbid., p. 322.

2Deutsch, op. cit., pp. 89-91.

177

concepts were to find wide usage in early educational and
preventative efforts which went far beyond the narrower
functions of treating the mentally ill.

The third revolution in psychiatry is now well under-
way in the United States, is taking a variety of forms, and
is not yet clearly defined.1 For want of a better name,
this revolution has been characterized as "community psy-
chiatry,“ which has been defined as "the resolve to view
the individual's psychiatric problems within the frame of
reference of the community and vice versa."2 Dunham pin—
points the new developments with suggestions that the dis—
tinctive elements concern the growth in psychiatry of a sub-
specialty in which the psychiatrist assumes a new role as
a community organizer and consultant to groups and agencies
in an attempt to re-structure them. The goal is to promote
a community framework which is conducive to mental health
and cares more adequately for the mentally ill at the com-

munity level.3

 

1See the following references for descriptions of
the growing developments in community psychiatry: H. Warren
Dunham, "Community Psychiatry," Archives of General Psychia-
Epy, 12 (March, 1965), pp. 303-313; Hobbs, op. cit.; Pollak,
op. cit; Bryant Wedge, "Changing Perceptions of Mental Health,“
Mental Hygiene, 48 (January, 1964), pp. 22-31.

2

 

Pollak, o . cit., pp. 3-5.

3Dunham, op. cit., pp. 303—306. Dunham believes
these changes in psychiatric emphases are assuming what he
describes as a "bandwagon" phase, and he raises some very
searching, constructively critical questions about whether
the profession of psychiatry is adequately prepared to as-
sume these new responsibilities.

178

Although this revolution has been most clearly seen
since World War II, forerunners of these changes were seen
between World War I and World War II. In the 1930's, for
example, such psychiatrists as Karen Horney and Harry Stack
Sullivan showed increasing awareness of cultural factors
in mental illness. The collaboration of anthropologists
with psychiatrists--and the resultant cross-fertilization
of the two fields--also provided a backdrop for the increas-
ing interrelationships seen in social psychology and the
more extensive interchange between all of the other behav-
ioral sciences with psychiatry and psychology.

Two developments especially contributed to the third
revolution of community psychiatry. With the dispersal of;
individuals to all corners of the globe during World War
II, there came an increasingly enlightened awareness of
cultural differences and the effects of different cultures
upon the individual. The incidence of psychiatric problems
among men in military service came into sharp public focus.
This increased awareness was deepened as needs were seen
to provide for the adjustment of psychiatric military cas-
ualties in the immediate post-war era. There were strong
desires to avoid or lessen personal and family hardship,
severe losses of manpower, and heavy economic losses which
were associated with mental illness.

Such developments regarding the relationship of

the mentally ill individual to his community would have

179

been provocative enough for the new revolution. However,
still another dimension was added when the production of
psychotropic drugs which made possible some radical changes
in the management of patients. Within mental hospitals the
staffs were freed of the excessive preoccupation with the
sheer burdens of routine custodial care for assaultive or
otherwise highly disturbed patients. Patients could be
discharged earlier into the community by the use of the
new medications. Many patients could remain in the commu-
nity and not be admitted to the hospital. Sociologists
became interested in social systems theory and the appli-
cation of these concepts to research in mental hospitals
where the interactions of small groups of patients, patients
with the staff, or the staff as a group could be studied.1
Similarly, the increased awareness of the family
group as a social system and the insights of group dynamics
added by social psychologists added still another dimension
to community psychiatry. Finally, better understanding
of the community's social structure and the dynamics of
forces within the community, as contributed by sociologists
and social psychologists, helped to define more clearly
some of the problems of the larger community in relation-

ship to the planning of mental hospitals and psychiatric

 

1Morris 5. Schwartz, "Social Research in the Mental
Hospital," in Mental Health and Mental Disorder: A Socio-
logical Approach, ed. by Arnold M. Rose (New York: Norton,
1955), pp. 190-202.

180

clinics, after-care services of patients discharged from
the hospital, cooperative planning among community agencies
for a preventative and total treatment approach for the
more effective treatment of the mentally ill, and the pro-

motion of mental health.

History of Mental Health Movementl

All three of the revolutions in psychiatry contrib-
ute to the history of the mental health movement, which
may be regarded as a segment of psychiatry. In some aspects,
though, its scope also goes into other disciplines and areas
of concern. As founder of the movement, Clifford Beers
emphatically shared the deep motive of the first psychiatric
revolution to promote more rational, humane treatment of
the mentally ill. He himself experienced at first-hand
the still inadequate and cruel treatment of the mentally
ill as a patient in the Connecticut State Hospital and other
hospitals during 1900-1903. Beers could profoundly testify
that even the revolution dating back to Pinel more than
one hundred years earlier had by no means taken full effect.
A fundamental purpose of the original founders of the men-
tal health movement, meeting for the first time in Beers'
Connecticut home in 1908, was to carry out the still unfin-

ished tasks of the first revolution.

 

lThis history is drawn from Nina Ridenour, Mental
Health in the UnitggStates (Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1961), and Deutsch, o . cit.,
pp. 300-330.

181

The promotion of better laws, more adequate facil-
ities, and the application of rational methods of treatment
has consistently been a major purpose of the national mental
health movement. The cruelties and inhumanity for which
the first psychiatric revolution was intended were still
prevalent in the early years of the founding of the move-
ment, not to speak of the much publicized "snake pits" still
later in the 1940's. From an early field trip in 1913 the
contemporary director of the National Committee for Mental
Hygiene (now the National Association for Mental Health),
Dr. Thomas Salmon, described: A

. . . conditions reminiscent of the worst hor-

rors depicted throughout history: iron cages with
sheetmetal backs and sides, stone floors, no light,
no heat, no furniture except iron cots, forty-odd
"inmates” in charge of a "yard man," never allowed
outside their cages even when mortally ill.1

The second psychiatric revolution, too, was an in-
tegral part of the mental health movement. Chronologically,
the second revolution and the founding of the movement in
the United States closely paralleled and complemented one
another. The promotion of support for early treatment in
special "psychopathic" hospitals, where research into the
new psychoanalytic insights regarding psychogenic factors
in illness was also undertaken, definitely correlated with

the second revolution. Similarly, the encouragement of

child guidance clinics clearly underlined the Freudian

 

lRidenour, op. cit., p. 12.

