Pioneer Parents in Indiana

By Angela Arlington

March is Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month, so this article is about remembering a couple of Pioneer Parents who have passed away. Some of the information was collected from the Arc of Indiana’s #60Stories60Years, created in 2016, and has been reprinted with permission.

Dorothy Burnside and Ilene Younger Qualkinbush

The Arc of Indiana was founded on September 25, 1956, by families seeking a better world for their sons and daughters. Dorothy Burnside and Ilene Younger Qualkinbush helped found the state association and were The Arc of Indiana’s first lobbyists at the State House. Ilene went on to become The Arc’s first paid staff member and later The Arc’s first woman president of the board. Their many years of service and dedication did indeed help make a better world for people with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (I/DD), and their legacy continues to make a difference. Dorothy passed away in 2018 and Ilene passed away in 2020.

Dorothy Burnside

Ilene Qualkinbush

The Arc of Indiana co-sponsored Indiana’s first Special Olympics games with 1,000 athletes in 1969. The organization has many programs and resources, including Public Policy Advocacy, The Arc Master Trust, The Arc Advocacy Network, Insurance Advocacy Resource Center, Career Counseling Information and Referral Services, Podcasts, and Publications. To learn more visit www.arcind.org

Ilene Younger, right, the first staff member for The Arc of Indiana, hired as a part-time executive secretary in 1963.

Venus Abbit and Mary Smith

Venus Abbit and her husband had no idea where their journey would lead when their daughter, Carolyn, was born in 1946. When Carolyn was nearly 3, Venus was told that Carolyn was “mentally retarded, a little slow, but she might ‘grow out of it.’” Although she began school in first grade, when she reached third grade she was told she could not come back because there was no teacher for her. Venus recalls that Carolyn cried because she loved school. It was shortly thereafter in the early ‘50s that a simple family photo changed many lives for the better. While

Venus was at a dentist appointment, she began talking with her dentist’s wife, Mary Smith, who worked in the office. She noticed a family photo and it appeared that their son Bobby had a disability. She could have kept quiet, but, instead, she shared that her daughter also had a disability.

Venus Abbit

Mary Smith

The two women agreed they had to get together. Before long they had organized nine families and started the first program in the area for children with disabilities at First Baptist Church in Bloomington. Many fundraisers and several years later, these founding families helped to establish Stone Belt Arc, The Arc in Monroe County. Carolyn’s journey has taken her from school to work, to becoming an accomplished artist, with a studio in her own apartment, where she lives with her friend Angie. Venus continued to attend meetings at Stone Belt Arc until her death. The 12 Chapters Project explains Stone Belt’s history at www.stonebelt.org: 1970 – Stone Belt opened one of the state’s first group homes, and then, in 1974, opened two more at what is now the Indiana Institute for Disability and Community. At the time, this was convenient, since the property was adjacent to the Stone Belt Center. 1972 – The Lawrence County Arc was formed and started a cooperative relationship with Stone Belt to provide the services in a house on Norton Lane. In that same year, Geraldo Rivera’s expose’ on Willowbrook (the state institution for the mentally disabled on New York’s Staten Island where children were abused, neglected and subjected involuntarily to medical experiments) brought about reforms and began the eventual closures of many state-run institutions. 1973 – A Recycle Building was added so community residents had a convenient place to drop off glass, metal, and paper recycling. 1975 – Public Law 94-142 mandated that all children with disabilities receive a free and appropriate education. This created a formal partnership between Monroe County Schools and Stone Belt where some of the community’s children would continue to be educated. 1978 – The Adult Building was added to expand the size of the workshop and the Adult Day Activities program. Otis Elevator was the largest subcontractor for the work program at the time. The late 1970s – A residence for children was added on Tapp Road. 1981 – The Lawrence County Achievement Center, Larc, opened in Bedford to serve residents in that county. Stone Belt continued the relationship with the local ARC to provide adult services in the new facility.

If you would like to be a part of this Pioneer Parent section or to nominate someone else to be in an upcoming issue of Special Needs Living, email us at SpecialNeedsLivingIndy@ n2pub.com.

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