The write-up says that the owner would like the property to be used for the same thing it is currently being used for... says he wouldn't mind just taking on a partner.
Sounds like he likes the campus but is too overwhelmed by the amount of work, etc. that goes along with it.
I was going to say, I am not at all suprised. I stopped by there a few years ago to see the place and it was clear to me that they were having a hard time keeping the place up. It didn't look as pristine as I had remembered it. Of course, the fact that I only found one guy on the property probably had something to do with it. They were trying to convert old farm fields into soccer fields and baseball diamonds. Upkeep alone required a lot of work, imagine converting the farm and campus into a sports retreat. I think these folks got in a little over their head. Not a bad idea though.
You know what *I* think would be an awsome thing to do??? This is just a silly day dream.....but buy that place, rent out several dozen dozers and give them out to the now grown kiddos and parents that suffered at that place.
Seems to me that it would be very satisfying to bull doze the walls on their one time prison.
Maybe I'm off here... I wasn't WC or anything of the sort, but I really liked those old buildings. My parents had managed a home for the elderly (it was the town's poor farm) when I was growing up in Maine, and although Rome City was on a much grander scale than what I grew up in, it reminded me of home. I liked it (but admittedly never spent any time in the basement - my bedroom when I was there to work staff for a class was the Dentist office - does that count?)
Anyhow, I would think that with some renovations, it would make an excellent retirement housing project...
Any remarks regarding the basement aside, I loved the place, too.
HQ was so extremely rigid and paranoid about their rules (I started wc training in 1987).
Rome City was so much more relaxed. If we needed to go to town or run an errand off campus, we just signed out.
This was NOT an option at HQ... you could only leave grounds on Saturdays (and sometimes not even then).
But then again, I was "regular" corps -- as if family corps were 'irregular' somehow -- and I think they treated us with kid gloves. Marrieds got rooms all to themselves, and had less 'kid' duty. (what the heck did they call it when one adult roamed the halls watching after all the sleeping kids while the other adults went to class?)
I wasn't there a whole year, but during my stay I picked strawberries, killed chickens, worked woods crew, cleaning crew, kitchen crew, did children's fellowships, and staffed an Advanced Class and a Teen Camp. And I spent a lot of time walking the grounds and local area. I found it all very peaceful.
Of course, I was still pretty naive back then... very much a newbie... I wonder if I had known more if I would have a completely different opinion of the place?
I loved the Rome City campus. The old buildings were marvelous, and the grounds--from the rolling lawn to the woods and fields--were lovely.
There was only one hallway in the basement that I found a little creepy. In fact, our Corps (FV) completely renovated the billiard/rec room that was in the basement as our gift to the campus before graduation. (I'm sure Danny remembers that!). I think they called it the "Family Corner."
The barns, especailly the larger of the two, were spectacular, built long ago by real masters. The inside of the roof of the bigger one reminded me of the inside of the bottom of an old sailing ship.
There were so many nooks and crannies to expllore. When I was there (78-79 and 80-81), the kids had a ball doing just that. The attic was filled with remnants of the day when people came there to "take the water cure."
I know a lot of ex-Family Corps. There might be some who considered it a prison, but I don't know any. Maybe Rascal was kidding, but it would be a shame to bulldoze such a lovely place. I hope someone will buy it who can keep it up and put it to good use.
I liked it (but admittedly never spent any time in the basement - my bedroom when I was there to work staff for a class was the Dentist office - does that count?)
Sounds like something from "Little Shop of Horrors"........
Rovers!!! That's what they were called... and you helped put together the Rec Room? That was a fun spot!
Wow, thanks Belle! I didn't know those pics were in the gallery. Great shots of the grounds!
Yeah... I really did like that campus best of them all.
I think I would have like Gunnison best except it was run like a prison camp when I was there so all the lovely environment was lost on me. (except the hummingbirds... they were wonderful)
Any remarks regarding the basement aside, I loved the place, too.
HQ was so extremely rigid and paranoid about their rules (I started wc training in 1987).
Rome City was so much more relaxed. If we needed to go to town or run an errand off campus, we just signed out.
This was NOT an option at HQ... you could only leave grounds on Saturdays (and sometimes not even then).
