State hospital cemetery picnic Saturday, July 12

Come celebrate the improvements being made at the Custer State Hospital (CSH) Cemetery through the efforts of the Friends of the CSH Cemetery at a picnic Saturday, July 12 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Since 2022, the friends group has been leading a charge to restore the cemetery, fundraise for a memorial and bench as well as raise awareness about the history behind the plot of land. 
The cemetery consists of 44 graves, including 42 former residents of the facility and two parents of one of the residents buried there. 
In 1909 the state purchased 150 acres of land and the U.S. Forest Service donated another 800 acres for a sanatorium. This was in response to the tuberculosis (TB) epidemic in the late 1800s through the early 1900s. 
“Twenty-five percent of all deaths in the United States were as a result of tuberculosis. And so it was a kind of an epidemic that was going on, and people didn’t know what to do about it. They knew that it was passed through the air, and so when people coughed on you, you might get TB. So the states responded,” said Hank Fridell. 
Located on Hwy. 385 south of Custer, Sanator had five large wards, a farm and gardens, staff housing, a post office, a school, a newspaper, occupational therapy and a radio station. The first patients were accepted in 1911. 
Although numbers are difficult to come by, Fridell said between 1911-36, 2,500 patients were admitted. The peak was in 1936  with 231 patients. According to the records of deaths, between 1911 and the early 1940s, 700 patients died of TB. 
“During World War II, we developed antibiotics that have pretty much controlled it now within the United States, but worldwide, there’s about a million and a half people, depending on the year, who still die from it worldwide. So it’s still a huge issue,” said Fridell. 
By the 1960s numbers dropped significantly due to antibiotic treatments, and the sanatorium was closed by the state in 1963. Two weeks later, it reopened as the Custer State Hospital (CSH), serving as an institution for mentally handicapped individuals. This was in response to overcrowding at the Redfield State Hospital. 
“They didn’t think that they could provide a very good hospital-type environment for people who were physically disabled as well as mentally handicapped. So they took those folks that were their most involved people, and what they did is they shipped them to Custer. So at that time, about 60 people came out that first year, and it finally got up to about 180 to 200 residents that were there,” said Fridell. 
In 1965, Medicaid funding was expanded to include educational and therapeutic services in state institutions. Then, in 1972, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed. Fridell said the CSH began to implement and utilize these laws, hiring therapists, educators and aids to work with the residents. 
Fridell was the first teacher hired. He worked at the CSH in the 1970s as a special education teacher and later as the therapy activity supervisor for two and half years total.
Through the added support, residents began learning to self-feed, assist with their dressing and toileting needs, receive physical and speech therapy and attend community events. The name was then changed to the South Dakota Developmental Center at Custer. 
Eventually, the South Dakota Department of Human Services took over the operation of the facility from the Board of Charities and Corrections with a focus on moving people from institutional settings to community-based settings. Thus, the developmental center was closed in 1996.
From there, the facility in Custer was taken over by the Department of Corrections, and Gov. Bill Janklow established the Custer Youth Correctional Center. Attributing a boot camp experience to turning his life around, Janklow felt a discipline-oriented boot camp model was what youth offenders needed, Fridell said. 
“His thing was, if you get these kids a little discipline, they’re going to get straightened out,” said Fridell. 
The correctional facility went through a number of names over the years. However, Fridell said such programs came under scrutiny when reports of potential abuse and deaths occurred at such facilities. 
In 2016, the facility, then called the State Treatment and Rehabilitation (STAR) Academy, was closed by Gov. Dennis Daugaard, who wanted children to be served closer to home. 
“The thinking at that time was ‘These kids, they go there, they kind of get organized, they go back into the same environment and we still have problems with these kids. So let’s get them closer to home, and we’ll provide the services there,’” said Fridell. 
In 2021 the property was sold, the old buildings were torn down and the land was subdivided for new homes. Out of the large acreage, the state retained ownership of a quarter-acre plot of land, the CSH cemetery.
In 2022, Fridell and Jacki Whale began to wonder what happened to the CSH Cemetery during the new development and went out to the property to find out. 
“It was a wreck. When the STAR Academy was down there, they had put up some chain link fence around it with some stone pillars. The pillars were falling over. The chain link fence was looking bad. You couldn’t close the gates. They put in gravel for walkways all over the cemetery, and the gravel paths had just become overrun with weeds. They were having somebody go out and mow the lawns, but it just really wasn’t being cared for very well,” said Fridell. 
There were no signs identifying the space as a cemetery, other than the headstones themselves. One coffin had collapsed, and there was a two-foot hole in the ground above it. Many of the other headstones were sinking into the ground. 
The new owners also put in a pond next to the cemetery, and Fridell and Whale were concerned about the water table rising and undermining the graves. 
Since Fridell and Whale knew a couple of the families of the people buried in the cemetery, they asked them if they would be interested in joining their efforts to contact the state. 
“We also contacted a couple of advocates in the state for the handicapped and people who were former employees out there that we knew. We ended up with a core group of about a dozen people. At least they wanted to be informed of what was going on. So we wrote to (former) Gov. (Kristi) Noem, and she never responded to us. We then contacted the Department of Corrections, who still had control of the property,” said Fridell. 
The Department of Corrections redirected the friends group to the state architects, who visited the cemetery. This led to a series of discussions between the architects, the friends group, the Department of Corrections and a legislator that finally led to a plan. 
“Since that time, they’ve torn down the old fence. They put up the new one. They have taken out the gravel and resold it, and it’s looking pretty good right now. This fall they’re going to fill in the graves. They’re going to lift the headstones up to ground level. They’ve got a new maintenance guy going out there, and he’s doing a good job on it. The place looks good, and they put up some signage to identify it as the CSH Cemetery,” said Fridell.
Meanwhile, two years ago the Friends of the CSH Cemetery had a get together with around 50 former employees. Inspired by a family that was going to the cemetery to visit their relative’s grave, the friends group started a fundraising campaign to install a concrete pad with a bench and a large rock plaque. 
Fridell rescued the memorial plaque from the cemetery in its disrepair. It is dedicated to Dr. Warren Reinoehl, who was a longtime physician at the facility. From there, the friends group found someone to mount the plaque on a stone to be displayed at the cemetery. 
The bench will be installed this week. Thus, to celebrate the restoration progress at the cemetery, the friends group is hosting a picnic.
Steve Linde will provide live music for the event, and the friends group is ordering Subway sandwiches for lunch. Fridell will also be giving a cemetery talk.
Attendees are asked to RSVP for lunch at hank
fridell@gmail.com and bring a camp chair. 
“We’re just going to be gathering around and being social,” said Fridell. 
The CSH Cemetery is located five south miles of Custer down Hwy. 385. Take a left at South Star Drive, turn onto the gravel road on the right and the cemetery is located at the corner of Milky Way Trail and South Star Drive.