I'm not sure but nothing else is working (county, people)

[nutleynut]

Originally Posted by hrjersey

Adoption is very personal to me so I hope you find what you are looking for. It sounds like you've received a lot of good advice.

I can only add that I did a quick search and can't find the ECCES even under the full name. Are you sure that's where you were? If not, there was an Orphanage called St. Mary's in Newark at the time. I'm sure there must have been others which the library or historical society could help you locate.

I would definitely contact the library. There is also the NJ Historical Society and a website called Adoptions.com. They have different forums. There may be some adoptees that came from the orphanage/shelter where you were.

Good luck to you, I hope you find what you are looking for.

Yes I am sure of that. I think it's correctly ECECS, the Emergency before Children. I only ever found City Data when searching it and it's a bunch of Haunted building buffs who wrote about it.
It was located on the grounds of the Geriatric hospital in Bellville. We ate showered and went to school in hospital buildings. It's all still there on google earth. They changed the picture since I started looking at it, I haven't bothered to look in a while.
I spoke to the NPL New Jersey desk and a very nice man helped me quite a bit. The East Orange PL helped too, I got a NYT article from 1980 something about the place closing and what would happen to the children. I tried to contact the reporter w/o luck.

I am looking for the other people that were there, Employee or child, here on City-Data. I have consulted an atty for getting my records. I found City-Data when I started looking for the other people, and well except for CL there isn't much else coming up on my searches
I can only think of so many ways to ask for people at the Shelter. So when I posted here today I was hoping for a person I was looking for or at least the names of local NJ sites that I could post on seeking them. I am hoping one of the good eggs will see this and respond.
Thanks

[sdweisman]

i truely hope you find answers to your questions. you sound like a strong, smart individual and i wish you lots of luck.

[nutleynut]

Well I'm having a status hearing soon. I have been allowed to appear by phone, the Deputy Attorney General (DAG) representing DYFS is opposing my request for the entirety of my record. From what I have been able to learn this is SOP. I find it hard to swallow but I also see the logic of it.
I don't see how, if they have read the record, the DAG can maintain this position with good conscience. She has made a motion saying I should file an action to get access.
Apparently the way she is interpreting the law, I can only see the record if I file an action. And even then, only that part of the record that might apply to the action, nothing else. Also my wanting to get the record, to fill in or refresh my memory of my life (which begins the day I was taken out of the Shelter to my first foster home at the age of 7!) is being called a "fishing expedition", as if refreshing ones memory of 7 missing years was somehow an innapropriate or suspect thing to do!
I honestly only wanted the information to take into therapy to quell the nightmares, waking and sleeping, that I have begun to have.
Now with how the system has manipulated and attempted to intimidate me (a prosecutor in EC sent a cop to my home, 3000mi. away, to tell me not to call him any longer!) I now realize that nothing but the faces has changed. And that means I have to persue this for the benefit of all the children DYFS failed to protect, and may still be failing to protect.
There is a book called " The State Boys Rebellion" about "Fernald" an orphanage outside Boston opened during the height of the Eugenics movement in America, these places were all over the country. It will give one a pretty good idea of the sort of constant abuse, physical and mental, I endured at the ECECS, adding to it that I was selected out for special attention due to my being seen as white.
I was only 4-5 when I got there and I had never even had a friend my age or been with anyone outside my family until that point. I had absolutey no clue or skills to fall back on and none was given when this was discovered.
"Remarkable" is the word most often ascribed to me by those who treated me after. This is a memory I haven't had since it happened. They used it so often I started to worry about what it might mean. I still do.
that's my update. 3-17-09

[njkate]

Fishing expedition.....are they serious?? You have evEry right to those records...sounds to me the State of NJ has something to hide
DO NOT GIVE UP!!!!

[nutleynut]

Ya think? :-}

[midagegirl]

you can try nj.com they have message boards in interact section you go to the county and then town each town has a seperate message board. good luck.

[Joisygirl1141]

Being new to this site, were you adopted or foster home/orphanage?

[nutleynut]

Originally Posted by Joisygirl1141

Being new to this site, were you adopted or foster home/orphanage?

joisygirl, I was in the Shelter aka "essex county Emergency Children's Shelter" or "Center for Abused and Abandoned Children" either way it's the same place. A DYFS holding facility in Belleville on the grounds of the Geriatric Center. I think it's the NJ Cancer Research Center currently. The Shelter was in the buildings out back. We lived and went to school there, and showered and ate in the Hospital.
I was not adopted but there was a lot of talk about it, which I now see differently than I did then. I ended up in foster care for several years. The first home continued the physical mental and sexual abuse I endured at the shelter, the second abused me mentally and possible sexually. I have no actual memories of it there but I suspect it. Some images in my mind of events there, don't seem normal.

