About the Writer

    Graduating in January 1972 with a degree in educational psychology with a minor in history, I returned to Mississippi State Hospital and was employed as an institutional social worker. At that time a social work degree was not required and ultimately I was grandfathered in and became a licensed social worker. I remained in that position until i resigned in 1978. 

    In 1978 I was employed by the Office of the Governor, Division of Medicaid and after 25 years retired as the Deputy Administrator of Health Services. During my employment I was on a team conducting independent assessments of nursing home and facilities for the developmentally disabled. Later in the long term care division I developed and implemented Home and Community-Based Service Waivers which provided services for individuals living at home rather than receiving those services in a nursing facility. I was instrumental in the development of the Long-Term Care Alternatives program, the Olmstead Plan, primary care case management program and development and implementation of a fully capitated voluntary HMO program. After retiring from state employment I became employed at Information & Quality Healthcare as the vice  president of corporate services and quality  improvement for Medicare hospitals, physician offices and nursing facilities retiring in 2012.

    My experiences working with Whitfield patients, psychiatrists, nurses, attendants, the hospital administration and social work staff provided me with the ability to understand the culture and the history of institutionalization and deinstitutionalization at Whitfield, and able to describe it from both a patient’s historical account and my own personal involvement and experiences.

    I first learned of Fred Chaney in 1973.  He was a patient on the male infirmary building at Whitfield and Mable Alford, RN who handled the care of the patients introduced me to Chaney.  She told me that Fred Chaney was known as the “King of Whitfield” and if I wanted to learn more about him, I should go to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and read his files.  

    The Fred Chaney Papers included over 250 copies of his letters and manuscripts.  Many of the letters were to Hodding Carter, Jr., editor of the Delta Democrat-Times, describing the conditions at Whitfield, letters to Dr. William Jaquith, and manuscripts on his life at Whitfield, the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927, and social commentaries.  I poured through the files and took notes thinking at some point I should do something with this information.  I filed them away with good intentions.

    Fred Chaney died in 1975 and little did I realize that it would be over 45 years later when I re-read my notes and decided that Fred Chaney’s story needed to be told as he wanted it told, and I would be the one to write his biography.  I hope I have accomplished this with my manuscript, “King of Whitfield.”