182

contribution which accented the significance of early parent-
child relationships. The mental hygiene movement, through
its local chapters and national leadership in the National
Committee for Mental Hygiene, strongly supported the child
guidance approach. The Committee and its local chapters
were also at the forefront of spreading psychoanalytic in-
sights into general medicine, social work, education, and
the behavioral sciences during the past fifty years.1
The mental health movement has also reflected and
implemented the third psychiatric revolution. In keeping
with these contemporary changes, Nina Ridenour, the histor-
ian of the movement, refers to the new community psychiatry,
which includes:
. . . Psychiatric services in general hospitals;
In mental hospitals, more flexible patterns such
as "open-door" hospitals, day hospitals, night hos-
pitals, small regional hospitals, voluntary commit-
ments; family care and nursing homes; rehabilita-
tion programs to serve the needs of convalescent
and discharged patients; Community facilities of
many kinds including the full range of outpatient
clinical services for children and adults, and the
steady development of responsibility at the level
of the local community; Earlier and more effective
work by related professions.2
With more direct reference to "the history of public

education in mental health"3 as reflected in the national

mental health movement, two periods of about twenty-five

 

lIbid., pp. 28-44, 81-92.

2Ibid., p. 135.

3Ibid., p. 93.

183

years' length occurred in the first fifty years. Ridenour
writes that ” . . . the most significant characteristic of
the early period was the lack of public interest."1 She
recounts how local chapters had to be satisfied if only
mere handfuls of people attended public meetings, and in
inclement weather, were lucky to fill two front rows of a
room. Opinion leaders--such as governmental and civic of-
ficials, writers, reporters, and educators--attended meet-
ings infrequently. Mental Hygiene, official publication
of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, pioneered

in 1917 when it was founded, for few other professional

or public journals then printed mental hygiene articles.
From 1908 until the 1930's the chief sources of reading

in the field were pamphlets produced by the National Com-
mittee. These pamphlets would now be regarded as poorly
produced and unattractive.

By the late 1930's, when the second phase of mental
health education in the national movement began, there was
a growing interest among both laymen and professional groups
in mental hygiene. Meetings became more crowded, and more
and more professional and civic groups included at least
one item related to mental hygiene more frequently in their
agenda. In the 1940's the era of mass media usage for pub-

lic education took more prominence. In this period also

 

lIbid., p. 94.

184

the exposes of conditions in mental hospitals coincided
with growing concern about mental illness related to Selec-
tive Service rejection rates and military psychiatric cas-
ualties. Articles in Lifg and the Reader's Digest, as well
as series of stories in prominent metropolitan newspapers,
characterized the early post-war period. The first hour-
long nation-wide radio program occurred in 1949, and one

of the more outstanding ninety-minute TV documentaries was
produced in 1956. Commercial films, as well as educational
documentary films, became prominent in the field of mental
health beginning in the late 1940's. Plays for small casts
were developed for use by amateur theatrical groups and
local mental health society chapters during the same period.
My Name Is Legion, which dramatized Clifford Beers' auto-
biography, was produced with a Broadway cast in 1952 and
later went on tour in both 1952 and 1953 in sixty cities

in twenty-one states through the sponsorship of state and
local mental health groups. The needs for organized approaches
to media led to the establishment of the National Mental
Health Film Board and the Mental Health Materials Center

in the 1950's. The establishment of National Mental Health
Week beginning in 1950, while having educational aspects

in its use of mass media, also began to move the national
mental health movement in a major way into the related areas
of fund-raising and public relations. From a small group

meeting in Clifford Beers' living room in 1908, the national

185

mental health movement has assumed some proportions of a
bandwagon mass involvement of thousands of volunteers and

growing full-time professional leadership at the local level.

History of Family Life and Parent Education1

Mental health education is closely related to the
fields of family life education and parent education. Brim2
has made useful distinctions between mental health education
as compared to the two other fields. Family life education
is directed toward shaping the roles of child, husband—and-
wife, parent-and-child, and siblings. Family life education
includes youth as well as adults, especially with reference
to sibling, child-parent, and pre-marital foci. Parent
education more typically does not include pre-marital ob-
jectives, since it is directed to individuals who are al—
ready parents. Parent education, then, may be regarded as
being focussed on one role, parenthood, among the multiple

roles emphasized in family life education. In this sense,

parent education becomes a specialization within the broader

 

1The sources for this section are: Orville Brim,

Education for Child Rearing (New York: Russell Sage, 1959),
362 pp.; Muriel Brown, "Organizational Programs to Strengthen
the Family,” in Handbook of rMarriage and the Family, ed.

by Harold T. Christenson (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964),

pp. 823—880; Richard K. Kerckhoff, "Family Life Education

in America, " in Handbook of Marriage and the Family., pp,
cit., pp. 881-911; Ridenour, op. cit., pp. 97— 99; Luther
Woodward, "Family Life Education, " in Social Work Yearbook,
1954, ed. by Russell H. Kurtz (New York: American Associa-
tion of Social Workers, 1954), pp. 197- 202.

2Brim, op. cit., pp. 23-27.

186

field of family life education.

Parent education may overlap with mental health
education in its objectives of improving the mental health
of both the parent and, indirectly, the child. Parent edu-
cation, however, can include objectives which are less di-
rectly related to mental health, such as citizenship train-
ing, home management, or safety education. As distinguished
from family life and parent education, mental health educa-
tion has the common end, mental health. Like family life
education, but unlike parent education, mental health edu-
cation can also be used with a variety of groups, both adult
and youth.