But then again, I was "regular" corps -- as if family corps were 'irregular' somehow -- and I think they treated us with kid gloves. Marrieds got rooms all to themselves, and had less 'kid' duty. (what the heck did they call it when one adult roamed the halls watching after all the sleeping kids while the other adults went to class?)
I wasn't there a whole year, but during my stay I picked strawberries, killed chickens, worked woods crew, cleaning crew, kitchen crew, did children's fellowships, and staffed an Advanced Class and a Teen Camp. And I spent a lot of time walking the grounds and local area. I found it all very peaceful.
Of course, I was still pretty naive back then... very much a newbie... I wonder if I had known more if I would have a completely different opinion of the place?
Highway, I'm glad the rec room was still a fun spot when you were there. I wondered how it would hold up with all the kids using it.
We completely gutted that big room, including pulling down an old pressed-tin ceiling, and started over. We built the wooden booths and made the cushions for the booths and refurbished the pool table and I forget what else. It was a high-pressure time because we had to have it finished before we left for a week at Gunnison, but we sure had fun working together and listening to "debbil music" blasting all the while. It seemed like Danny, because he was one of the FV guys who was actually skilled in building stuff, was always there working.
I've been saying for years I should drive over and check the place out, but I haven't yet. One of these days.
All this talk of the basement has my brain in a strain.
Linda, when you said "wooden booths" I had a flash of being in there maybe once for something they were having for the teens. What part of the building was that under?
Since our son was so young during our stay we didn't go there much but I do remember another room in the basement with mirrors and some kind of exercise equipment. There was also a sauna down there, no doubt another corps project. This was the early 80's, so us ladies would wear our Danskins and leg warmers while we exercised and did our best Olivia Newton John imitations.
The only scary part of the basement I recall is under the kitchen. Dark dark dark down there, and there was a door or doors that led to the sauerkraut tunnels, which were rumored to go all the way to Uncle Harry Hill.
(Where is Jardeniro? Do you remember any of this?)
I have a love/hate relationship with most of my twi memories...Rome City campus included.
Now Tonto has me wondering where we used to have band practice. I know it was somewhere in the basement...but I can't remember where...does anyone have a floor plan of the place?
T-Bone, there are floor plans on the link provided in my initial post. Some awesome pics in the gallery by NoWayHozay - there may be one of that room, or the room you practiced in at that link. :)
Thanks Belle and NoWayHozay - I was looking over Tonto's shoulder as she was checking them out in the Gallery. I'm fixin' to get my weary bones to bed - but plan on downloading some pics tomorrow! Oh the memories!
I loved looking at the pictures again. I have nightmares about returning there - I left something that I really wish I had - a carefully notated book of all the Way songs - complete with chording and tablature for accompanying on the piano. In my dreams, I sneek into the campus through the unsecured sliding door to the walk-in freezer from Allen's Alley (a little known security weakness that actually existed while we were there. Mostly, staff kids knew about it.) Then I make my way through the West Wing to the chapel, to the piano bench where my binder was left.
We were summarily dismissed and it would not have been so bad except that my heart breaks when I remember how my middle-school age son cried for miles and miles as we drove away. In a matter of minutes, his entire life was upended, no way to effect closure with friends, his world, his classmates, his teachers, he just disappeared. It was so hurtful and evil ...
But the campus was beautiful and not to blame. I would love to go there again some day ... and sneak into the kitchen through the freezer door, to the West Wing, to the Chapel, to the piano bench ... I am sure someone threw away my binder that took me hours, days, weeks and months to develop ... but I would like to look in the piano bench, just in case.
There was only one hallway in the basement that I found a little creepy. In fact, our Corps (FV) completely renovated the billiard/rec room that was in the basement as our gift to the campus before graduation. (I'm sure Danny remembers that!). I think they called it the "Family Corner
."
Linda I was there sometime in the mid eighties visiting, spent some time in the rec room the wood booths were nice. We stayed as I remember in founders hall by the chapel which Johnny T arranged for us. I had forgotten until you mentioned the rec room but it reminded me we donated four nice pool cues to the campus as a thank you for the stay. I thought it was such a nice room but the cues sucked I think one maybe had a tip left on it. We thought that would be a nice thing for the Corps to enjoy as opposed to a monetary gift that would be absorbed. Much like Emporia here it is sad that all the work so many did was lost forever. Somewhere I think I still have a bunch of slides of the campus.