Well I missed my hearing but they are sending me some documents, and I guess the search goes on, I have another hearing next month.
I tried the site midagegirl recomended and my posts in Bergen county and all of its cities got deleted witin a couple hours. Repeatedly. Neither the site or its parent the Star Ledger, has responded to my query about why.
The rules when I signed up did not restrict this sort of search. I even changed names when I was blocked and withn mintues the posts were deleted. Someone is still aware of the Shelter and determined to keep it covered up. The people at the shelter were from several surrounding counties, and as adults I am sure at least some of them have moved to other counties than Essex.
The place name was changed to the Center for Abused and Abandoned Children at some point. That is the name in the NYT article 8-9-81. This article is about it closing.

There was a lot of talk about adoption and the staff encouraged me to ask for it and told me my family was horrible. I now see this as a way of covering up what was done to me. The request was used as an excuse to keep me in custody so enough time would pass that my family could not recognize the symptoms I showed of the abuses I suffered.
I never did get adopted, I know now I never could have been. I was sent to a couple of hatefilled foster homes where the torment was continued.
The continuous nature of the torments I suffered from age 3 or 4 depending on the actual date of my incarceration, until age 12 in DYFS care and even more at the hands of my own family until I was 17. Is why I suppressed so much and it has taken so long for it to start comeing up. This suppression and delay in remembering was the intent of the abuse at the hands of DYFS employees and agents. Who openly colluded in this right in front of me. My family continueing it was just an unanticipated bonus for them.
As for the name "Essex County Emergency Children's Shelter" it was a horrible place for more people than just me. Literally a Spartan academy. This was apparently a well known situation in the county and beyond.
It was an evil evil evil evil evil evil place for anyone, let alone a child. If any child survived that place unscathed they were either black or had the ability to protect themselves or had family that made their interest and ability to act protectively known. I remember the wardens discussing which ones were safe to abuse and which ones weren't.
It was allegedly a short term depot, I was there 2+ years. I was 3 going on 4 when they took me into custody.

My usage of the terms "incarceration" and "warden" is indicative of the nature of the place being a prison than it was a place of protective custody. It also references the mental state I was in, "prisoner", until I achieved personal mental freedom and gained some financial stability at about 35. If you could not protect yourself, there was no protection for you, no matter what your age.
Another thing I recall, I was always spoken to and treated as if I were an adult.

[CaptainNJ]

Originally Posted by nutleynut

To start let me say I do not need to be told to get over or on with it, I have my whole life and that is a false premise as is well known to a lot of trained people, even those who told me to.
I have finally learned/realized this for myself. Also I am not a one demensional character so please refrain from quick flippant insults or remarks, I know they feel good I'm from Jersey too, but I also know I learned to think and be as sensitive, open and fair as I am in NJ too! So this is not psychobabble or whining to everyone out there, I know other's in NJ understand this or I couldn't.

There were good DYFS workers, and other's who tried their best to help and protect me as most of them do/did then and now.
I am taking appropriate action with the State to get my record, this is a public plea for people who may have known me or were there in the shelter at around the same time, just to know each other and maybe talk about it. I've never had anyone who knows to talk about it too.
I posted here(people search) looking for other's who were in the Shelter (Essex county children's emergency shelter ECCES) as I was there from May 67 til I don't know when.
I was in a foster home for the moonshot and maybe one or two before that. So I figure sometime in 68 I was sent on to foster care.
I am hoping to find other's, who were there at the same time and maybe the little boy I keep seing in my minds eye, was he a friend? I don't know. I don't remember his name, he was black, had his hair close shaved and had huge ears:-}. And smiled all the time. we were very small, I was 5ish.
We sat next to each other in class and always got into trouble for talking or something. The teacher used to put us under her desk and sit down tucking her chair in so her knees were in our face to punish us. Once she put both of us under there. I think he looked out for me as I was timid. I don't have much else I could or would post here.

So it's a little whiny, but I think most of you understand the need I have to find and connect with the other's who had the same kind of experience in the same place as me. As I said, I've never gotten to speak to anyone that knows, about it. It's a very lonely feeling.
I suspect the other people I am seeking have the same need.

Thank You
The Nut

im sure this has already been asked but what the hell are you talking about?

[nutleynut]

No you're the first. I was hurting that day. I'd been given a working over by several beauraucrats trying to discourage me in my search. I have been posting on here looking for contact with others that were in the mentioned County facility with me. I'm pretty sure that if you saw the other people search posts I made it might seem more understandable to you. Thanks for the interest.