Mental health education is not confined to individ-
uals functioning in a limited role, such as parents. Rather,
it can focus on any of the family roles, as well as major
vocational roles, such as teachers, police, clergy, nurses,
businessmen, doctors, and social workers. While these dis-
tinctions between the three fields are valid, in practice
there is marked overlap between the various approaches.

The history of family life education (which will
now be regarded-as the generic form for all three types)
dates back to 1888, when a parent education forerunner of
the Child Study Association of America was formed in New
York City. Similarly, the forerunner of the NationalCon—
gress of Parents and Teachers began in 1897. With ante-

cedents in the nineteenth century, the American Home Economics

187

Association was formed in 1908. The influence of home eco-
nomics particularly has been felt through the Extension
Service of the Department of Agriculture and through the
training of various types of family-oriented specialists

in land-grant colleges.

Within home economics, child development as a spec-
ialty became recognized beginning in the 1920's, encouraged
by a national Child Research Center being funded through
a Rockefeller Memorial grant in 1928. The post World War
I period also brought the sociologists' interest to the
family life field. Major contributions were historical and
sociological studies of the family as an institution, found-
ing and leading the National Council on Family Relations,

and establishing a professional Journal of Marriage and

 

the Family. Acute concern with sex education arose in the

 

World War I era, and the American Social Health Association
has had a continuing, strong family life education program
as an outgrowth of its traditional functions regarding
venereal disease and prostitution.

The parent cooperative nursery movement, beginning
in 1916, has been a growing organization, culminating in
a national council formed in 1960. Among a variety of
peripheral programs to strengthen families, the federal
government also shows direct interest in family life edu-
cation through parent education publications and professional

leadership in the Children's Bureau. The federal Office of

188

Education, along with state departments of education, has
provided consultation for school-based family life education
efforts. Various types of voluntary social agencies, such
as YMCA's, YWCA's, and family service agencies, have been
actively involved in family life education since World War
II. Similarly, voluntary visiting nurse associations and
public health nurses have taken an interest in the educa-
tion of expectant parents. Programs of a more specific
mental health education focus have been fostered primarily
through local societies for mental health, mental health
clinics, health departments or agencies, universities, and

foundations.1

Sociological Aspects of Mental Health Education

For a more comprehensive perspective on mental health
education, which goes beyond historical and organizational
considerations, a variety of sociological considerations
are significant. These factors include: problems of social
change and disorganization; social class relationships;
American values and mental health; role theory, mental
health, and mental illness; institutional aspects of family
life related to mental health; the mental health movement
as a secular religion; problems of definition of mental

health. This survey, necessarily brief, will not be

 

lRuth Kotinsky and Helen L. Witmer, Community Pro-
grams for Mgntal Health (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press, 1955), pp. 46-157.

189

comprehensive or systematic, but simply suggest some of
the sociological complexities which are relevant to any

consideration of mental health education.

Social Change and Disorganization.--The popular
belief that social change tends to be causally related to
mental illness is generally reflected in sociological lit-
erature.1 However, there is no rigorous research substanti-
ating this belief, and Krapf2 suggests that social change
is not necessarily negative for mental health. He points
out that social change can bring benefits and points to
the need for a more refined knowledge of social change and
mental illness, with finer differentials in linking types
Of change with types of illness. Still another author,
Seeley,3 describes the elusiveness of social change as a
concept, stressing the fact that whether social change is
labelled as disorganization, reorganization, or growth is

the subjective judgment of the evaluator.

 

1Jerome K. Myers, "The Study of Mental Illness,”
in Applied Sociology, ed. by Alvin W. Gouldner and S. M.
Miller (New York: Free Press, 1965), pp. 329-338; Herbert
Blumer, "Social Disorganization and Individual Disorgani-
zation," in Ana_yzing Social Problems, ed. by John Eric
Nordskog, Edward C. McDonagh, and Melvin J. Vincent (New
York: Dryden Press, 1950), pp. 217- 221.

28. E. Krapf, "Social Change in the Genesis of
Mental Disorder and Health," in Population and Mental Health,
ed. by Henry P. David (New York: Springer, 19647, pp. 97-
103.

3John R. Seeley, "Social Values, the Mental Health
Movement, and Mental Health," in Rose, op. cit., pp. 599-
612.

190

Role Concepts and Mental Health.--Myers1 and Warren2

tie social disorganization to problems in role behavior.
Significant aspects of their discussion include the problems
of conflicting roles, where the behaviors of ego and alter
are not compatible; the problems of role clusters which
incorporate conflicting expectations, such as the business
man whose role expectations at work conflict with those of
his paternal role at home; the problem of continuity, or
lack of it, in role sequences, such as moving through court-
ship to marriage; the problems of lack of clarity or def-
inition in role expectations, as well as the problems of
excessive rigidity in role expectations; the problems of

the degree to which the opportunities for achieved roles

are available within a social structure emphasizing achieved
roles (competition in our society), and the degree to which
role expectations place excessive demands upon biological
capacities or personality tendencies. Role concepts are
important to the mental health educator in the sense that
not only is the educator himself fulfilling role expectan-
cies, but he is attempting to influence role behaviors of
individuals and groups. In one way or another, his educa-

tional function leads to supporting some role expectancies,

 

lMyers, op. cit., pp. 329-338.

2Roland W. Warren, "Social Disorganization and the

Interrelationship of Cultural Roles," in Social Perspectives
on Behavior, ed. by Herman D. Stein and Richard Cloward
(Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, 1958), pp. 191-200.

 

191

modifying still others, or relieving the effects of role

conflicts and incongruency as manifested by anxiety behaviors.