Tonto, the rec room was directly below that fancy parlor-type room, which was next to the east entrance. Unless they moved the workout room after I was there, the rec room was sort of across the hall from it.
Clam, that's so sad!! Thinking of your son having to leave like that breaks my heart. Bastages!!!
Linda Z, you are correct. You would go down those big stairs on the east end, and turn right or left to go to the Rec Room or the workout room. And if you continued westward, I'm thinking that they had a little "sundries" store with stationary and drugstore type items for sale in case of emergencies. And do I remember they actually had a soda vending machine down there or am I dreaming that up?
It was definately the section of the basement under the kitchen that was CREEPY. You got there using a narrow staircase off the back of the kitchen where we washed dishes (I think) and there was a washer and dryer down there for doing the linens. And the saurkraut tunnel was on the south end of it. A low, cool, dark passage where they would store containers of home-made saurkraut to let it ferment.
The unlocked walk-in that opened to Adam's Alley. I had forgotten!! I knew it was there but never made use of it. But I vividly remember trundling carts full of fresh chicken cuts across the alley from the building (man, I'm having a hard time with names) where we had just killed and butchered them.
And that makes me think of the walkway that crossed over Adam's Alley on the second floor. I had friends that lived in the hall just off that corridor, and I worked on the cleaning crew that cleaned that section so I walked across that thing hundreds of times. I only lived there in the warmer months of the year but was told in the dead of winter some folks never set foot outside the buildings for months because they didn't have to... they used the walkway to get to the laundry room, get their hair cut, visit the clothing give-away (again, names escape me... dang I hate this getting old stuff!).
Hey thanks for the details Highway and Linda and all, and for the pictures, NoWayHozay. I had forgotten where some of that stuff was.
That walkway over Adam's Alley...didn't you have to go through Mystery Hall to get to the walkway? I was in housekeeping my first block and I remember cleaning those floors.
The clothing give-away...what was that called?? Nothing had normal names...always Divine Design or Devotion With Motion...oh geez...I just remembered they even changed the name of the dishwashing room from "Skullery" to "Son's Suds Shoppe". Oh gag! I hated that name!
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TheHighWay
It looks like the campus is still being used... they have Retreats scheduled through the end of June, anyway...
I repeat: Weenie Roast, anyone?
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Nottawayfer
Is anyone getting married any time soon? How about having a weddng there, inviting all of us GSCers, and letting Oakspear officiate the wedding.
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lindyhopper
I was going to say, I am not at all suprised. I stopped by there a few years ago to see the place and it was clear to me that they were having a hard time keeping the place up. It didn't look as pristine as I had remembered it. Of course, the fact that I only found one guy on the property probably had something to do with it. They were trying to convert old farm fields into soccer fields and baseball diamonds. Upkeep alone required a lot of work, imagine converting the farm and campus into a sports retreat. I think these folks got in a little over their head. Not a bad idea though.
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rascal
You know what *I* think would be an awsome thing to do??? This is just a silly day dream.....but buy that place, rent out several dozen dozers and give them out to the now grown kiddos and parents that suffered at that place.
Seems to me that it would be very satisfying to bull doze the walls on their one time prison.
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ChasUFarley
Maybe I'm off here... I wasn't WC or anything of the sort, but I really liked those old buildings. My parents had managed a home for the elderly (it was the town's poor farm) when I was growing up in Maine, and although Rome City was on a much grander scale than what I grew up in, it reminded me of home. I liked it (but admittedly never spent any time in the basement - my bedroom when I was there to work staff for a class was the Dentist office - does that count?)
Anyhow, I would think that with some renovations, it would make an excellent retirement housing project...
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Belle
That sounds like a marvelous idea!!
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TheHighWay
Chas,
Any remarks regarding the basement aside, I loved the place, too.
HQ was so extremely rigid and paranoid about their rules (I started wc training in 1987).
Rome City was so much more relaxed. If we needed to go to town or run an errand off campus, we just signed out.
This was NOT an option at HQ... you could only leave grounds on Saturdays (and sometimes not even then).
