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“He put me in the nursing home, and I didn’t like that very much,” explains Ruth Ann. When Ruth Ann’s grandmother passed away, her father was unable to care for Ruth Ann and placed her in a nursing home. Ruth Ann found it depressing. While attending…

When Ruth Stanley moved to Indiana, she took a job at Fort Wayne State Hospital in 1968. She moved on to Central State Hospital in 1982. Ruth talks about the differences see saw in the two state hospitals. One big difference was the higher turnover…

“Well, they stayed at home, okay, the individuals stayed home.” Mrs. Leona Receveur wished her daughter, who had a disability, could attend school. When Mrs. Receveur tried to find a school for her daughter, she was told to start her own school. Mrs.…

Sandy Braunbeck grew up with an agency serving people with disabilities in southern Indiana. Now known as Rauch, Inc., it was founded in New Albany in 1953. Her father, George "Tooter" Tinius, worked at Rauch and her brothers helped with the summer…

"I was very strategic about making sure that when I got the vaccine I went to a location that was situated in a suburban, majority white community." Seena Skelton, Director of Operations, Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center, was interviewed…

This is a photograph of the Board of Directors of Self-Advocates of Indiana (SAI) in 2002. SAI is a statewide organization of adults with intellectual disabilities. It was founded in 1990 with a mission “to learn our rights and to speak out about…

“We’re out there advocating for people, and speaking up for people, and speaking up for what we want for our lives every day," explained Self-Advocates of Indiana (SAI) President Betty Williams. In this video produced in 2007, SAI members shared why…

"I must be completely honest - I was not the first person to introduce the Americans with Disabilities Act," retired U.S. Senator Tom Harkin pointed out in an interview with the Indiana Disability History Project. In fact, Senator Harkin had been one…

A member of the Fort Wayne neighborhood association where a new group home was going in telephoned Steve Hinkle. "'You know,' he said, 'just three houses down the road, there's a Cadillac that sits in a driveway.' And I said 'Well, I think that's…

"So you take funding, you take turmoil, you take parents, you take need, and then you had that end of society and their reactions to a person with 'mental retardation'..." When Steve (Stephen L.) Hinkle took on the challenges and leadership of the…