Value Systems-~American and Class.---Williamsl has
discussed major value orientations of American society.
Without undertaking a thoroughgoing analysis, the possibil-
ity of viewing mental health education through the prism
of these values can be raised. For example, through con-
tent analysis of films, speeches, and discussion group com-
ments, a determination could be made regarding the degree
to which mental health education efforts are neutral, sup-
portive, or oppositional in the light of dominant values.
Concrete illustrations of this approach would be the degree
to which mental health education content reflects such values
as faith in science and rationality, faith in education,
and needs for efficiency and practicality.

Since middle-class values tend to be dominant gen-
erally and since the professional practitioners of mental
health education are more likely to be members of the middle
class, a similar content analysis might be made regarding
the degree to which mental health education reflects middle-
class orientations. No value judgment need be made at this
point as to whether mental health education should support
middle-class values. On the basis of limited content anal-

ysis and evaluation of personnel in the mental health movement

 

1Robin Williams, American Sociepy: A Sociological
Interpretation (New York: Knopf, 1958), pp. 388-442.

 

192

as a whole (not just educators), Davisl strongly states the
case that the movement is middle—class-bound in its value
orientation.

The relationship of value systems for social organi-
zation and control-—as well as disorganization and, poten-
tially, mental illness or mental health--needs to be recog-
nized. To the extent that either dominant American values
or middle-class values serve as binding agents for the co-
hesiveness of the social structure, support of such values
can be interpreted as promoting socially necessary norms.
Still another interpretation is that to the extent mental
health education relieves some of the more severe role con-
flict problems--through re-definition, modification of role
expectancies, or relief of feelings resulting from role
conflict--such education is a necessary safety valve, an
agent for modifying the effects of social change, or even

an agent for promoting new values and role expectancies.

Sociological Studies of the Family.-—The implica-
tions of the family institution for mental health education
are both detailed and exhaustive. Parsons'2 analysis of

age and sex as dimensions for role behavior in family life

 

lKingsley Davis, "Mental Hygiene and the Class
Structure,” in Rose, op. cit., pp. 578-598.

2Talcott Parsons, "Age and Sex in the Social Struc-
ture of the United States,“ in Social Perspectives on Be-
havior, ed. by Herman D. Stein and Richard Cloward (Glencoe,
Illinois: Free Press, 1958), pp. 191-200.

193

is an example which is replete with provocative concepts

for the mental health educator. In the microcosm of the
family unit, the effects of social change are readily seen.
Similarly, the family as the agent of socialization in the
social structure is clear. In addition to class-oriented
studies of families and socialization, another approach

has been studies of family integration related to entre-
preneurial and bureaucratic relationships in the social
structure.1 Studies of mobility, a special aspect of class
in the social structure, are still another phase related

to family life and mental health.2 These examples, of course,
are simply suggestive of numerous applications of the socio-
logical study of the family which are pertinent to the con-

cerns of the mental health educator.

Definition of Mental Health.--The problem of defin-

 

ing mental health has been dealt with rather comprehensively
by Jahoda.3 She perceptively points out the difficulty of
defining mental health as the absence of mental disease.

The necessity of defining mental health in such a way that

it does not exclude all individuals except the "average"

 

1Daniel R. Miller and Guy E. Swanson, The Changing
American Parent (New York: Wiley, 1958), 302 pp.

2Kingsley Davis, o . cit., pp. 581-583.
3Marie Jahoda, "Toward a Social Psychology of Men-

tal Health,“ in Mental Health and Mental Disorder, ed. by
Arnold Rose (New York: Norton, 1955), pp. 556-577.

194

person is suggested. Similarly, she warns against defining
mental health merely as "adjustment," which may be merely
passive and not necessarily positive for mental health.
Jahoda finally settles on three main criteria, which still
leave unresolved some operational applications: (1) Correct
perception of reality, including oneself; (2) Active mastery
of the environment; (3) Unity of personality, manifested
by self-consistency and self-realization according to con-
sistent inner regulation with relative freedom from internal
conflicts.

The definition of this global concept, mental health,
is extremely difficult. Still other writers have suggested
such terms as "high level wellness"1 and "optimum mental

health."2 The cultural relativity of definitions of mental

 

1Margaret A. Kaufman, "High Level Wellness, A Per-
tinent Concept for the Health Professions," Mental Hygiene,
47 (January, 1963), pp. 57-62. This article attempts to
use ”wellness” in relationship to the potentiality of the
individual and the environment in which he is functioning.
Wellness, in the sense of the handicapped person who has
surmounted his handicap, can exist in the absence of health
as commonly defined. Health can be stagnant without the
wellness which suggests maximum realization of individual
potentials within the context of personal handicaps and
environmental limitations.

2Mental Health in International Perspective: A
Review Made in 1961 by An International and Interprdfes-
sional Study Group (London: World Federation of Mental
Health, 1961), pp. 25-44. "Optimum mental health" is sug-
gested to counteract the notion that if there is positive
mental health there must also be negative mental health.
Optimum mental health, somewhat like high level wellness,
includes the idea that health is not an absolute state,
but is relative to the particular circumstances.

195

health and mental illness is widely recognized. Such rela-
tivity is not confined to different cultures across national
borders, but also includes class-bound differences which
affect diagnoses of mental illness. One example of a cross-
cultural approach to mental health was edited by Soddy.l
This report raises many questions regarding mental health
and cultural value systems with respect to ideas of indi-
vidual responsibility, identity, flexibility, ethical con-
cepts, attitudes toward suffering and death, concepts of

guilt, and attitudes toward mental illness.

The Mental Health Movement as a Secular Religion.--
Seeley2 suggests that the mental health movement, like other
movements, competes with the church, whose dominance in the
middle ages has declined. Social change causes individual
distress, resulting in introspection. Many new physical
and social inventions need to be interpreted and mediated.
Psychological stress related to social change needs to be
relieved. The mental health movement encourages introspec-
tion and thrives upon it, acts as a mediator between the
behavioral sciences and laymen, and relieves stress in group
processes. Seeley sees parallels with the church in that
both movements have a universal appeal, bring professionals

and laymen together in service of the laymen, have a

 

lKenneth Soddy (ed.), Cross-Cultural Studies in Men-
tal Health (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1962).