But then again, I was "regular" corps -- as if family corps were 'irregular' somehow -- and I think they treated us with kid gloves. Marrieds got rooms all to themselves, and had less 'kid' duty. (what the heck did they call it when one adult roamed the halls watching after all the sleeping kids while the other adults went to class?)
I wasn't there a whole year, but during my stay I picked strawberries, killed chickens, worked woods crew, cleaning crew, kitchen crew, did children's fellowships, and staffed an Advanced Class and a Teen Camp. And I spent a lot of time walking the grounds and local area. I found it all very peaceful.
Of course, I was still pretty naive back then... very much a newbie... I wonder if I had known more if I would have a completely different opinion of the place?
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tonto
Rovers. They called them rovers, at least during our time there (84-86).
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Linda Z
I loved the Rome City campus. The old buildings were marvelous, and the grounds--from the rolling lawn to the woods and fields--were lovely.
There was only one hallway in the basement that I found a little creepy. In fact, our Corps (FV) completely renovated the billiard/rec room that was in the basement as our gift to the campus before graduation. (I'm sure Danny remembers that!). I think they called it the "Family Corner."
The barns, especailly the larger of the two, were spectacular, built long ago by real masters. The inside of the roof of the bigger one reminded me of the inside of the bottom of an old sailing ship.
There were so many nooks and crannies to expllore. When I was there (78-79 and 80-81), the kids had a ball doing just that. The attic was filled with remnants of the day when people came there to "take the water cure."
I know a lot of ex-Family Corps. There might be some who considered it a prison, but I don't know any. Maybe Rascal was kidding, but it would be a shame to bulldoze such a lovely place. I hope someone will buy it who can keep it up and put it to good use.
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Belle
In case y'all haven't seen it - NoWayHozay posted a bunch of pics of the campus here in the Gallery.
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doojable
Sounds like something from "Little Shop of Horrors"........
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TheHighWay
Rovers!!! That's what they were called... and you helped put together the Rec Room? That was a fun spot!
Wow, thanks Belle! I didn't know those pics were in the gallery. Great shots of the grounds!
Yeah... I really did like that campus best of them all.
I think I would have like Gunnison best except it was run like a prison camp when I was there so all the lovely environment was lost on me. (except the hummingbirds... they were wonderful)
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Thomas Loy Bumgarner
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Linda Z
Highway, I'm glad the rec room was still a fun spot when you were there. I wondered how it would hold up with all the kids using it.
We completely gutted that big room, including pulling down an old pressed-tin ceiling, and started over. We built the wooden booths and made the cushions for the booths and refurbished the pool table and I forget what else. It was a high-pressure time because we had to have it finished before we left for a week at Gunnison, but we sure had fun working together and listening to "debbil music" blasting all the while. It seemed like Danny, because he was one of the FV guys who was actually skilled in building stuff, was always there working.
I've been saying for years I should drive over and check the place out, but I haven't yet. One of these days.
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ChasUFarley
OMG - I can't believe I had forgotten about the rec room - man... I played pingpong for hours there...
There was some cool stained glass (a la TWI-style) but cool... I wonder what became of that... ?
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tonto
All this talk of the basement has my brain in a strain.
Linda, when you said "wooden booths" I had a flash of being in there maybe once for something they were having for the teens. What part of the building was that under?
Since our son was so young during our stay we didn't go there much but I do remember another room in the basement with mirrors and some kind of exercise equipment. There was also a sauna down there, no doubt another corps project. This was the early 80's, so us ladies would wear our Danskins and leg warmers while we exercised and did our best Olivia Newton John imitations.
The only scary part of the basement I recall is under the kitchen. Dark dark dark down there, and there was a door or doors that led to the sauerkraut tunnels, which were rumored to go all the way to Uncle Harry Hill.
(Where is Jardeniro? Do you remember any of this?)
I have a love/hate relationship with most of my twi memories...Rome City campus included.
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T-Bone
Now Tonto has me wondering where we used to have band practice. I know it was somewhere in the basement...but I can't remember where...does anyone have a floor plan of the place?