2John R. Seeley, op. cit., pp. 599-612.

196

transcendence of faith and belief, differentiate followers
from skeptics or unbelievers, and promote certain values
relative to morals, such as marriage and divorce. Each

has a sense of mission and zeal, often with certain ortho-
dox beliefs. Significant differences from the church are
along secular lines: worldliness rather than other-worldly
and supernatural, man-centered rather than God-centered,
relatively less dogmatic or even anti-dogmatic rather than
dogmatic, and a liberating objective rather than a restrain-

ing, controlling function.

Conclusion

The idiosyncratic influences of the unique individual
upon the Michigan mental health education program have been
suggested in broad outline through the biographical study
of Esther Middlewood. Important as this contribution has
been, her work has not been accomplished in a vacuum. The
social backgrounds of mental health education have been
highlighted in this broad survey. The purpose of this
”Appendix" was to give more explicit recognition to some
of the major environmental factors bearing upon the Michigan

program.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

1. Books and Pamphlets

Middlewood, Esther L. Sex Education Within the Family.

Lansing, Michigan: Michigan Department of Health
in Cooperation with Michigan Department of Mental
Health, 1954.

. Thesei Our Youngsters. Lansing, Michigan: Mich-

 

igan Department of Mental Health, 1949.

et al. Baby Sitting. Lansing, Michigan: Inter-
departmental Staff on Children and Youth, n.d.

et a1. Parent Education Association Manual. Lan-
sing, Michigan: Michigan Department of Mental Health,
1960.

2. Periodicals

Andrew,

Gwen, and Middlewood, Esther. "The Goals of Mental-
Health Education Commonly Selected by a Group of
Experts,“ Mental Hygiene, 37 (October, 1953), pp.
596-605.

Middlewood, Esther L. "Adoption Uses the Child Guidance

Clinic," Mental Hygiene Bulletin of the Michigan
Sociepy for Mental Hygiene, VII (January, 1949),

. "Grow Old While You're Young," Michigan Public

 

 

Health, 39 (November, 1951), pp. 131, 133.

. ”Homes and Democracy,” The Christian Home, 16

 

 

(July, 1957), pp. 12-15.

. "Mental Health and Human Relationships,” The

 

Bulletin of the Mighigan Secondary School Associa-
tion, XV (June, 1951), pp. 58-59.

. "Mental Health Films in Community Education,"

 

American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, XXI (January,
1951), pp. 47-53.

197

198

. "Mental Hygiene Takes Wings," Mental Hygiene

 

Bulletin, Michigan Society for Mental Hygiene, VI
(November, 1948), pp. 10-11.

 

. "One Community Reached the Unreachable," manu-

 

script dated November 20, 1964, submitted to Teacher
Exchange section of Journal of Marriage and the

Family.
. "Steps Toward Good Mental Health for the Hard

 

of Hearing," Hearipg News, American Hearing Society,
28 (November, 1960), pp. 3-4.

. “Visual Aids for Mental Health," Mental Hygiene,

 

41 (October, 1957), pp. 553-557.

"One Community Did, " in Home and Family Life
Education pamphlet. (Michigan Committee on Educa-
tion for Home and Family Living) Lansing, Michigan:
Department of Public Instruction, 1957, pp. ll-12.

 

 

. "The Problem of Childhood Anxieties," Mental
Hygiene Bulletin of the Michigan Society for Mental
Hygiene, VI (August, 19487: pp. 13-14.

 

. "The Shadows of Salem," The Christian Home, 18
(February, 1959), pp. ll-lS.

 

. "So Young--and So Worried?" National Parent-
Teacher (The P.T.A. Magazine), 53 (November, 1958),
pp. 17-19.

 

. ”Steps Toward Good Mental Health for the Hard
of Hearing," American Hearing Society Hearing News,
28 (November, 1960), pp. 3-4.

 

3. Manuscripts (Addresses and Articles)

Middlewood, Esther. "A Child--Though Blind," Manuscript
copy of reprint from the New Outlook for the Blind,
no volume number recorded (March, 1954), no page
numbers recorded.

. "The Church's Ministry and the Exceptional Per-
son," Manuscript written for International Journal
of Religious Education, dated October 25, 1961.

 

. "Comparison of the Mental Health Programs of
England and Michigan," Manuscript undated.

 

199

. "Conflicts in Today's Living," Manuscript written

 

for publication in The Christian Home, dated Octo-
ber 15, 1953.

. "Don't Let Them Fall in Love," Manuscript written

 

for publication in The Christian Home, n.d.

. "Emotional Maturity," Manuscript written for

 

World Outlook and Literature, dated March, 1950.

. "Families Are on the Move," Manuscript written

 

for publication in the August, 1960, issue, The
Christian Home, dated January 13, 1960.

 

. "Guidance--Benton Harbor High School," Paper

 

prepared for graduate course, University of Mich-
igan, undated.

. "How Graduate Cooperative Mothers Can Contribute

 

to Their Communities,” Manuscript prepared for pub-
lication in The Parent Cogperative, newsletter of
the American Council of Parent Cooperatives, dated
January 10,1963.

. “I Find It Good," Manuscript written for publi-

 

cation in The Christian Home, dated June 29, 1959.

. "Parents, Let Me Grow, " in An Edited Summary

 

 

of Addresses at Fifteenth Annual Parent Institute

and Play School for Parents and Their Visually Handi-
capped Pre-School Children, Michigan School for

the Blind, August, 1952, p. 4.

. "Rearing Today's Children," Manuscript written

 

for The Christian Home, dated February 26, 1963.

 

. "Take the Headache Out of Teaching," Manuscript

 

written for Practical Home Economics, dated March 10,
1955.

. "Teacher--Let Me Grow," Speech for National Con-

 

ference of Classroom Teachers, Ypsilanti, Michigan,
dated July 14, 1952.

. "That Healthy Feeling," Manuscript written for

 

The Christian Home, dated March 15, 1951.

 

. "Understanding the Child," Manuscript written

 

for Sub-Committee on Baby Sitting, Michigan State
Department of Health, January 16, 1955.

200

. "Values for the Uncertain Future,” Manuscript
written for Offspring magazine, dated February 18,
1964.

 

. "What Price Popularity," Address at Future Home-
makers of America convention, Grand Rapids, Mich-
igan, April 12, 1956.

 

et a1. "Unit on Mental Health," for Chief, Extended
Education, Michigan Department of Public Instruction,
March 4, 1949.

 

and Dr. Vernon A. Stehman. "Mental Health Educa-
tion," Paper read by Dr. Stehman at Fourth Health _
Conference for Public Officials sponsored by the E
University of Michigan School of Public Health, :J
Ann Arbor, Michigan, March 21, 1956.

 

1 V 1 ., ...Pu-I-n—‘p- A.“ -1
, _ v . ~ .

4. Tape Recordings

Middlewood, Esther. Series of Three Tape Recordings Made
in Response to Series of Questions from John W. 1-
Hanks, August, 1965.

7“.“ L...
at .

5. Interviews

Gwen Andrew, Ph.D., Chief, Operations Research and Program
Development, Michigan State Department of Mental
Health, Lansing, Michigan, September 9, 1965.

Harmon Boice, high school and college classmate of Miss
Middlewood, and long-time friend, Ann Arbor, Mich-
igan, August 23, 1965.

Mrs. Marilyn Britton, neighbor of Miss Middlewood, Haslett,
Michigan, August 23, 1965.

Ralph Daniel, Executive Director, Michigan State Board of
Alcoholism, and former Mental Health Consultant,
Michigan State Department of Mental Health, Lansing,
Michigan, July 12, 1965.

Mrs. Julia Doxstader, secretary to Miss Middlewood for fif-
teen years, Lansing, Michigan, August 24, 1965.

Charles Erickson, Miss Middlewood's minister, Haslett, Mich-
igan, August 24, 1965.

Mrs. Charles Erickson, wife of Miss Middlewood's minister,
Haslett, Michigan, August 26, 1965.

 

201

Mrs. Dale Granger, Director, Family Life Education, Lansing
Public Schools, Lansing, Michigan, September 8, 1965.

Bruce Gribbell, cousin of Miss Middlewood, Grand Rapids,
Michigan, August 25, 1965.

Mrs. Todd Lunsford, friend of Miss Middlewood, Haslett,
Michigan, September 7, 1965.

Joseph McCall, Director of Public Information, Michigan
State Department of Mental Health, Lansing, Mich-
igan, September 10, 1965.

Esther L. Middlewood, Chief, Mental Health Education Sec-
tion, Michigan Department of Mental Health, eighteen
conferences, Haslett, Michigan, July 21, 1965, through
October 2, 1965.

Leonard Price, M.D., Mrs. Leonard Price, and daughter, Miss
Gail Price, neighbors of Miss Middlewood, Haslett,
Michigan, July 27, 1965.

Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Spawr, and daughter, Lucy, neighbors,
Haslett, Michigan, July 26, 1965.

Mrs. Dan Veazy, former high school teacher of Miss Middle-
wood, Pontiac, Michigan, August 23, 1965.

Charles Wagg, Deputy Director, Michigan State Department
of Mental Health, and either Director or Acting
Director almost continuously from 1947 to 1963,
Lansing, Michigan, August 30, 1965.

Wallace Watt, Mental Health Consultant, Michigan State
Department of Mental Health, 1954-1955, Lansing,
Michigan, August 26, 1965, and September 22, 1965.

Mrs. Rex Todd Withers, Chief, Homemaking and Family Life
Education Service, Department of Public Instruction,
Lansing, Michigan, August 30, 1965.

6. Letters

Mrs. Harold Banta, 'Teen Program Director, Young Women's
Christian Association, Muskegon, Michigan, October 7,
1965.

Muriel W. Brown, Ph.D., Family Life Education Specialist
(retired), U.S. Department of Health, Education,
and Welfare, Washington, D.C., August 11, 1965.

i

202

Catherine S. Chilman, Ph.D., Social Science Analyst, Division
of Research, Welfare Administration, U.S. Department
of Health, Education, and Welfare, Washington, D.C.,
August 30, 1965.

Miss Marjorie Dickieson, long-time personal friend of Miss
Middlewood, Detroit, Michigan, August 30, 1965.

Evelyn Millis Duvall, Ph.D., author of books on child de—
velopment and family life education, Chicago, Illi-
nois, August 9, 1965.

J. Wilbert Edgerton, Ph.D., Regional Program Director, Men-
tal Health Service, Public Health Service, U.S.
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Chi-
cago, Illinois, September 13, 1965.

Robert H. Felix, M.D., Dean, Saint Louis University School
of Medicine, Saint Louis, Missouri, and former Di-
rector, National Institute of Mental Health, Wash-
ington, D.C., September 7, 1965.

Mrs. Elizabeth S. Force, Director of Family Life Education,
American Social Health Association, New York, New
York, August 3, 1965.

Wallace C. Fulton, M.P.H., Associate Director, Office of
Community Services and Health Education, The Equit-
able Life Assurance Society of the United States,
New York, New York, September 16, 1965.

Irving Jacoby, President, Affiliated Film Producers, New
York, New York, August 26, 1965.

Mrs. Todd Lunsford, Jr., personal friend of Miss Middlewood,
North Muskegon, Michigan, August 24, 1965.