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Belle
T-Bone, there are floor plans on the link provided in my initial post. Some awesome pics in the gallery by NoWayHozay - there may be one of that room, or the room you practiced in at that link. :)
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T-Bone
Thanks Belle and NoWayHozay - I was looking over Tonto's shoulder as she was checking them out in the Gallery. I'm fixin' to get my weary bones to bed - but plan on downloading some pics tomorrow! Oh the memories!
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Happyasaclam
I loved looking at the pictures again. I have nightmares about returning there - I left something that I really wish I had - a carefully notated book of all the Way songs - complete with chording and tablature for accompanying on the piano. In my dreams, I sneek into the campus through the unsecured sliding door to the walk-in freezer from Allen's Alley (a little known security weakness that actually existed while we were there. Mostly, staff kids knew about it.) Then I make my way through the West Wing to the chapel, to the piano bench where my binder was left.
We were summarily dismissed and it would not have been so bad except that my heart breaks when I remember how my middle-school age son cried for miles and miles as we drove away. In a matter of minutes, his entire life was upended, no way to effect closure with friends, his world, his classmates, his teachers, he just disappeared. It was so hurtful and evil ...
But the campus was beautiful and not to blame. I would love to go there again some day ... and sneak into the kitchen through the freezer door, to the West Wing, to the Chapel, to the piano bench ... I am sure someone threw away my binder that took me hours, days, weeks and months to develop ... but I would like to look in the piano bench, just in case.
Clam
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WhiteDove
Linda I was there sometime in the mid eighties visiting, spent some time in the rec room the wood booths were nice. We stayed as I remember in founders hall by the chapel which Johnny T arranged for us. I had forgotten until you mentioned the rec room but it reminded me we donated four nice pool cues to the campus as a thank you for the stay. I thought it was such a nice room but the cues sucked I think one maybe had a tip left on it. We thought that would be a nice thing for the Corps to enjoy as opposed to a monetary gift that would be absorbed. Much like Emporia here it is sad that all the work so many did was lost forever. Somewhere I think I still have a bunch of slides of the campus.
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Linda Z
Tonto, the rec room was directly below that fancy parlor-type room, which was next to the east entrance. Unless they moved the workout room after I was there, the rec room was sort of across the hall from it.
Clam, that's so sad!! Thinking of your son having to leave like that breaks my heart. Bastages!!!
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TheHighWay
Wow, such memories!
NoWayHozay's pics are fabulous!!!
Linda Z, you are correct. You would go down those big stairs on the east end, and turn right or left to go to the Rec Room or the workout room. And if you continued westward, I'm thinking that they had a little "sundries" store with stationary and drugstore type items for sale in case of emergencies. And do I remember they actually had a soda vending machine down there or am I dreaming that up?
It was definately the section of the basement under the kitchen that was CREEPY. You got there using a narrow staircase off the back of the kitchen where we washed dishes (I think) and there was a washer and dryer down there for doing the linens. And the saurkraut tunnel was on the south end of it. A low, cool, dark passage where they would store containers of home-made saurkraut to let it ferment.
The unlocked walk-in that opened to Adam's Alley. I had forgotten!! I knew it was there but never made use of it. But I vividly remember trundling carts full of fresh chicken cuts across the alley from the building (man, I'm having a hard time with names) where we had just killed and butchered them.
And that makes me think of the walkway that crossed over Adam's Alley on the second floor. I had friends that lived in the hall just off that corridor, and I worked on the cleaning crew that cleaned that section so I walked across that thing hundreds of times. I only lived there in the warmer months of the year but was told in the dead of winter some folks never set foot outside the buildings for months because they didn't have to... they used the walkway to get to the laundry room, get their hair cut, visit the clothing give-away (again, names escape me... dang I hate this getting old stuff!).
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tonto
Hey thanks for the details Highway and Linda and all, and for the pictures, NoWayHozay. I had forgotten where some of that stuff was.
That walkway over Adam's Alley...didn't you have to go through Mystery Hall to get to the walkway? I was in housekeeping my first block and I remember cleaning those floors.
The clothing give-away...what was that called?? Nothing had normal names...always Divine Design or Devotion With Motion...oh geez...I just remembered they even changed the name of the dishwashing room from "Skullery" to "Son's Suds Shoppe". Oh gag! I hated that name!
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