David R. Mace, Ph.D., Executive Director, American Associa-
tion of Marriage Counselors, Madison, New Jersey,
September 14, 1965.

Francis Martin, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Central
Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, Michigan,
September 30, 1965.

Mrs. Angus M. Miller, A.C.S.W., social worker and regional
volunteer leader in the Parent Education Associates
groups, Waterford, Michigan, September 1, 1965.

Mrs. Helen Parks, Senior Consultant, Nursery School and
Day Centers, Children's Services, Michigan State
Department of Social Welfare, Detroit, Michigan,
September 13, 1965.

' ~3‘L...‘_..$'-'g

203

Nina Ridenour, Ph.D., Secretary, Ittleson Family Foundation,
and former Educational Director, National Associa-
tion for Mental Health, New York, New York, Septem-
ber 16, 1965.

Mabel E. Rugen, Professor of Health Education, School of
Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
Michigan, September 15, 1965.

Alex Sareyan, Executive Director, National Mental Health
Materials Center, New York, New York, October 12,
1965.

Mrs. Alma E. Stewart, Miss Middlewood's aunt, Detroit, Mich-
igan, August 27, 1965.

James Ten Brink, Superintendent, Muskegon Area Intermediate
School District, Muskegon, Michigan, August 27, 1965.

Mrs. G. Mennen (Nancy) Williams, social worker and wife of
former Governor of Michigan, Grosse Pointe Farms,
August 24, 1965.

Mrs. Virginia Woods, high school classmate and long-time

friend of Miss Middlewood, Miami, Florida, August 11,
1965.

7. Newspapers

 

"Mental Health Consultant Closes Educational Visit,“ news
clipping dated November 23, 1947, from an unnamed
Port Huron, Michigan, newspaper [Article thought
to be from Port Huron Times Herald and found in
newspaper scrapbook, Michigan Department of Mental
Health].

 

Secondary Sources
1. Books

Allinsmith, Wesley, and Goethals, George W. The Role of
Schools in Mental Health. New York: Basic Books,
1962.

Bellak, Leopold. Handbook of Community Psychiatry. New
York: Grune and Stratton, 1964.

Brim, Orville. Egucation for Child Rearipg. New York:
Russell Sage, 1959.

 

u .
“1-¢«l_'.__

204

Burns, Robert W. (ed.). Sociglogical Backgrounds of Adglt
Education. Chicago: Center for the Study of Lib-
eral Education for Adults, 1964.

 

Deutsch, Albert. The Mentally Ill in America. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1945.

Hartwell, Samuel W. Fifty-Five "Bad" Boys. New York:
Knopf, 1931.

Hereford, Carl F. Changing Parental Attitudes Through Group
Discussion. Austin, Texas: Hogg Foundation for
Mental Health, 1963.

 

Jahoda, Marie. Current Concepts of Positive Mental Health.
New York: Basic Books, 1958.

Kempfer, Homer. Adult Education. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1955.

Kotinsky, Ruth, and Witmer, Helen L. Community Programs
for Mental Health. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Har-
vard University Press, 1955.

Lindesmith, Alfred R., and Strauss, Anselm. Social Psychol-
ogy. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1958.

Lorge, Irving, et al. Adult Learning. Washington, D.C.:
Adult Education Association of the U.S.A., 1965.

. Psychology of Adults. Washington, D.C.: Adult
Education Association of the U.S.A., 1963.

Miller, Daniel R., and Swanson, Guy E. The Changing Amer-
ican Parent. New York: Wiley, 1958.

 

Pound, Arthur. Detroit. New York: D. Appleton-Century,
1940.

Quaife, M. M., and White, William (ed.). This Is Detroit.
Detroit: Wayne University Press, 1951.

Ridenour, Nina, Ph.D. Mental Health in the United States.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,
1961.

Rose, Arnold M. (ed.). Mental Health and Mental Disorder:
A Sociological Approach. New York: Norton, 1955.

Soddy, Kenneth (ed.). Cross-Cultural Studies in Mental
Health. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1962.

 

- z :- ..uv

rrl'nrbv 50.511 ‘ .

205

Trapp, Jacob (ed.). To Hallow This Life, An Anthology of
Martin Buber. New York: Harpers, 1958.

 

Williams, Robin. American Society: A Sociological Inter-
pretation. New York: Knopf, 1958.

Winch, Robert F. The Modern Family. Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, 1964.

 

Zilboorg, Gregory. A History of Medical Psychology. New
York: Norton, 1941.

 

2. Reports

Annual Report offi the Division of Education September 1,
1948, to September 1,1949. Lansing, Michigan:
Michigan Department of Mental Health, 1949.

Annual Report of the Division of Education, July 1y_l950,
to July 1, 1951. Lansing, Michigan: Michigan De-
partment of Mental Health, 1951.

Annual Report for the Year, Julyilyil952, to June 30, 1953,
Education Division. Lansing, Michigan: Michigan
Department of Mental Health, 1953.

Annual Report on Prggram and Budget, December, 1961. Lan-

sing, Michigan: Michigan Department of Mental Health,

1961.

Cohen, Louis D. State Activities in Mental Health Educa-
tion. A Report of the U. S. Public Health Service,
National Institute of Mental Health, U. S. Depart-
ment of Health, Education, and Welfare. Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961.

 

 

The Development and Growth of Michigan's Mental Health Pro-
grams: A History of 125 Years of Transition and
Progress. Lansing, Michigan: Michigan Department
of Mental Health, 1962.

Mental Health in International Perppective (A Review Made
in 1961 by An International and Interprofessional
Study Group). London: World Federation of Mental
Health, 1961.

Workshgp Report (Program Development Through Lay Leadership»
in Parent Education). Lansing, Michigan: Michigan
Department of Mental Health, 1962.

' - my

206

3. Encyclppedias,_Yearbooks, Almanacs

World Almanac and Encyclopedia, 1909. New York: Press
Publishing Company, 1909.

Knee, Ruth 1., and Lamson, Warren C. "Mental Health and
Mental Illness,” Encyclopedia of Social Work. Ed-
ited by Harry L. Lurie. New York: National Asso-
ciation of Social Workers, 1965, pp. 495-496.

Lurie, Harry L. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Social Work. New
York: National Association of Social Work, 1965.

 

Woodward, Luther. "Family Life Education," in Social Work
Yearbooky_1954, ed. by Russell H. Kurtz. New York:
American Association of Social Workers, 1954, pp.‘
197-202.

 

4. Articles

Barton, Walter E. “Education of the Public—~A Function of
the Public Psychiatric Hospital," Mental Hygiene,
37 (January, 1953), pp. 36-46.

Blumer, Herbert. "Social Disorganization and Individual
Disorganization,” in Analyzing Social Problems, ed.
by John Eric Nordskog, Edward C. McDonagh, and
Melvin J. Vincent. New York: Dryden Press, 1950,
pp. 217-221.

Brown, Muriel. “Organizational Programs to Strengthen the
Family," in Handbook of Marriage and thgpgamily,
ed. by Harold T. Christensen. Chicago: Rand McNally,
1964’ pp. 823-880.

Davis, Kingsley. "Mental Hygiene and the Class Structure,"
in Mental Health and Mental Disorder: A Sociologe
ical Approach, ed. by Arnold Rose. New York: Nor-
ton, 1955, pp. 578-598.

Dunham, H. Warren. "Community Psychiatry," Archives of
General Psychiatry, 12 (March, 1965), pp. 303-313.

Ginott, Haim G. "Parent Education Groups in a Child Guid-
ance Clinic," Mental Hygiene, 41 (January,.1957),
pp. 82-86.

Hartwell, Samuel W. “Presidential Address," Journal of
American Orthppsychiatry, X (April, 19407: pp. 207-
215.

 

. -
,_..
'r “m’ .i‘.~?r.‘y

207

Hobbs, Nicholas. "Mental Health's Third Revolution," Amer-
ican Journal of Psychiatry, XXXIV (March, 19645,
pp. 199-200.

Jahoda, Marie. "Toward a Social Psychology of Mental Health,"
in Mental Health and Mental Disorder, ed. by Arnold
Rose. New York: Norton, 1955, pp. 556—577.

Jensen, Howard E. "Mental Health: A Local Public Health
Responsibility," Mental Hygiene, 37 (October, 1953),

Kaufman, Margaret A. “High Level Wellness, A Pertinent
Concept for the Health Professions," Mental Hygiene,
47 (January, 1963), pp. 57-62.

' v4—-éfiaa_'1ui'

Kerckhoff, Richard K. "Family Life Education in America,"
in Handbook of Marriage and the Family, ed. by
Harold T. Christensen. Chicago: Rand McNally,
1964.

Kovenock, Esther. "A Parent-Education Program in a Voca-
tional Guidance Agency," Mental Hygiene, 37 (July,
1953), pp. 384-394.

Krapf, E. E. "Social Change in the Genesis of Mental Dis-
order and Health," in Population and Mental Health,
ed. by Henry P. David. New York: Springer, 1964,
pp. 97-103 .

Little, Sue Warren. "The Library as a Channel for Mental
Health Education," Mental Hygiene, 38 (April, 1954),
pp. 279-284.

Myers, Jerome K. "The Study of Mental Illness," in Applied
Sociology, ed. by Alvin W. Gouldner and S. M. Miller.
New York: Free Press, 1965, pp. 329-338.

Parsons, Talcott. "Age and Sex in the Social Structure of
the United States," in Social Perspgctives on Be-
havior, ed. by Herman D. Stein and Richard Cloward.
Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, 1958, pp. l9l-200.

 

Rowland, Loyd W. "A First Evaluation of the Pierre the
Pelican Mental Health Pamphlets," The Louisiana
Mental Health StudiegyNo. 1. New Orleans, Louisi-
ana: The Louisiana Society for Mental Health, 1948.

 

Schwartz, Morris 5. "Social Research in the Mental Hospital,"
in Mental Health and Mental Disorder: A Sociolog-
ical Approach, edited by Arnold M. Rose. New York:
Norton, 1955, pp. 190-202.

208

Seeley, John R. "Social Values, the Mental Health Movement,
and Mental Health," in Mental Health and Mental
Disorder, ed. by Arnold Rose. New York: Norton,
1955, pp. 599-612.

 

Warren, Roland W. ”Social Disorganization and the Inter-
relationship of Cultural Roles," in Spcial Pergpec-
tives on Behavior, ed. by Herman D. Stein and Richard
Cloward. Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, 1958, pp.
191-200.

 

 

Wedge, Bryant. "Changing Perceptions of Mental Health,"
Mental Hygiene, 48 (January, 1964), pp. 22-31.

5. Newspapers

Buffalo [New York] Evening News, Obituary of Dr. Samuel W.
Hartwell, July 31, 1951. [As found in the newspaper
scrapbook, Michigan Department of Mental Health,
newspaper page number unspecified.]

Detroit Free Press, September 26, 1947, news item, "Crack—
down Due in Asylum Quiz." [As found in the news-
paper scrapbook, Michigan Department of Mental Health,
newspaper page number unspecified.]

Detroit Times, October 25, 1947, news item, "Sigler to Ask
Millions for Mentally Sick.” [As found in the news-
paper scrapbook, Michigan Department of Mental Health,
newspaper page number unspecified.]

McIntyre, Esther. "'Lady Postman' While Wearing Out 10
Cars on Job as Rural Carrier Finds Time to Raise
Six Children and Take Lead in Club Work," The Detroit
News, July 30, 1933, Feature Section, pp. 2, 8.

 

             

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